Fall is beautiful - 2016 edition

In my giant photo/video dump last week, I made an album of photos that I took this fall around Leesburg. Turns out that we've had some pretty amazing sunrises in our neighborhood:

When they're like the photo above, it turns my entire bedroom pink in the morning! 

And really pretty skies after it rains in the afternoon/evening...

And some beautiful fall leaves. These were taken at my office complex, where the colors are just gorgeous. 

With photo shoots that I did at my complex this year, I did get some non-phone photos of the colors too, but those will be posted up on the photography blog when I can!

A fall trip to Fredericksburg

Almost missed this one, as all of the photos were on my phone, and it turned out I had OVER 600 PHOTOS to transfer from the past few months off of my phone to my computer. That was a pretty productive few hours last week, for sure! I thought I was done with October, and it turns out that I have three posts to still do! So much for catching up with 2016 before 2017 hits...but we'll get there, I promise.

Anyway, to celebrate my birthday with my parents and sister, I took the kids down to my parents' house the second weekend in October. I had taken Columbus Day off, as the kids didn't have school, and so taking them overnight there was a great way to let Evan focus on some election work. Before heading down the kids wanted photos - Natalie in particular due to our "matching"outfits.

 

After we got to my parents', we headed into downtown Fredericksburg to take a trolley tour. I'm not the biggest history buff (Evan should have done that tour with us for sure!), but it was actually really interesting and we could not have had a more beautiful fall day.

 

There was a public chalk art display going on in downtown, so after we got back from our tour we took a walk down the closed-off street to see the art. So beautiful!

On Monday, we went to a local farm about 10 minutes away from my parents' house. There was a hayride out to pick pumpkins, in an absolutely stunning field filled with beautiful orange pumpkins!

 

 

When we got back we had some local ice cream and toured through the plant nursery - a cute farm for sure! I bet they had great stuff during the Christmas season too. I love finding places like this that we've never been to before.

Halloween 2016

In what is apparently our new family holiday tradition, we once again used my van as a float in the Leesburg Halloween Parade. Last year it was to promote Macbeth for Treasurer; this year it was to promote Macbeth for Leesburg - Evan's run for Leesburg Town Council. Unfortunately, he did not win, but he gave it his all and I couldn't be prouder.

This year was historic for us, in that for the first time since she was almost 3, Natalie did NOT wear a princess costume! After I found Henry's Kylo Ren costume, Natalie requested a Rey costume so that they could match. I'm all about her repping a non-princess costume, and of a pretty kick-ass lady too. 

I loved Henry's costume! We found it at Costco; it was the last one in his size, and missing the mask. So, the manager sold it to me for 30% off...and then I found the mask online for less than the discount - score! He loves dressing up in it.

Here's the candidate with his kiddos!

And the candidate being "stabbed" by his kiddo.

For the third year in a row I wore my Anna costume. It continues to be a hit with the little kids at the parade, and it's just fun to wear.

We once again had a large group of kids walking with our group. They did a great job handing out candy, even if they were a bit slow, causing a HUGE gap to grow between the van and the car in front of us during the parade. We did quite a bit of running down King Street in Leesburg to catch up!

Finally, Natalie with her two good friends from dance. Such cute ladies!

Dracula!

To kick off our Halloween weekend, we went as a family to see the Loudoun Ballet Company's performance of Dracula. I didn't even know that this story was a ballet! They did a single day of performances, so we got tickets to the Saturday night show. Kids were encouraged to come dressed up, since it was on Oct 29. Natalie was disappointed she didn't have any "creepy" Halloween costumes, so I convinced her to go as a vampire princess, and me as the vampire queen. Are we convincing?

 Henry had the perfect costume: Kylo Ren! He was ready to use the dark side of the force on us.

 We saw the show with a few of the kids' friends; Natalie's friend Lily brought plastic glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth for all of the kiddos!

 Here's Natalie with all of her friends who came.

 And a family photo at the end!

The show was fantastic. Dark, creepy, danced well, and very interesting. I've never heard the music before, but everything was really enjoyable. I love seeing unique shows like this, and not just the more standard ballets!

Leesburg Animal Park & Pumpkinville 2016

Wow, so much has happened in December...I've gotta catch up! Since I'm nearly done with October, we're getting closer. Hopefully my time off over the next couple of weeks will let me catch up before 2017!

Anyway, back to October. Evan was busy during the last weekend in October, so I took the kids to Pumpkinville for the day, that Saturday We got there when they opened, as it was a beautiful day and I knew the place would get busy. We were there for 6 hours! The kids wanted to start off by heading to the back of the park to go on the slides, zip lines, and more. We figured we'd hit the petting zoo at the end.

First up, slides!

Then, the ziplines. Oh, the ziplines. In previous years, you had to buy extra tickets for them, but not anymore! Now both were included in admission. And yes, there were two! The kids went on the smaller one first

And it was only later that I noticed the second, larger zipline behind that one. We went back over there for that one later (see below).

Next up: cow train!

Then we spent quite a while at the pedal carts. For the first 20 minutes or so there were almost no other kids on the track, so mine got to try out all of the different carts, big and small.

Then we did the hayride, stopped for a snack, and then more ziplines!

Some climbing around (I love this photo!)

Then it was time to hit the petting zoo. It was crowded at this point, and we discovered that the animals were rather full by this point. Henry finally got over his fear of petting zoo animals, and really tried to feed the goats and sheep, and they didn't want to eat anything. Can't blame them, after hours of eating! But I was very proud of Henry for getting over that fear...it's more than can be said for his dad ;)

The last event of the day was face painting...or, arm painting for Henry. There were two face painters, and the line wasn't too long, and it was free, so I said why not. Dragon and bat were pretty perfect for Halloween weekend!

It was a fantastic day for the 3 of us at the festival. So happy to spend that day and make those memories with the kids.

Happy birthday to me!

This year, I got to have three separate birthday celebrations, from October 1-3 (my actual birthday). On the first, which was a Saturday, Beth and Kathy came out with their families and spent the night. As always, after the kids went to bed it was time for some game night fun, including cake! I think we were all a bit punchy at that time, as we had fun coming up with things to make the candles say, and this was ultimately the end result. It certainly made us all crack up in the moment!

And from my friends I ended up with quite the loot of booze and chocolate! Thanks everyone :) 

The next day we took the kids for a walk around the (dreary and wet) pond, to get a little exercise and wear out the kids. 

 Look how cute they all are!!

 Then on Sunday evening, we had a little get together with a couple of our local Leesburg friends. They came over in the evening and we roasted smores over our fire pit! A nice way to spend a Sunday evening.

 Then on Monday it was actually my birthday! I had a new skirt all picked out for the occasion - love this LuLaRoe Lucy skirt!

 That night I chose to have us go out to dinner at The Oyster Bar - so yummy!! Natalie loved every bit of her seafood, as did I. Even Henry and Evan found something to eat.

 And that night was another cake! I picked one of the Pepperidge Farm three layer cakes, in lemon... so yummy.

 My family and friends were so nice with birthday presents. Lots of cards, a DVD, leggings from my sister (yay!), massage gift card from Evan, Jamberry gift card from my colleagues, and a mermaid blanket from the kids. I love this blanket so much...and Calla enjoys it too :)

 

It was a fantastic birthday weekend with lots of family and friends. Thanks to everyone who helped me have such a nice time!