A spring day in Albemarle/Nelson

On a lovely spring weekend day, I wanted to have a family day in our new area: get out, enjoy the spring weather, and show the kids how lovely their new home is, after the gray of winter was finally gone! So, we hit up 3 places in Albemarle and Nelson Counties. First up: Chiles Peach Orchard, who was having a day of spring fun with wagon rides...

Baby chicks - these were actually turkey chicks!

And treats to enjoy, including cider from Bold Rock Cider, which spurred our journey out to Nelson County. Our ultimate goal was to hit the actual cidery, but we wanted to have some lunch first. So, we stopped on our way at Blue Mountain Brewery, which has a gorgeous outdoor eating area and is only about 3 miles from the house I grew up in! This place definitely did not exist when I lived there.

The kids enjoyed the food, and were even more excited by the games. Nothing like corn hole to burn off some post-lunch energy!

We then headed down Rte 151 to Bold Rock, where we all enjoyed some cider. In addition to the alcoholic cider they serve, they also have non alcoholic which the kids really enjoyed! We took our drinks out back towards the river.

And then, after getting back...we all crashed out after a long, but fun, day :)

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

A few months ago, I supervised Henry's field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. They had been learning about ancient cultures in social studies, so the main point of going to the museum was to see the Egyptian exhibit there. It was pretty cool! Including an actual mummy.

You can see the mummy in the middle right, behind the headless statue.

Henry was pretty interested - was right up front while the docent was talking to them, engaged - I was proud of him!

After the Egyptian part, we chaperones each took our small groups (I had Henry and two girls) to whatever part of the museum they wanted to see. We wandered through some more ancient cultures.

And then I took the kids into my favorite part of this museum: the Faberge exhibit! For a relatively small arts museum, they have a huge collection! These were two of my favorite eggs; portrait mode on the iPhone really makes them pop.

 

In addition to the eggs, they also have a ton of other things made by the Faberge family, including these adorable little animal figurines

 And flower vases! These are tiny miniatures - the work is absolutely stunning.

Really glad that I got to spend a couple of hours there with Henry; Natalie has never been and I'd like to explore more, so I think we're going to try to get back there this summer. 

5th Grade Honors Choir

Late this winter, I received an email from Natalie's music teacher, inviting her to join the 5th grade all-county honors choir. There was an opening, and she thought Natalie had the dedication and musicality to be a part of the group. We didn't even know this was something she could do, so we happily accepted the honor.

The all county choir chorus was in March, so after the kids had spent the afternoon at Monticello HS practicing, we 3 went over to watch Natalie and the other 5th graders perform!

 

The kids were really fantastic. I didn't know all of the songs, as you can likely see from the program above, but I enjoyed all of them!

And I think it's now a requirement that every choir do this song...but the kids are so cute singing it, I can't even be bothered by the fact that it's a bit trite!

WCDE 2019

Dance, dance, dance! We just finished up the kids' first recitals with C'ville Ballet Academy, so I've definitely got dance on the brain. So many amazing photos to share! But before that, a couple of other dance activities Natalie participated in over the past few months, starting with an oldie but a goodie: WCDE!

Even though Natalie couldn't compete, since her new studio doesn't attend this conference, and she isn't dancing with LSB anymore, we could still go so she could take part in the workshops and cheer on her friends. I have to say, I was really proud of her this year - picking up choreography quickly has not always been easy for her, and they only have an hour per workshop to learn each dance. This year, she was exponentially faster at picking them up, and she had a really great time in each class!

She particularly has started enjoying hip-hop (I think she might actually take it at her studio next fall), and I was proud of her for asking for clarification from the instructor, who came out on the floor to show her.

He was a favorite of all of our dancers!

There was also jazz (another favorite) - she's in the blue pants.

And ballet!

And finally, the routine that got this song stuck in my head for AGES (I seriously do not know how many times we heard this portion over and over again). But it was one of her favorite routines, and she still talks about it every time we hear the song on the radio!

We got to stay in the hotel with friends, and I was so glad for both of us to spend the weekend with everyone.

 

Montreal in February

I haven't been including all of my work trips here as posts, both because I'm trying to get through my backlog faster and because they just aren't all that interesting, but when I went to Montreal in February I had the chance to see something very cool that I wanted to share here!

I ended up with a free couple of hours one afternoon while in Montreal, and rather than sit at my hotel I did a quick google search to see if there was anything interesting nearby, and when I saw something that said "Barbie Expo", I immediately thought "I need to see this." It's a traveling exhibit that was installed in a high-end mall in Montreal, close enough to walk to from my hotel, so I bundled up and hiked over. I'm so glad that I did! The exhibit was really cool to see. Just look at the space!

I took photos of TONS of the Barbies, but I'll save you from posting the many that I have and just share a few of my favorites. There were a lot of themes: historical figures, movies, tv, decades, fashion, gems, pop culture, flowers, artists, music, and more!

I absolutely loved this one.

And who doesn't love Barbies dressed to represent precious gems?

This was definitely one of my favorites. Wizard of Oz!

Of course, when I did leave, there was a crazy delay due to snow/ice - the picture on the left was them bringing the de-icer out to try to clear off our plane. I had to fly through Charlotte, and missed my connection due to our delay. The right is me in the Charlotte airport bummed because I had to stay there for a while to make my connecting flight. But I had Starbucks and work to do, and eventually I made it home.

 

...where I found this sign waiting for me. I love those kids <3 p="">

NYC December 2018

After just having gotten back from an adventure in NYC (more on that soon), I thought it was finally time to post photos of my last NYC adventure, from December 2018. I had to go to New York for work, and was able to take my sister with me! We arrived in the afternoon, got checked in and changed, and then walked through Rockefeller Center before dinner. I love the chance to see the holiday decorations!

We then found a really yummy sushi restaurant nearby (and quite inexpensive, particularly for the area!), and headed over to the show we'd bought tickets for.

I finally got to see the Rockefeller Center Rockette's Christmas Spectacular! And wow, was it amazing.

Love the building, love the art deco decor. There was something beautiful to look at everywhere!

 Our seats were over here very close to stage right. Our tickets were inexpensive because we did have a partially obstructed view (we couldn't see the full side of stage right, but that was ok), and I liked being so close to the stage.

Don't we look pretty all dolled up!

The next day I had some client visits, and then we went back out to walk around more. We got to see Rockefeller Center during the day!

 

I love this view so much!

 

And of course no trip to NYC is complete without walking through Times Square at night, even when it's crazy cold out!

What an awesome couple of days we had - so nice to get to do this together with Carrie!