A Horribly Entertaining Weekend

We are finally getting comfortable with the lazy days of summer. So I wanted to tell you about how this season began for us.
Due to the boys' Seussical rehearsal schedule, we couldn't go on an extended vacation for Memorial Day. So we settled on a 24-hour whirlwind trip to the North Carolina coast.

We left the house on Saturday morning headed in the general direction of Wilmington, NC. It's a simple drive down Hwy 74 straight into Wilmington. From there we headed south towards Carolina Beach. I had printed online directions to get us through Wilmington and to the beach. They turned out to be completely useless. There are only three numbered highways in Wilmington and they run in all directions. Luckily, the local DOT really wants people to find their way to the beach. So there are road signs pointing the way.

We didn't get to spend all day at the beach, just a few hours. But it was a great way to start the summer. The weather was breezy & beautiful and the water was nice and warm.








My impression of Carolina Beach based on the few hours we spent there:
-- Follow signs to the beach. Online directions are useless.

-- There is plenty of municipal parking at Carolina Beach. Before we left, I checked the city website & located a few lots. The spaces are metered and the automated ticket dispenser accepts debit cards!

-- Other than in the "downtown" area of Carolina Beach, there aren't traffic signals or crosswalks. Pedestrians beware! During busy times, it was really scary crossing the road to get to the beach.

-- Carolina Beach doesn't seem to be as crowded as Wrightsville Beach. There were plenty of people, but it didn't feel like we were falling over each other.

-- At low tide, Carolina Beach is a great place to find seashells. Some big ones were washed up high on the beach. Down in the surf, we only had to scratch off the top layer of sand to find thousands of tiny little treasures. Jacob even found a hunk of sea clay the size of a football.

-- And lastly, my oldest will rarely be featured in our beach photos because he doesn't stand still long enough. He loves the beach!


After a few hours we headed back to Wilmington to check into our hotel. Once again the online directions failed us & we got lost. But following a lovely tour of the waterfront district, we found the Country Inn & Suites. We needed to get cleaned up and rested before heading out for dinner and a show. The Country Inn & Suites was suggested to us by the theatre owner. Just a few days before our trip, I had snagged one of the few remaining rooms for the holiday weekend. For being a destination city so close to the beach, I thought $109/night was quite reasonable. Especially since breakfast was included. The hotel is relatively new and the staff was quite helpful. We used their business center to print the receipt for our theatre tickets. And later in the evening, the boys went swimming in the indoor pool. We will definitely stay there again when we're anywhere near Wilmington.

Our show was at The Browncoat Pub & Theatre on Grace Street in the riverfront district of Wilmington. As a special package deal, we also bought dinner at the Blue Plate Cafe a few doors down. All the food there is made fresh daily so they had run out of a few items by dinnertime. And the service was a bit leisurely considering we only had a little time before the show. But the food was downright amazing! I especially recommend the ribs -- and I'm not usually a rib eater. We polished off dinner and hurried over to the theatre.









Blue Plate Cafe on Grace Street in Wilmington


The Browncoat Pub & Theatre is a small bar attached to a tiny theatre. The bar is designed for the enjoyment of every Firefly/Whedon fan. There are handpainted murals under the bar depicting each Firefly character. The bar top is plastered with every Whedon-designed comic graphic ever printed. And the ceiling has white Christmas light draped with black to look like outer space.
The theatre has about 40 seats. The Browncoat specializes in independent productions, especially by local playwrights. It is a non-profit and genuinely exists for the sake of its art.

The reason we traveled over hill & dale to come to the Browncoat Theatre was to see the Browncoat-essential production of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog". Every member of our family is a huge fan of the movie. The Browncoat Theatre obtained the rights to adapt it for the stage. They worked with Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the Dr. Horrible writers, to make sure the show adhered to the original spirit of the movie.
We arrived just before the show and very nearly had to sit in the last row. But luckily we were tricked-out in full fan gear. So we got upgraded to front row, V.I.P. seats. Check out my fanboys getting ready for the show.




We were NOT disappointed. The whole cast is really talented. They did a great job overcoming the challenges of bringing a movie to the stage. The Wonderflonium-containing van was merely implied, with Captain Hammer perched atop a ladder. There were some moments when pre-taped video was projected onstage to allow for quick plot changes. What was especially appealing is that a stage production allowed the characters to be more over-the-top. Moist became a sniffling, sneezing mess who occasionally spewed some unknown goo towards the audience. He also served as the stand-in dart board for the "So They Say" number. And the mayor, who was extremely minor in the movie, was a complete goofball onstage during "Everyone's a Hero". Somehow, they rigged the Death Ray to smoke & sizzle when it malfunctioned. That was quite impressive.


Dr. Horrible & Moist (sneezing)


Billy meets Penny


Captain Hammer's here, hair blowing in the breeze


I hate the homless.....-ness problem that plagues our city


We came back to the Country Inn after the show, had a restful sleep, a humongous breakfast the next morning, and hurried back to Charlotte so Jacob could work on Sunday afternoon.
By Monday night, the boys were back at the theatre for their first full dress rehearsal. And there were still a few days of school remaining. But our summer had officially started.

On the Radio

Since late January, Will has been going to school every Tuesday at 7:00a to practice with the 4th grade choir for 45 minutes before classes begin. Their Spring choral presentation was a musical number that required quite a bit of practice.

By mid-March, the 4th grade choir joined the 5th grade choir for joint rehearsals. They practiced every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Finally on April 29th, we got to see the finished product.

Parents & students crowded into the cafe/auditorium for a history of radio music presented by KYDZ Radio.

Here is a picture of the entire stage from my viewpoint. There were tons of kids in this production. Some had speaking or dancing parts.



Jacob was sitting down front so the video is filmed from a "Will-cam" point-of-view. Some of the microphones were malfunctioning so I edited out the portions where the dialogue isn't audible. Will worked really hard on this project and we're very proud of him.

Part One


Part Two

My Birthday by Charlie

On my birthday I went to a hockey game with my dad. I got to meet Chubby the Polar Bear. He’s the team mascot. I really liked the Eyeball Race. It’s where people dressed in eyeball suits. I love hockey!

After that I went to Dunkin Donuts. I got an éclair.

Let's Dance

Will and Charlie started taking hip-hop dance lessons last September. By November, Will was asked to join a dance team of 7 - 9 year olds for the purpose of competing in regional dance meets. We originally chose Studio1 Talent because it is a relaxed environment for the kids to learn dance, so I wasn't immediately sold on the idea of competition. But the instructor assured us that she wanted them to have fun and not get stressed-out. Will, ever the optimist, wanted to give it a try.

He spent his Saturday mornings rehearsing with his group -- sometimes just the boys & sometimes the whole gang. It was only for an hour so it wasn't too hard on our schedule. Since November they've done two exhibition shows. One was for parents of the dance studio and the other was at a Dance4Haiti fundraiser.

This past weekend was their first time performing in competition. We spent the day in Lexington, South Carolina where they competed against hundreds of other kids from other studios. Luckily there was a "recreational" dance category for teams who only meet once a week. Some of the other groups were considered true "competition" teams. They meet 4 or more times each week and have costumes worth $200+. Their routines were extremely refined and their dancers looked pageant-ready. It was a little unsettling for me. And it was fairly intimidating for our kids.

Overall, I think it was a good learning experience for the team. While they waited, they got to sit in the audience and watch some of the other routines. Their instructor gave them a pep talk before they went onstage and reminded them that they didn't have to be the best, they just needed to do their best.

I got some video of the routine. I apologize for the quality -- it was filmed in stealth-mode. Video cameras weren't allowed in the auditorium. The tournament sponsors want us to buy an official DVD. Oops, oh well.



All the hard work paid off. Not only did they win a 1st place trophy for their routine, they were also picked as best overall team in the "Recreational" category for their age group. I believe that is a credit to their enthusiasm, positive attitude and teamwork.

Weird Science

April 9th (Friday) was our Spring Break Science Day. The theme was chosen by Charlie and he was anxiously anticipating this day all week. I had prepared several experiments for them from ideas I found in Family Fun magazine and from education.com.

Our first concoction was Homemade Hair Gel with Glitter. The water had to boil, then once the gelatin was added, had to cool for 2 hours before adding the glitter. Our first attempt failed when old gelatin clumped together instead of mixing smoothly. No worries -- our 2nd attempt worked perfectly. We put the bowl in the refrigerator and moved on to experiment #2 -- Lava Lamp.



We put cooking oil, water & food coloring in an old juice bottle. Instead of heat, we used Alka-Seltzer tablets to propel the water through the oil. This turned out to be their favorite experiment of the day. Next I had planned to show them how the carbon dioxide created by fermenting yeast would fill up a balloon. Only I couldn't find the dang balloons! The boys were disappointed. And when a neighbor invited them over to watch a movie, they bailed out. Meanwhile I searched high & low for those balloons (never found them, though).

After a movie break, they were ready for more science. Using online instructions, I had set up a pile of pennies, washers and lemon-juice soaked paper towels. The idea was that if they were stacked up properly, it would create a battery and make the boys' fingers tingle. It was a good idea in theory, but it didn't work for us. I'm not sure if our washers weren't zinc-coated like I thought or if there wasn't enough copper in our pennies (though I did use coins pre-1948). Regardless, we moved our operation outside for experiment #4 - Baking Soda Volcano



This is the experiment that Will was most anticipating. He had heard about spectacular science fair volcano demonstrations and wanted to re-create one himself. I even got them safety glasses in case things got out-of-hand. Following the directions from the magazine, I let them load up the container on their own. The ensuing reaction wasn't so much an eruption as it was a sizzle. The boys were underwhelmed. They theorized that perhaps they didn't use enough vinegar. And so they tried a few more times to produce a catastrophic reaction -- to no avail. And they used up the rest of the vinegar which was needed for experiment #5 -- Acidic & Base Indicator. So our experiments concluded for the day. The hair gel was cooled so we added the glitter and I fashioned them both a new hairdo.

Spring Break - Lazy Day

The boys wanted one day of Spring Break to be a day of rest. On Thursday, we stayed inside the house all morning and most of the afternoon. We played a lively game of Scrabble. The boys spent some time playing Lego Indiana Jones & NHL Hockey on the Playstation. We didn't get out of our pajamas until it was time for violin lessons at 3p. Once we grabbed dinner from Earth Fare, we came back to the house and resumed our lazy ways. I was even too lazy to pick up the camera & take a picture. So relaxing.

Spring Break - Park Day

April 7th (Wednesday) was designated "Park Day". We intended to visit every playground in Rock Hill and a couple in Fort Mill too, if time permitted.
We started the day at our local Earth Fare market. They have a free kids' cooking class that the boys have been dying to try. And as an added bonus, some friends of ours came along too. The Crafton girls are 7 & 4 years old and we don't get to see them nearly as much as we'd like. The "cooking" project for the morning was to experiment with different fruit and see which made the best tasting smoothie. While the kids were blending, I sat with the girls' mom in the cafe area. It was so nice to eat breakfast, drink a big cup of coffee and chat with a friend -- uninterrupted!
Once the class was finished and their bellies were full of fruit, we said goodbye to the Craftons & headed out for our first park. Some early recon last week made us realize that Fewell Park had undergone so many changes that it wasn't much fun anymore. We crossed that one off our list and went straight to playground #2 -- Cedar Crest. It's been refurbished recently and the kids like it even more than they used to. The weather was beautiful and there were plenty of folks who had the same idea as us. I nabbed the last parking space!



There were lots of toddlers at the park and the boys did a great job of avoiding collisions (while racing down the slide). Parks are a great place to play -- not just on the playground equipment -- so we brought along other "recreational items". I brought out our baseball gloves and we had a game of catch. After almost an hour, the boys were ready to move on.



Our next stop was a tiny playground near the Winthrop Coliseum. I don't even know if it has a name. There is one piece of equipment, some swings, and absolutely NO seats or benches for parents. I was hoping their interest in this location would be short-lived. The kids spent some time on the swings -- something that had been removed from the previous park. But, luckily, a bathroom emergency made it necessary to go quickly to our next destination -- Cherry Park.

Cherry Park is arguably the largest park in town. In addition to a rather large playground, it has a baseball and soccer complex, indoor and outdoor picnic pavilions, foot & bike trails, and a bathroom! (several bathrooms, actually)

We took the chance to sit down and eat our picnic lunch before the boys joined the throngs & throngs of other children who were also enjoying a beautiful day at the park. Cherry Park was a little more enjoyable for Will and Charlie because there were busloads of elementary school children from local daycare centers. So they were able to join in with children their own age. They waited patiently for a turn on the swings and helped other kids gather up hundreds of caterpillars. I was the one who eventually had to insist that we move forward with our plans.



There was an older playground about 1/2 mile from Cherry Park, but once again the boys opted to skip it. They were eager to visit Rock Hill's newest park, Manchester Meadows. The soccer complex there is gorgeous. And the clubhouse is headquarters for Rock Hill Parks & Rec so the bathrooms are always clean. They have level, paved paths throughout the complex which are perfect for biking, skating, etc. The boys had chosen their preferred mode of "wheeled transportation" and were ready to get going. But you can tell from the picture that they were already running out of steam. I decided to stick with my sneakers and walked the path. But I had no trouble keeping up with my two tired little boys. After a few laps around the field, they played a while on the playground. It's the newest one in town and is equipped with a climbing wall and gymnastic rings. It has approximately 6 slides and plenty of room for kids of all ages. The boys always have fun at Manchester.

We finally headed home at 4:00p. After 5 hours at various parks we were all sweaty and I was sunburned. The boys, though exhausted, were still hoping to visit the parks in Fort Mill before Will's taekwondo class at 6:30p. But I was afraid that using up their last bit of energy would turn their moods sour & ruin our fun day. I made them a deal -- I would take them out for dinner instead. Ha! My kids can't resist food.

We went to the new Bat's BBQ next to the Food Lion on Celanese. The kids pigged out -- they were starving! If any of you locals go, I highly recommend the smoked sausage and sweet potato fries. They had just enough energy to make it through taekwondo class and get home for bed.