The Search for Miss Direction: Mail Call at a Pepsi House!

We have been very fortunate when it has come to our mail calls from the different states and our North Carolina contact hooked up the Dynamic Duo for sure! My friend from home, Lindsey Smith, now lives in Carrboro which is near The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, Lindsey) she is working on pursuing her PhD! Any which way, she graciously agreed to help out our little project with some mail from North Carolina this week. The kiddos were thrilled to find they each got their own box! Noah got an awesome North Carolina State hat and Mikayla a pink North Carolina State purse (Lindsey, I may never get it away from her...) They have both been proudly donning their NC gear all day and Noah says he's wearing the hat every day this week. Many thanks to Lindsey for hooking us up!

After having a great time digging into their mail, Mikayla helped me make the Cherry Pepsi Salad to go with dinner tonight while Noah got out a whole assortment of helicopters and army men which then took over my kitchen. I swear I'm going to break an ankle, but he was happy.

He agreed to take a break when I told him we were going to get started on this week's project, these cool Wright Brother inspired planes. We hauled out the craft supplies and they got to work painting. Our morning was rounded off with a trip down to the Janoch's for some playing while our planes dried.

We grabbed a quick lunch and then went off in search of a North Carolina product we will be trying out tomorrow, Cheerwine. I was surprised (and excited!) to see that it is available in two or three places nearby so we went out and snagged a four pack of bottles. It's currently chilling in my fridge and waiting. Because we're celebrating another soda around here today.

Pepsi is no small thing around here. Some people choose a college based on location, price, if it has the program they want. For me, the determining factor was if it was a Pepsi or Coke school. I kid you not - I of course took all those other things into consideration but that was where the buck stopped. My house has always been a Pepsi loving locale, so thanks New Bern for being the birthplace of Pepsi! Not only did we celebrate tonight with the above mentioned salad, but I also made Pepsi Pork Chops for dinner. (These honestlly were pretty similar to the Coke chicken I made in Georgia!) With the chops and the salad we had some Cheese 'n' Grits Casserole - a true southern dish. For dessert I got one more Pepsi nod in with some Pepsi Icees.

We did get our planes finished up this afternoon and I'm pretty excited about how they turned out. The kids had a great time flying them everywhere and I am trying to figure out a good way to hang them in the kitchen. Said kitchen is starting to be completely overrun with our projects but honestly, I love it! Still haven't decided on next year's project, but I'm hard pressed to believe I'm going to be able to come up with anything nearly as cool as this has been. But you know me, never one to back down from a challenge, I've got a couple of ideas brewing!

We finished up our day at the library where there was a fun "Campfire Crafts" time going on tonight. There were activities and games based on the "Mouse and the Motorcycle" series. The kids had a blast and came home with all kinds of loot from the event. I so love our library!

MOPS Steering here tomorrow morning and then hoping to head to the last concert of the summer (bummer) in Plymouth tomorrow. Plus I've got a southern take on French Toast to share tomorrow and who knows what else! So until then...

North Carolina Fun Fact of the Day: (Lindsey sent me this on Facebook today and I thought it was so cool I just had to share!) North carolina produces the quartz that is used in every single silicon chip, meaning there's a tiny piece of north carolina in every computing device--across the entire world!