Summer Bucket List

Dean is done with school, including end-of-year testing. He amazed me this year with his testing. He did all of the math in his head. He never put pencil to paper and still got all but one or two problems correct. He took the second highest level of the CAT test. I don't really care for testing, but our state requires it. I generally use the cheapest, shortest test that is approved so we can get it over with quickly. Anne will be done with math on Wednesday and her history book in early June. She will do her end-of-year testing the week after next. This coming week is insane with shows, rehearsals, a ballet exam and crazy schedules that include traveling out of state late into the night to make it to her ballet exam by morning. I am so ready for summer. Just. One. More. Week.

This is our idea list. We don't expect to do it all, but it is nice to have ideas!!

• Catawba Falls
• Craggy Gardens
• Visit a few small towns around us
• Family Reunion in July
• Hooker Falls and swimming hole
• Visit from Grandma Sue
• Attend Katie's  High School Graduation 
• Make three apple pies
• See a movie at Sunset Drive-in theater
• Watch the fireworks from the top of the dance parking garage on July 4th
• Movie night at home one day a week
• Attend one or two performances at Chautauqua (traveling show)
• Try food from a few food trucks
• Hike Grandfather Mountain
• Do a street art field trip
• Try the new biscuit shop in town
• Gray Fossil dig and museum
• Swim at Lake Lure
• Go tubing down the French Broad River
• American Museum of Science and Energy (Oak Ridge, TN), where the Manhattan Project took place
• Our big trip to Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut will come at the end of our summer

We already accomplished one wish on our list this week. We visited Hooker Falls and swimming hole. The water was super cold, as mountain rivers tend to be. We had lots of fun getting a break from the heat wave.

In between all of the fun listed above, Dean will be teaching at camp for five weeks; Anne will be working two days a week; and we will all be trying to rest after a successful but intense school year. I also hope to paint the back shed yellow and turn the weed patch at the edge of our carport into grass. Wish me luck!

Blessings, Dawn