First day of school: First Grade!

Four weeks ago today, Natalie began first grade! She was so excited to finally be in school all day, and has really had the best first month there. She's won two awards already (the first being for summer reading, the second being today for representing "optimistic" in her class), she loves her teacher, and even enjoys her homework. We could not be happier of our school-age girl!

We got outside before the first day of school in time to do a mini photo shoot.

And at the bus stop we saw her friend Lizzie from down the street. The girls had quite a few playdates over the summer, but were very excited to finally be back on the bus together! Unfortunately they are not in the same first grade class this year, but they still get to see each other, as Lizzie is just down the street.

Henry doesn't normally join us at the bus stop, but since it was the first day of school he came out to wish Natalie a good day!

Here are the girls getting on the bus, sitting right up front!

Happy first grade, Natalie!

Labor Day with friends

Woohoo, I've caught up to September! And before hitting October, too. Not bad considering the amount of travel I did this month. I've got tons of posts from September, so let's try and go chronologically.

On Labor Day weekend, we had a very big weekend - three of my closest friends and their families spent the whole weekend with us. Including us, that meant 8 adults and 7 kids in the house from Saturday through Monday! We threw a big BBQ for a ton of our college friends on Sunday, which resulted in about 30 adults and 20 kids  - while it was a lot of work, we really had a great time.

On Monday, we had some time to hang out with everyone before they left. We had thought to take everyone to the pool, but the kids had all gone there the day before and I thought to do something different. So, we took them over to the creek I had found earlier in the month for some fun exploring.

We started off by looking at rocks and shells.

 

And then some splashing, jumping, and walking in the creek! This time we went further than I did with just Natalie and Henry on our previous expedition.

 

Here was everyone making "bear faces".

 At that point, Henry and Katie didn't really want to go any further, so Beth and Beta took the rest of the kids a bit further up the creek, while Eric and I went back to where we'd entered with our two.

 Then Katie and Henry had a blast throwing rocks into the creek while we waited for everyone to come back.

 When everyone else arrived, the kids had a giant splash fight! It was adorable and they all had a blast.

 It was a really great way to end such a fun weekend with our friends!

 

Ah, 4 year old boys

So while I am traveling this week, I get an email from Evan entitled "Henry". The body of the message says that Henry asked him to send "this" to me, and I see there's a video attached. I of course get all happy-mommy vibes, as I expect to see a sweet message from my son. This is what I see:


Ok, not a sweet message, but still enough to give me a big smile for the day. Love that kid!

Ballet/mixed media performance at Wolf Trap

During the last week of August I took Natalie to her first real show - a ballet/mixed media performance at Wolf Trap. The performance included the Oregon Ballet Theater, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company, and Band of Horses (a, well, band). I thought Natalie would enjoy the ballet performance (and man I was right about that!), and I knew I would enjoy the music (so did she!), and I thought this would be a fun mommy-daughter outing. I was right - we had a blast!

 

First in this mixed-media performance was the Oregon Ballet Theater. Their performance went on for quite a while (and to be honest, I thought it was the least interesting of the three parts), but I did enjoy the music they danced to - all songs by Fleet Foxes. Natalie asked me when they came out on stage "Why are they naked?" as from where we were sitting, their body suits really did make them look naked! Despite it being my least favorite part, it was still really great, and I tried to get a few photos, zoomed in from where we were sitting.

 Here's a small video from part of their performance

Next up was an acoustic performance by Band of Horses. I knew some of their songs from the radio; while they aren't my favorite band, I do like the ones I've heard. They played the songs I knew, as well as quite a few others, and Natalie and I really liked their set! One of the coolest parts was how the band rose up on a platform to be in front of the stage, to avoid the time needed to setup the instruments. It was very well done!

Last was the most...interesting part, and the "mixed media" component. This piece was done by the Pacific Northwest Ballet theater, and included a video playing in the background (that's the large hands you see), while the main company also performed at the same time onstage. It was very modern dance, and while not necessarily my style of dance, I actually got far more into it than I thought I would. What I found the most interesting was that Natalie did talk to me during both of the first two performances, she was completely silent and watching the whole time. I'm really glad she liked it so much!

Unfortunately I couldn't get a video of this performance, as I was...gently urged by one of the ushers to put my camera away, and I didn't want to risk getting in trouble. It was definitely different, and cool, and I'm so glad that we went!

Nutcracker audition 2014

 I'm going a bit out of order tonight, as I just don't have it in me to write a big post tonight given the crazy day that I had. This post is pretty darn easy, so in order to prevent me from having to think too much tonight up it goes!

Last weekend I took Natalie to her audition for the Nutcracker. For her age group (Ballet II), the girls auditioned to be Bonbons. There are spots for 14, but 19 girls tried out. The Loudoun Ballet Company is really great in giving everyone, at any age, who tries out some sort of spot. At this age, that means that some girls will get to do all 5 performances, some may only do 2, and some may do 3 (for example). So, Natalie will definitely get to be in the Nutcracker, we just wait to hear for how many shows.

She did a really great job at her audition - I was very proud of her! She didn't fidget, or talk to the other girls; she paid full attention to the older girls as they taught her the combo.

Can you spot her below?She's in the front row, on the right side, third from the middle girl.

Here's most of the first routine they will have to do - she caught on pretty quickly! Can't wait to see her up on the stage for real :)

Volcano Park in Sterling

Sometime mid-summer I bought a Groupon to one of 4 public water parks in Loudoun/Fairfax counties: the Volcano Park in Sterling. They're all run by the Northern Virginia Public Parks department, and I'd seen ads for these places previously, but had yet to actually go to any of them. This deal was too good to pass up - $12 for 4 tickets, only you can't go until after 4pm (they close at 6) and only on weekdays. So, we had to find the right weekday, and that didn't happen until just before they closed in September! But we made it there, and had a really fantastic time. 

While Henry hung out and had a snack first, Natalie quickly made it over to the nearby slide to do her thing!

 

Just on the other side of were I was sitting were these two larger slides. Unlike at our local water park, none of the "staff" (read: 12 year old kids who could have cared less) were really checking whether the kids were tall enough to go down the slide. I went up with Natalie the first time, and we rode the open-air red one (hiding in the back in the photo on the left), as we didn't think Natalie could handle the yellow one. Well, after going down the red one a few times, she asked to try the yellow one...and loved it!! In fact, she informed me pretty quickly she didn't need me to go up there with her. I took the pic on the right watching her from below. She's standing just at the entrance to the yellow slide.

 

I didn't take a video, as there wasn't really anything to see (since the slide was enclosed), but here she is splashing out of the bottom, and triumphantly climbing up to me. So proud of her!

 

Henry also found a slide that was perfect for him, over on the other side of this very large pool. The slide went into 3' of water, and there was a cushion for him to land on at the bottom, under the water. He was a little nervous the first time, but I convinced him to try it, and he LOVED it! Went up and down that slide repeatedly. Unfortunately since I was in the water with him, I got no pics or video, but he really did great! So instead, I took two quick selfies with the kids at the end. This place was really fun, and I can't wait to take them back again next summer!

 

Exploring Town Creek

Wow, 9 days since the last post! I had lined up a bunch to be done this week, while I was traveling, and even brought all of my photos with me on a portable hard drive...and then had such a great time with my coworker each night that I never got around to posting at all! I'm sadly VERY behind (still have some things to post from August), so I'm going to try to catch up really quickly, as September has been so busy and I want to get it all up here!

First up, I had decided a month or so ago to run on the WO&D trail, which many of you know is a huge biking/walking path that runs from Arlington Va all the way out to western Loudoun County. We have very easy access to it near our house, and I was in the mood to run somewhere new, so off I went! As I was running, I saw that there was very easy access to a creek that runs mostly parallel to the path. The setting is really beautiful!

 The kids love exploring creeks, so I talked Evan into going with us and a few days later off we went!

 Why is Henry not wearing a bathing suit, you ask? Well, originally he told me he did not want to go in the water, and refused to put one on. Of course when we got there he completely changed his mind (guess I should have thought ahead and brought his suit!). He was ok with rolling up his pants and getting them wet, so all was fine.

It was so much fun to see the two of them exploring together!

 Where was Evan during all of this? Wading in a creek is NOT his thing, so he was following along the bank, and checking out the local geography, which is much more his thing. He also snagged a few photos of us in the water, so I shot this one of him.

And last but not least, my favorite shot of the day. I love seeing her look this happy!!

Dad's birthday party

My dad doesn't often like for us to celebrate him in any way, but this year we didn't really give him a choice! My sister decided to throw a birthday party for him at her boyfriend's house in Richmond. My aunt and her wife came, we were all able to come down, and a bunch of Carrie & Stephen's musician friends came for a little jam session after the bbq! It was a lot of fun - I'm so glad we were able to make it!

I was taking a photo of Henry being "tough"...he then got a photo with Grandpa Rich with both of them being tough guys!

 

Aunt Carrie got her time with the kiddos in as well :)

And I can't pass up an opportunity to get a sister photo.

 As I mentioned, throughout the party there was live music - here I am"dancing" with the kids. They like spinning!

 After eating, and music, it was time to sing to Dad and have some birthday cake!

As a little surprise, Natalie and I sang a song to Dad! We sang our favorite song, Brandi Carlile's "Keep Your Heart Young". The song always makes me think of my dad, and we had so much fun singing it acapella to him!

I didn't mean to, but when singing it, I made all of the women in my family cry! We cry pretty easily :) The only reason I didn't cry is because I looked at Natalie the whole time! Luckily, Dad very much enjoyed our performance.

 This was my favorite photo I took of the day. I love how happy my parents are!! They are so adorable, and I love them so much.

 Happy birthday Dad!