Artisphere!

On the 12th of May, my Aunts and Grandma came over- Grandma to visit with Mommy and spend some time with the little ones, and Aunt Tessa and Aunt Amber to take Tori and I to Greenville :)! They had asked Mommy if they could take us to the Artisphere up there, and then have lunch in the park, go to the gem store, and stop at Starbucks. (Three of us had dressed for the occasion with very "Artistic" skirts (reds, oranges, yellows, etc. ;)), that made quite the picture when all three were put together ;), and one of us, thankfully, dressed a bit less colorfully to blend us all together better, haha ;).)
Our drive up there was exciting- Aunt Amber was glad to hear that her cat was healthy, we talked and laughed a ton (it was so fun!), and we made a detour (to find some place to stop and get out of the car- there were extra cookies calling in the trunk, they just couldn't go to waste!).
We arrived at Greenville, parked, made our plans as to how to go about doing all that we wanted so that we would get back to the house by 5:30, and headed out. It was so fun! We got to see one artistic blowing glass, we got to use some beautiful kaleidoscopes (the real ones are much prettier than the little children's one we used to have!), we got to see woodwork, and lots of photography and hand drawn/painted/etc. pictures. One artist has worked at making pictures that move- you walk past the horse, and it will gallop, the sunflower can either have a butterfly or not, the scene can either be winter or summer. Several artists will take maps and draw on them, which was really interesting, and several more did something I'd never seen before (and don't remember what it was called...), but basically they took bits of colored paper and cut out shapes, then in a show case they would make the whole scene, never drawing, just building the whole scene out of little bits of paper, cut into grass, trees, flowers, whatever. I think it would be fun :)! We also got to see the "drumming statue". They had several people dressed and painted as statues (they looked extremely realistic), it was kind of neat, I don't know how many people must have jumped after sitting beside a "statue" though ;). The drumming "statue" would play on her drum if you put a dollar in her bucket.
We got one side of the street done before everybody got too hungry, and then headed back to the car to get lunch. We got back out of the parking garage, turned right around and went back up the seven levels because someone (name not given to protect the three who did not remember...) remembered the hot dogs- thankfully before we got all the way to the park!
The park was beautiful! We ate a delicious lunch by the brook, and the water sounded lovely! Tori had fun wading in the water :). There was a beautiful gate down one of the walks there, but we're not sure what the little room like thing behind it was used for, although some of us had some ideas :)...
There were ducks and swans in the water, and Aunt Amber took us on the bridge, which was fun, if you kept walking. The bridge does swing, but so slightly that you didn't notice it unless you stood still. When you were still it was a bit disturbing!
By this time it was about 3:00. We were running low on time, so we hurried down the other side of the street of the Artisphere, and then headed to the gem store. Tori had a blast!!! It was beautiful in there, and Tori is a rock lover by nature, so she could have spent all day in there! I think everybody bought some rock something except Aunt Tessa, who was, at that time, on the phone thanking Mommy for giving us more time, as it was already almost five and we hadn't started home ;)!
After buying our rock magnets, rock jewelry and... rocks ;), we ran through Mast's General store to pick up a paper telling about the little statue mice hidden all over main street, as Tori wanted to know the names of the mice we had found. Then we headed to the car, examined the view from that high up, wisely kept the keys with us instead of dropping them seven floors down onto the road ;), got in the car and headed to Starbucks, where we ordered our drinks, called to inform all at the house that we were on our way home and were not stopping again, after which we got in the car for the final time at about 5:30 ;). Aunt Tessa joked after she finished her drink that we should go get another, but she had said we were not stopping. Tori suggested going through the drive through, haha ;)!
We had such a wonderful time! Thanks, Aunt Tessa and Aunt Amber, for inviting us along!!!!
*(For those of you who love to have pictures of everything when there is a post about an outing - even your shoes ;)- especially when it shows God's "Things of Beauty"- I'm apologizing for not having any pictures on this post. I forgot my camera again. It was so pretty at the park, too... I'll remember to take it one of these times (watch, then I'll forget that I even have it, haha!).)
** And due to Tori's reaction as she walked into the room as I scrolled through this post, I think I would also apologize for being so long winded in the post, but that would make it longer, haha ;)! Sorry! And I didn't even go into too much detail you all... that was just the skeleton version with a few embellishments...