I remember when..

I used to walk from home to the old Grist Mill at Stone Mountain park. There I would spend the day swimming in what we called the mud puddle (pond). The area has since been filled in and is no longer a pond.

Stone Mountain Water Slides

A couple of years ago, Stone Mountain planned on remaking their water slide area into a new and improved version. This was about the same time that there was a severe enough drought that Stone Mountain received flack for the idea of their Snow Mountain. At one point, the new slides were locked up in a fenced area in the parking lot near the old beach/water slide area. My family and I recently drove past to check on the status of that area and found that the pieces to the new slides were gone. The old slides were still there (slowly becoming overgrown).

It's a shame that their plans for the area fell through. I can only hope that at some point in the future they revisit the ideas and put them into place. You can't swim in the lakes at the mountain, which limits your options on a hot summer day. Unless you're staying at one of the two hotels in the park,there aren't any pools. Not that any of this is a major issue, it's just a disappointment.

Finds at Atlanta City Hall

Just because I mentioned it earlier this week, I thought I'd post a picture of what we found out at the Atlanta City Hall East sale.. the furniture has since been cleaned.

Field Trip!

We've got lots to do today. The online learning system (OLS) for school went down for a while yesterday so my son got behind on his assignments. We had to finish two assessments this morning before he could go on (end of unit review, essentially). So now we're doing 'easy' stuff before heading out on our field trip. I'm taking the kids out to the Atlanta Public Water Works station to check it out. I'm thinking that after we get back I may have the kids do the write-up on it for the blog. They both really dislike writing, so it'd be good practice. If they collaborate on it, maybe it won't seem as bad. We'll have to wait and see.

Tubing the Hooch (pictures)

The little disposable water-proof camera didn't take pictures as nice as I'd hoped, they're all grainy and somewhat out of focus. I fixed what I could to at least try to share them.

The crew waiting on the 'right' tubes The Boyz.. The Diva.. The Other mom.. never guess what the other photo looks like.. ha!

Happy Birthday

To My Little Big Sister! Older you are... yessss..

I have proof!

That my son definitely has a 6th grade teacher. We went to a meet&greet with her and a couple of other teachers last Thursday. I have a picture of him with two of his fellow students with his teacher. So, I know his teacher exists! It's not all computer work. We're scheduled to meet my daughter's teacher later this week.

This week, though, starts the 'regular schedule' of sorts, though not totally. Currently we have two 'field trips' scheduled. One with a group of students to the Atlanta water works. The other to meet my daughter's teacher. We'll have to rearrange their schedule on those days to get the school work in.

Today after school, I plan on taking advantage of the City of Atlanta's sale out at the old Sears building (City Hall East) and see about getting my son a new set of bookshelves. I'll try to update on that tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime, school is officially in session for all counties starting today. I wish everyone a good school year.

We interrupt our regular updates..

I found out about this through the Georgia Aquarium, but couldn't find the link. I did, however, find it on the Michael C. Carlos museum web site, so I'm sharing their link instead. In September, several attractions are giving discounts if you're a member to one of the others. So, the list provided is for discounts when you show your member card from the Michael C. Carlos. It's a really cool idea and I figure we'll probably take advantage of at least one of them.

Atlanta History Center

The Atlanta History Center was having an open house this past Monday for home school families. We were able to view all the exhibits for free. My kids and I didn't spend as much time as we could have touring, but we did enjoy the time we took. We spent around 2 hours out there, we could easily have spent more. It's hard to believe that this is located in down town Atlanta. The gardens were lovely and when we get the chance we'll go back and tour the homes.

From the main museum: Swann House Tullie Farm

Mid-point first week

We made it to Wednesday! My kids have taken their scantron (benchmark) tests for Reading and Math. Only down side was daughter having a melt down at the end of math. Once she was over it, though, she knocked out the rest of her assignments for the day. They haven't had much in the way of work to do due to the first couple of days with system adjustments, scantron assessments, etc. Only major issue we had was the elluminates server having issues with 1700 or so families trying to attend the online assembly Monday morning. The school did a work-around for the time being, hopefully those bugs will be worked out soon. For the rest of it, they haven't had any major issues with doing what they're supposed to do, which is good. Now to see if we can keep the momentum going. I'll update again on friday.

Kidsignments Sale!

Starts today! You can get more information at their website. Lots of clothes, toys, furniture and more! Really a cool place to go shopping now that kids are back in school! :) Note that kids & strollers aren't allowed until after 2p tomorrow.

Back to School!

We've had the books since July and most of my kids' friends went back to school last week. We head back today. Our adventure in charter schools at home begins.

Vote for GCA

Tubing the 'hooch

It's hard to believe I didn't have a blog post ready to go last night. I've gotten in to the habit of preparing my posts ahead of time and it seems by the time I got home last night I wasn't up to the task. At any rate, a friend of mine and I took our children up to Helen yesterday to tube the Chattahoochee. There are a couple of companies up there that you can go through, one is Cool River the other is Helen Tubing. My friend had been up that way tubing last year and used the Cool River company. She said they were good, but that her boys wanted to try the 'pink one' that went a little further down the river. It turns out that the 'pink one' is Helen Tubing and they have a small water park as well. For $15 you can tube the 'hooch unlimited times and have access to their water park. Their water park consists of 4 water slides (2 open, 2 closed) and a lazy river. The kids thought it was fun, but they're just as happy tubing as playing there. In fact, they decided they'd rather JUST tube than play at the park next time.

I don't have pictures ready, but we went down the river 3 times. 2 times on what they call the 'short route' and once on the 'long route'. Difference between the two is an hour long float. The long route goes further up and will eventually pass the entry point for the short route. Our one problem on the float was that we could have used an extra inch of water to avoid some of the 'sticking points' in the river. We managed, though, while having a blast.

We did hang out at the water park as well. The kids went down each set of slides as well as played in the lazy river. We were there for MAYBE an hour before they decided they were ready to return to the river. By the time we got home last night, my kids had crashed once in the car already. They were out again not long after getting in to bed.

All in all, a very nice end of summer activity. If you're willing to drive, the cost to tube is very reasonable. Pack a picnic lunch and make a day out of it.

Huntsville Space & Rocket Center

On our way home after picking up the kids in Alabama, we stopped in Huntsville and visited the Space & Rocket Center. They have a traveling Star Wars exhibit until Sept. 6th, so we made a point of visiting that first. My son was very happy that we did so. I took over 100 pictures at the center and enjoyed the visit thoroughly. The cost was $25 per person and included the main museum and garden as well as the Star Wars exhibit. We didn't eat on site, instead waiting until we were done to eat elsewhere. We didn't do the IMAX either. There are several 'rides' available at the center that are included in the cost. My daughter did one of these with her dad. The others we passed on. Given all we didn't do, it still took us around 4 hours to tour everything.

Birmingham Zoo

After meeting my sister on Friday to get my kids, I decided we needed to go to the Birmingham Zoo. Since we're members of Zoo Atlanta, we get 1/2 price tickets. We had already decided we wouldn't make it to Huntsville to do the museum that day, so it gave us something else to do before heading to a hotel. The zoo itself is under construction. Probably around 1/2 of it is fenced off. It looks like they're building a brand new area for the elephants and other animals native to Africa. I'd love to be able to go back in a year to see how it all worked out. I have to send out kudos, too, to a couple of the employees there. I didn't note name, but I will say that the lady that met us to sell the tickets was extra friendly. The gentleman who worked maintenance (fixing a window for the miniature quail) was helpful as well. If it weren't so hot, I might have remembered to get names, as it was if this is noticed by the higher ups there, they should be able to figure out who I mean.

Anyway, despite the construction, we had a nice visit. They're nothing like Zoo Atlanta, even if they have similar animals. I like their layout (though I'm sure I'd like it better once they're done rerouting people). They also have a fountain area for the kids to play in, which if we lived in the area we'd probably take advantage of like the other parents that were there.

World's Best Cat Litter (Review)

Recently I was sent a bag of World's Best Cat Litter to sample and review. Unfortunately it was not their multi-cat formula, but since I do have three cats, it was easy enough to swap out one of our boxes with the sample. I wasn't sure if my cats would even try it (they're a bit set in their ways), but who knew? At first glance, the litter isn't much to write home about, but what litter is? I found the scent to be acceptable (smelled kind of like hay or straw) and not at all dusty.

After a week of letting my cats use the litter (and they did indeed decide it was acceptable), here's what I noted.

Not dusty - we normally use Tidy Cats which when poured is VERY dusty.

Clumps rather loosely - compared to Tidy Cats, the smaller clumps tended to fall apart. The bigger clumps, though, did fine.

Better scent - I really preferred the scent of this to our normal brand.

Cats used it - which is always a big thing at my house, we've tried others, they haven't accepted them.

Price is kind of high - well, I'd call it a premium litter, so the cost goes up. A large bag online runs around $35. As fast as we go through litter, that's a bit much for us to be able to afford. The bag we had was small and NOT their multi-cat, so it may be that a bigger bag of their multi- will last as long or longer than one of our regular brand.

Flushable - Which means I don't have to put it in a bag and into the garbage every day. I recycle my plastic grocery bags (which I get when I forget to use my cloth bags)with cat litter. Now, they can do something else.

Little to no tracking - always an issue at my house. I found myself sweeping up dust/tracked litter from our normal brand but didn't see any from World's Best.

Will I try it again? Most likely. I'd really like to get a big bag of their multi-cat formula and see how long it actually lasts. I couldn't give that part a fair review. If/when I do, I'll try to update things here to let you know how it turned out.

An important side note as was given me from World's Best:
"World’s Best Cat Litter™ has launched a new charity that will donate much-needed cat litter to animal shelters and rescue organizations! The World’s Best Cat Litter™ Charity enables our fans on Facebook to donate litter and vote on 3 great organizations who will receive all of the litter at the end of 45 days!"

You can go to their web site and find their links to facebook (where the voting is being held) as well as on Twitter.

(I was given a sample of this litter to try and give my honest opinion of. I was not in any way compensated or otherwise influenced.)

Back to Alabama

I pick up my kids today. I'll be heading to Birmingham to meet up with my sister to get them back (do I really want them?). I suppose I do, we have to start (or finish) getting ready for the beginning of the school year. While we're out this way, though, we're going to swing out to Huntsville to check out the Space Center there. They have a traveling Star Wars exhibit going on that my son really wants to see. I'm sure I'll have pictures and such next week some time.

Etowah Indian Mounds

After visiting Tellus last friday, the kids and I went a couple of exits down 75 to eat at Chick-fil-a (we had coupons). When we got there, we realized we were only a couple of miles away from the Etowah Indian Mounds, so we decided to drop in. It was a bit hot (the only complaint I had from the kids) to do the walk, but we managed. We didn't stay as long as we could have, so we'll go back another day.

View from the visitor center Wattle and daub hut View from top of Mound A The Etowah river A few items inside the museum

Misc from Tellus

I still have my scrapblog from the last visit to Tellus online, but here are a few new pictures taken last Friday.

Tellus Solar House

GCA had a social activity out at Tellus last friday. My kids have visited before, but we didn't get to tour the solar house that's on the property due to weather. While waiting for everyone to sign in, we took a walk-around tour of the house. Pretty neat.

Last trip..

My kids head to Alabama today to visit with their cousins. They'll only be there until Friday, but at least they'll get to visit. Gwinnett goes back to school next Monday as do their cousins. My kids' teachers 'report' to school today. We'll find out who their 'homeroom' teacher is some time this week. It's hard to believe that the summer is winding down. At least I will have one more week of no worries with them after they get back. We'll embark on our school adventures with them after that and I'm sure I'll have plenty to gripe talk about then.