Carrie's bridal shower

After our evening out, I got up Saturday morning to start decorating Carrie's house for her bridal shower! We found some great decorations, and I proceeded to get everything set up.

In addition to decorations, we had games (what's a bridal shower without fun games?).

These advice cards were a lot of fun - not only did I ask everyone to fill one out, but then we read them to Carrie and she had to guess who wrote each one. Natalie's made me smile!

 

Oh, and you have to have food! I ordered sandwich and fruit platters from Wegmans, then we added hummus, mini crab cakes, and a few other things.

And as favors and party game prizes, I had picked out and packaged up candles for everyone. Who doesn't love new candles?!

Carrie looked lovely, and it was so nice outside that I made everyone come out to take some photos before the party started.

 

Carrie's friends and family were all so generous with gifts for her. I have to highlight the gift from my mom - not only did she get her these great "Mrs. Butterworth" gifts (that's Carrie's new last name!), but Carrie finally received the other half of a ring that was my great grandmother's - I received my half at my bridal shower, and now Carrie has hers. Carrie's new step-daughter took this photo of our hands and rings...so beautiful, and I love that we share this. 

Congratulations to the bride-to-be!

Carrie's "Bachelorette Party"

On the first weekend of August, I headed to Richmond to celebrate my sister's upcoming wedding! There were two events: the first, on Friday night, was her "bachelorette party". I put that in quotation marks because it wasn't a "traditional" bachelorette party. Neither of us really wanted to do that (the idea of going out to a bunch of bars/clubs was honestly kind of exhausting!), so instead on the night before her bridal shower (next post!), we put together a small event at a bar up on the north side of Richmond where her fiance's band was playing.

 

Yep, that's right - the bride to be and her best lady friends went to see her fiance's band play! I can handle that kind of bachelorette party :)

 

They were really great! The band's name is Smoke and Wine, and I hadn't seen them before. I'm looking forward to going more when we live closer.

And here we are, "Team Bride" - Carrie's bridesmaids Cheryl and Audrey, the bride, and me, the matron of honor. Super fun night out, followed by more fun the next day at the shower!

Lucy - August 2018

August was a long, hot month, full of the usual for Lucy! She continued to love her toys from her Super Chewer Bark Box (I think this was month #2)...Lucy takes them as a personal challenge. "Oh, you say I can't destroy this toy? Challenge accepted!"

She still loved laying on the bed in my office while I'm working...I think not only to sleep (although she does that quite well), but also to give me passive aggressive looks of "Fine, Mom, keep working and don't play with me. I'll just lay here..."

Lucy is not always the cuddliest of dogs (she doesn't lay in any one place for very long!), but I had one evening where she was very cuddly! Turns out after swimming for a while (a post on that shortly) she's tired out enough to want to cuddle. I loved every second of it.

But then, next day, right back to the playful puppy we know and love!

She and Henry play so well together...ring tugs like this are a favorite. We no longer have this one (she managed to chew through the rubber!), but the one we replaced it with is a keeper.

 Although she gets warm easily, Lucy loves to lie out on our back patio and bask in the sun.

She did discover one thing in August: our bed. Evan and I continue, even now, to have an ongoing...discussion about her being allowed up there. Our rough compromise is that she can lay up there during the day, when we are in the room, on top of the covers. I'll have to settle for that.
On this day, I was spending some time doing my nails in my room, and she certainly enjoyed a nice nap up there while I was busy! I enjoyed the company.

 And why shouldn't the whole family then take over our bed? :D

Lucy has learned to respect the closed bedroom door, although she doesn't like being separated from me. This is basically what she does.

You'll note I tagged this post with "sleep" - she's an active girl, but she does love curling up and having a nice nap. On our bed, on the couch, in Evan's chair...she's darn cute no matter what.

Rock Band Camp #1

When we were planning summer camps last spring, Henry asked to attend rock band camp again this summer. He loved it last year, and because of schedule were were able to send him twice this summer! The first week he went was in mid-July. On Friday, they performed in the green space outside of the school for parents and anyone else who wanted to listen in.

There were quite a few campers there for half day camp; they formed a band all together named "First Dimension".

 Check out my little rocker!

 

There was some time needed to set up all of the equipment, and then First Dimension was ready to play "Should I stay or should I go" by The Clash.

They had a couple more songs together, but that one was definitely my favorite. Then, we were fortunate to see Henry perform a few more songs. Henry and one other girl were there all day, whereas the rest of the kids were only there half the day. Therefore, she and Henry got to perform a few additional songs, with the help of their teacher Mr. Cedric. I was a BIG fan of their first one :)


She and Henry played a couple more together, but they aren't songs that I really know, so I'm going to skip ahead to Henry's two solos. The first was a duet with Mr. Cedric on guitar: a rock song that Henry wrote about his favorite songs.


And finally, Henry sang one of those favorites: Ophelia by the Lumineers. So proud of him for getting up in front of a crowd outside and doing this!

Dino Walk July 2018

A friend of mine posted back in the spring about this event that happens down in Culpeper every summer. It's hosted by the Culpeper Museum of History every year, and since my parents live nearby we thought why not drive down with the kids? All I knew was that we would meet up with folks from the museum at the Luck Stone rock quarry, and we'd drive in to see the dinosaur footprints. I'd heard it was a fun event, but wasn't really sure what to expect.

Since they charge per car, not per person, my parents joined us in my van and we drove into the main part of the quarry. We arrived a bit early, as instructed, so the kids got out to climb around on the gravel hills. They weren't the only ones!

When it was our time, we followed the road down into the pit. I kind of wished I wasn't driving so that I could look more at the very cool rocks we were driving down into. It was quite the incline down there, too! We were one of the first cars, so after we parked, I got this shot of other cars driving in.

 At the base of the quarry is a man-made lake (I believe that's the case at most/all quarries?). The reflection was lovely!

 Once everyone was parked and ready, they showed us the dinosaur tracks! It's been 3 months, so I'm trying to remember the details, but I'm pretty sure these were found in the 80s and are the oldest dinosaur tracks/fossils found in Virginia. I guarantee Evan will remember and correct me at some point :)

The tracks were kind of hard to see on the ground, in the bright sun, so they had circled them for us. They also provided water guns for the kids to squirt the prints with to make them stand out from the ground better.

 We could all touch them; we enjoyed trying to fit our hands into the prints.

Evan absolutely loved listening to the history/facts by the folks from the museum; the kids of course got a bit bored once we saw all of the prints. My dad showed them how to skip rocks, and so much of our time there was spent skipping rocks out into the pond. And squirting each other with the water guns :)

So, final report: it was a fun event that I'm really glad we went to (definitely worth the $20!), but not something I think we need to go to again.

Henry's piano performance

In 2016 and 2017 we held our "Punch, Pie, and Piano" recital with our group from dance, when a couple of girls were unable to attend their scheduled recitals. This year, the event was a bit more hastily put together (for a few reasons), but we were still able to hold it! I was very excited that Henry really blossomed since the previous year, playing much longer and involved pieces than he had previously. Without further ado: Henry's two recital pieces!

Hist first piece is so jazzy. It gets slightly faster throughout. Also, he has this one memorized which is why you can see the same sheet music in both videos.
Side note -I love Natalie's friend Bella in the corner doing her shoulder-shimmy to it.

His second piece is a bit longer; he didn't have this one memorized but worked at it really hard!

The other kids also did a great job, although this time I didn't record any of them. Natalie's friend Lily played "Piano Man" by Billy Joel, which led to a great sing along for all of us adults! 

Side note - Henry has now, a few months later, totally gotten into Piano Man, and I'm trying to get him to listen to other Billy Joel songs now too. 

July 4th parade 2018

For the first time in YEARS, we were in Leesburg on July 4th this year. Having just returned from London on July 1, there was no way we were traveling again so soon! Also, with my parents having moved from the Outer Banks 3 years ago (can't believe it's been that long!), we don't have a place to stay there unless we rent a beach house, and that wasn't in the cards this year. We do have our house reserved for July 4 next year, though!

Since we were in town, we thought we'd join the Loudoun School of Ballet in the July 4th parade. We hadn't seen the parade at all in years (seriously, of the 15 years we've been married, we've spent at least 12 of those at the beach), and what's more fun than watching a parade? Being in it, of course!

The kids could wear whatever they wanted; most were in some shades of red, white, and blue. Natalie opted to wear this great skirt she had from a jazz costume from a couple of years ago, while Henry wore his costume from the June recitals. Evan and I rocked our red, white, and blue.

In case you couldn't tell from the photos above (taken in the staging area), it was HOT. Like, ridiculously hot. We kept the kids in the shade as much as possible in the staging area, and made sure to have lots of water with us. When it was finally our turn to join in the parade, the kids were SO excited!

I took a couple of photos while walking (my favorite was this one above), and then grabbed this one of our entire group when we stopped at the end.

Otherwise, we were too busy hurrying along for me to really take photos. A friend who was there watching the parade got this one of us walking that I really liked, so I wanted to share it here too!

Central Park July 2018

On my second trip to NYC for the summer (I went once each month, although I have no photos really to share from my August trip), I was fortunate to spend quite a bit of time in Central Park when not working. I stayed near Central Park, and was able to go on two really nice walks - the first on the night I arrived, and the second the following morning.

One of the first things I saw was this carnival set up near the base of Central Park. The top photo was taken on my evening walk, while the second photo was taken the next morning.

In the evening I walked past The Pond at the south end of the Park; you can tell the weather was nice by the number of boaters out!

The reflection of sky, buildings, and boats on the small boat pond was lovely.

And finally, as I headed back down towards my hotel on the west side of the park (after circling through) I saw these lovely horses peeking at me through the trees. I love the colors!

Happy October!

Normally, October is my favorite month of the year. The weather finally cools off, my birthday happens (it's only two days away!), I get to take the kids to fall festivals (they're already asking when we will go to Pumpkinville this year), Halloween happens...it's just a great month all around.

But I have to say...this year, September wasn't half bad either. While it was FAR wetter and warmer than I think any of us wanted (particularly wetter), and most of the month I was quite stressed out...well, the month couldn't have ended any better for us, I think.

After putting the house on the market in mid-August, something we thought would happen quickly (selling our house) ended up taking more than 6 weeks. Which I suppose is fast, but given that all indications were we would sell in half that time, it was quite stressful! During those weeks we worried we might lose the house we found in Charlottesville; we had to keep our house looking show ready with both of us working from home, with two kids and a dog... frankly, the uncertainty became a LOT to deal with. I had a bit of a breakdown about a week ago, and then, the month ended so well.

Not only did my sister get married (more on that soon!), but literally ON HER WEDDING DAY we settled with a buyer on our house! What a great day September 29, 2018 proved to be. 

So yes, September ended on a really high note for us. I was sitting here tonight, thinking of all of the things that I need to do, and trying to think back over the past four months to capture and remember all that happened.
- We decided to up and move to Charlottesville!
- After 3 trips, we found a new house, made an offer, and it was accepted. 

- We spent a week in London. 

- I spent 3 days in Iceland.
- Natalie had two weeks of jazz camp.

- Henry had two weeks of rock band camp.

- We searched and found a house. 

- I took the kids to the Outer Banks for a long weekend.
- I threw Carrie a bridal shower.
- I was Carrie's matron of honor, running her rehearsal and wedding day.

- Evan married Carrie & Chip, and emcee'd their reception.

- We finally managed to sell our house. 

And with all of that, we both still had to work and keep life going. Is it any wonder that I haven't actually done blog posts for these events (and more) yet? I try to keep things going on here so that I have the blog posts for reference (as I posted recently), but finding the time gets harder and harder. I also just realized that I still have photos to edit from London, Iceland, and now Carrie's wedding... and I have two paid photo shoots this weekend!

So yes, life is busy. But October is going to be an awesome month (I can feel it), and with a big stress taken off of us (of course other stresses now added!), I just know I can get it all done.