Brookanie Time!

One thing that immediately attracted me to Adam was his love for family and the importance he places on them. Adam has three cousins, Denise, Renn, and Dede, and they are all very close. Denise has three children, Matthew, Grant, and Brooke. Renn has two children, Marilyn Grace and William. And Dede has two twins Mac and Jack. Every year the Parrish clan gets together at least three times a year- Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a summer family reunion. The family reunion is during the summer and this year, Denise’s daughter Brooke asked me if she could come and spend a weekend with me this summer. Of course, I said yes, and once I got back from Italy I looked at a calendar to try to find a free weekend. Well, our next free weekend is in September and school starts in August so I decided I would just have to take a day off of work to spend time with her. I drove up to Charlotte to pick her up on Monday. Luckily, her Nana (our Aunt Joyce) was watching her and she loaded me down with tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers fresh from her garden. The smaller tomatoes (my family calls them TommyToes) were delicious and I have been eating them like grapes all week.

We stopped for dinner at IHOP on our way home for her to have chocolate chip pancakes for dinner which she really enjoyed. (Side note: when I was driving Brooke back she said that she wished she lived in Columbia. I replied that Charlotte is a great city and she will like it a lot once she gets older. I told her they have a lot of great things to do and some very nice restaurants. She replied with “not as nice as IHOP!”)

The night before she came, I made a vanilla 4 layer cake and iced it with a white butter cream icing. Once we arrived home, we began decorating the cake. I had already mixed the colored icings and put them in the bags. I had picked up a child’s apron that worked perfectly for the occasion as all good cooks are messy….that is what I told her anyways.
We took turns swirting icing into each other's mouths.

Someone was very excited...

The finished masterpiece...

After decorating the cake and of course, eating the icing, she played the Wii with Adam for a while.

The highlight of the evening for her was telling Adam that we were kicking him out of the room to have a girl’s night and that he would have to sleep upstairs. It was a girl’s night and no boys were aloud. We ended the night by reading some stories in bed and staying up past midnight.

The next morning we woke up and got dressed for the busy day. Of course, we fixed our hair into matching pigtails. After breakfast, we drove to Edventure, Columbia’s children museum. I absolutely love this place and have gone way too many times to be 26 years old.

Edventure periodically has special exhibits and the one they had this month was called “Blooming Butterflies.” They erected a 2,500 square foot structure designed for hundreds of butterflies. Brooke loves butterflies and she really enjoyed having them surround her.

She was very determined to catch one...

When you enter the butterfly exhibit they hand you information on the butterflies. We took the time to look up all of the different species so we could name them when we saw them. Of course, I can't remember any of them now.

When you enter Edventure you are immediately in front of Eddie, who is a large three story figure. You are able to crawl through the maze in the back and examine all of his major organs.

Here is Brooke with the heart in the background. Once you enter the heart it makes a beating sound.

Uhh ohh, Rob (Brooke's dad) may want to skip the below picture. She seemed VERY comfortable behind the wheel and even checked her mirrors upon entering. :)

What should Brooke be when she grows up?
A. Grocery Store Clerk

B. Firefighter

C. Construction Worker

D. Farmer

E. Cook

F. Dentist

G. Surgeon

(The game below is like playing life-sized operation. It buzzes when the tongs hit the metal when extracting a body part.)

We then went on a safari in Africa...

She was the lead explorer of course!

Who's ready for some football?

While at Edventure, they have a crafts room that you can go in. Brooke made a telescope and binoculars!

After Edventure we hopped in the car to meet Adam for lunch and then headed over to Two Peas in a Pot. It is an art studio where you pick out some pottery and then using the paints in the studio you are able to create your own designs. It is then glazed and fired and you can pick it up in a week. Brooke painted a piggy bank and I painted a spoon rest. We were having so much fun that we decided we would each paint a trivet as well.

After heading home to pick up all of her belongings and her newly decorated cake, we headed over to Aunt Cyndi’s house as she wanted to be sure to see Brooke while she was in town. We spent time telling her about our adventure and then headed back. Although I was not able to commit to "doing this again next week" per her request, we both had such a wonderful time that we have decided to make it an annual trip. Oh, and she named the trip… Brookanie Time!