After waking up at 4 am and then waiting in the airport for 8 hours to catch a flight, we finally made it to Atlanta (via Memphis). It was 9 pm and all we had to do was pick up our reserved rental car and drive the 2 hours to Clemson. Problem is, the rental company wanted to see our return itinerary, which we didn't have since we fly stand-by. Thankfully, Lee had just gotten off work in SLC and drove to his sister Ruth's house to get us listed for a returned flight. Since they had to actually see the listing, Lee took a picture of the confirmation on the computer screen with his phone and sent it to me. I showed the picture on my phone to the lady and thankfully she felt bad for us (it had been 1 1/2 hours of trying to figure something out by this point), so she let us have the car. We arrived at Brandon's house in Clemson, South Carolina at 2 am.
After letting us sleep in until 10 am, we woke up and began our two days at Uncle Brandon's house. One of the things we did was go to the Botanical Gardens on the Clemson campus. Things were just barely starting to bloom, but it was still beautiful and lots of fun. If you asked the kids, they'd probably say the funnest part of the gardens was the ride to/from in Brandon's cruiser. In the first picture below you can see Annie and Brynne riding in the back.
(Note: While in Clemson, Michelle (Brandon's wife) and I discussed how it's hard to know how many pictures to include in blog posts sometimes. I've erred on the side of caution and included plenty!) :)
Morgan, Zane, and Brandon in the front of Brandon's cruiser.
Zane and Morgan walking along one of the paths.
All the older kids watching the fish and turtles (see picture below) in the pond.
Melissa and Soren were great sports and enjoyed their ride in the Bob.
This little turtle kept bugging the bigger turtle. Assuming they are a mom and a baby turtle, I figure their interaction was pretty indicative of human life. :)
Just before heading home, we let the kids play for a bit on a train car. As you can see in the following pictures, they had a lot of fun together.
Brynne, Annie, and Zane swinging on a bench at the gardens.
Melissa LOVES being outside. She heard Uncle Brandon was going out to check the mail and decided she wanted to join him. I love this picture as she hurried to catch up with Brandon and Soren.
Before bed, we had an impromptu story time in Brandon and Michelle's bedroom. Various kids and adults read various other kids stories, and then we had scripture thought time. Melissa and Brynne took advantage of the opportunity to snuggle with Aunt Michelle.
This picture got out of place, but don't you love it?! Melissa loved Soren and enjoyed any chance she had to be by him. :)
Some pictures are basically too cute for words...
One afternoon, Michelle held down the fort while I went to check out Clemson University and the building where Brandon works. I even got to see him in action talking to his teaching assistant trying to iron out details on what happened with a research experiment. I was duly impressed and will admit it still blows my mind sometimes to think of my little brother as a college engineering professor. :)
Brynne decided to catch up on sleep during the drive back to Atlanta from Clemson.
My favorite part of the visit was watching all our kids play. First Brynne and Zane played while Morgan and Annie played, then next thing we knew it was Morgan and Zane playing and Brynne and Annie playing. It was that way throughout our visit. Every now and then all four kids could even be found playing together. There was so little fighting and tons of fun. Even though everyone was excited to go see Aunt Lindsey, we were all a little sad to leave Uncle Brandon's house. Our time there was definitely worth the trouble getting there! Thanks, Brandon and Michelle!
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