Adventure weekend in Charlotte, NC

For a quick weekend get-away, Eric and the kids went to Charlotte, NC. First stop was to the Bank of America Stadium to watch a professional soccer game. Over 55,000 attendees cheered as Liverpool played Borussia Dortmund. In the end, Dortmund won 3-1. Go Deutschland!

The next day was spent at the National Whitewater Center. Long and fast zip lines, tough rope courses, rock climbing, trail running, and jumping from high platforms. A favorite: bouldering over a 20ft deep pool! 

Theater Camp

Our youngest enjoys plays, so we signed her up for a summer camp at the SC Children's Theater.

There were 15 students who divided up into groups of 3 to do a play.  Our daughter was in the group for Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Each group was given a $100 budget and had to "rent" props, pay the stage help, and create costumes.  They all did a great job!

Here's a link to watch the 3-minute play.... https://youtu.be/zZUvZZoEe64

You'll need to turn up your volume since it's a little difficult to hear.  Enjoy!

Boating

The family recently went out for a day of boating.  We rented a ski boat and went to Lake Jocassee which is a large deep water lake in the mountains of South Carolina.
  

We did a slow cruise around the lake to look at waterfalls.


We did some water skiing.

And we did some cliff diving.  The cliff diving was fun but also dangerous.  It did not go well for all of us.

Dana was left with a bruise on her leg from her dive.


At the end of the day, we were bruised and tired but enjoyed the day together.  It was another whirl wind adventure with the McConnell clan.

World Traveler

After leaving in January for studying abroad in New Zealand, our daughter is finally home!!

Her first three months in New Zealand were for an internship in orthopedic medicine.  That ended on March 26th.  Not wanting to come back just yet, she decided to live in Australia for another three months with a family as an au pair.  Here's some of the cute kids she nannied..

When her visa expired, she still wasn't quite ready to come home, so she decided to travel in Southeast Asia for another 10 days.  Many thanks to her Aunt Halie for meeting her over there so that I could sleep at night!

They traveled to Bali, Indonesia and had a fabulous time!

They saw several temples, braved the streets on mopeds, relaxed on beaches, and explored the healing fountains.

Unfortunately, the volcano began erupting while they were there which limited some of their hiking plans.  It also made leaving the islands a bit hectic.

Her plane out of Indonesia was then diverted and it delayed her arrival back to the states.  But eventually, our daughter was back on track and headed home.

As we prepared for her arrival, we knew she had been craving iced tea.  So we all went to McAlisters Deli and loaded up to have plenty available to greet her when she came off the plane.

We thought we this was a nice welcome until another family showed us up..... 

Waiting at the base of the escalator was this family (18 members in all) who were welcoming their world traveler home as well.  They had made signs saying "Welcome back, Ashley!", "World Traveler", "We missed you", "We love you!".  The similarities of her name and circumstance were so coincidental since their daughter had been to New Caledonia, just off the coast of Australia.  Kinda made our plan look lame.

Oh well, welcome home, Ashlyn!  :)  We missed you so much and are happy to have you back.