Trail 5K

On a cool, wet Saturday in early May, Natalie and I participated in our first ever Trail 5K race! It was put on by my friend Maya's horse rescue, Hope's Legacy, on the farm where they keep all of their rescues. Since Natalie and I have been walking so much, and we do occasionally add in some running, we thought we would tackle it! Plus, the money all went to a very good cause.

All 4 of us actually signed up, but when the morning of the race was wet and muddy the boys backed out of going. So Natalie and I put on our layers, packed another set of socks and shoes (as we knew our feet would get wet), and headed out to Afton for the event!

It was drizzling on and off as we arrived, and we definitely had to be careful of some muddy parts on the trail. But we had a great time looping around the farm, and made decent time. Was it my fastest? No. But there were a lot of hills, it was quite slippery, and I couldn't run the whole thing. Natalie actually beat my final time by about 10 seconds, as she put on speed at the end in order to beat me. Ha!

 

We were both very proud of ourselves for doing something new like this!

After the race, they posted photos on FB and I found one decent one of each of us.

Look, she's out in front of me here, too!

Afterwards, we changed out of our wet shoes into the rain boots we brought, and went around to meet some of the horses, check out the vendors who attended, etc. Natalie loved getting to pet the donkeys, horses, and even mini horses. In fact, she fed a treat to a mini horse who Maya said had not let anyone get that close before! My girl loves animals, just like her mom.

Foxfield 2019

In catching up on events from last spring, how could I have nearly forgotten about Foxfield?!

This year, we had absolutely lovely weather. We were due after so many terrible years, weather-wise, out of the past 6 or so! Either ridiculously cool and rainy, or WAY too hot. This year was juust right.

I managed to corral almost all of the kids together for a photo before leaving for the event (Rosie was being stubborn and didn't want to come out). Aren't they all so cute in their hats? And also ever so slightly old fashioned and creepy?

I seriously loved Henry's old man cardigan and hat this year. Since it's so hard to get him to dress up EVER, this made me so happy.

 

So then, Foxfield! Horses! Food! Drinks! Much fun in the sun!

We Old Ladies, getting our annual photo. Sadly Beta couldn't make it this year, but she was with us in spirit!

And then Old Ladies with our brood! There's a lot more of them than their used to be, and they are a heck of a lot bigger. Zabby is taller than me!

And the obligatory family photo, of course! Unfortunately this was the best one, and it does have the bus behind us, but in all the others someone had their eyes closed or was making a dumb face, so, bus photo it is!

This year, as happens every few years, Foxfield was on Evan's birthday! So he got an extra special Foxfield cake.

 

As always, a lovely day with our friends made even easier for us by living here in C'ville now, and getting to go home after! Next year will be WAY more fun when we can host all of our friends at our house (they rented a house, as see in the top photos). We can't wait!

Pumpkinville 2018

And so it was once again fall, which meant a trip to the fabulous Pumpkinville (and Leesburg Animal Park)! This is not one of Evan's favorite things to do (it's outside, dirty, and filled with animals and people), so for the second (I think?) year in a row I took the kiddos for some "mommy-kiddo time", as we like to call it, which suits us just fine!

We almost didn't make it this year due to schedule, but I was able to carve out some time on the very last weekend it was open (first weekend of November) Since it was such a gorgeous day, I was really worried it would be crazy busy, but I guess everyone had already been, as it was not overly busy at all!

We had to go check out the inside, as there are animals in there now (I love the changes they've made in the past few years); what a cute lemur!

The petting zoo area is a lot more fun now that Henry isn't super scared of the animals anymore, as he was when he was littler. I took about 4 photos of the two of them petting this goat, and even though Henry's eyes are almost closed, I had to share this one as the goat was looking right at the camera too!

After the animals, it was time to go into Pumpkinville proper. Climb around on some ropes...

Ride on some go-karts...

Go down the slides...

And enjoy the zipline!

 

All in all, a fantastic last trip to Pumpkinville!

I'm hopeful we can find something similar in Charlottesville, but if not, a day trip up to Leesburg to go next fall may be in order! 

OBX: Aquarium

We spent a big chunk of our first day at the OBX in August at the NC Aquarium. We'd been there quite a few times with my parents, but with Linda living in Manteo, the drive was only about 10 minutes! Can't beat that. Plus, since I had been there in a few years, it was fun to see some of the changes they'd made.

We really enjoyed this when you walk in - sharks and other sea creatures swimming around us on a monitor up near the ceiling.

Of course I took tons of photos of the animals in the aquarium; here's a collage I put together of some of my favorite ones.

And, another favorite shot of a jellyfish. There was a whole room with these guys in cylindrical tanks, lit up. I didn't have my actual camera with me, just my phone, and I think it came out pretty well even for that!

There is a touch tank with rays and small sharks; we happened to show up at right as they were starting a session to tell us about the rays.

And we finally made our way around to the giant shark tank. This is definitely one of the coolest things that this aquarium has. The window in is as large as the room is tall, and there are some giant sharks to watch swimming around!

It's always great when divers enter the tank too; getting to watch their interactions with the sharks.

Linda, Henry, and Natalie in front of the shark tank!

The sharks can even swim some overhead; I love this shot!

Outside of the aquarium is a big dinosaur exhibit! They move and make noise. Pretty cool! I've got pics and videos of each, but the T-rex was definitely the biggest hit.

Another big hit was the souvenir Henry picked out. I have to say, I love this shirt. Yay for puns!

Lucy makes a new friend!

In an example of absolutely fortuitous timing, my friend Paige got a puppy just a couple of weeks after we got Lucy! Her puppy Blaze was a rescue - they're pretty sure she's part Red Maine Coon Hound, and is a few months older than Lucy. We thought we'd socialize the two pups together, and bring them with us on one of our walks. The first one was at Paige's house, and wow the two pups loved trying to play with each other! They were a bit distracted (ok, a lot distracted, primarily Lucy) while we tried to walk them side by side, but after a bit they did settle into the walk.

After our walk we let them play together some in the house (we should've done that before, and learned our lesson for the next time). Super cute watching them go after each other and the same toys.

Next walk was at my house (taking them all the way to Starbucks and back); this time we let them play in the backyard for a while. I'm super amused by the photo on the left, as it looks like Blaze is being so ferocious!

 

But, they're pretty well-behaved pups too: look at them sitting so nicely for a treat!

We've walked them together once more since then; no pics or video but wow did they go crazy playing in Paige's back yard before our walk! Love that our pups get along so well, as it just means Paige and I get to walk together even more. 

A January day at the zoo

In honor of the beautiful weather we are (finally) experiencing, I want to remind myself (and everyone else) that we didn't just have awful cold for the past 4 months - there was actually some pretty nice weather in the winter months. And on one of those lovely days, in January, we took the kids to the National Zoo to enjoy the nice weather.

We started on the carousel - I let the kids pick one "special" thing to do (which required additional tickets to be bought), and this was their choice!

 

 Across from the carousel are the prairie dogs, which were out eating lunch. They're so darn cute.

 We then went up to the big cat enclosures, where we saw one sleeping tiger.

 Three beautiful lionesses.

 And two active lions.

 We then headed to the great ape house, outside of which were some chimpanzee statues.

 And the family showed off their monkey faces. We saw nothing, we heard nothing, we said nothing!

 There was a baby orangutan in the ape house, of which I was fortunate enough to get a couple of decent shots.

 The National Zoo now has (one of?) the oldest elephant in captivity, at 70 years old, and we got to see her!

 Finally, a couple of shots that Evan took - I love when he photographs me being a photographer. Those are always fun shots.

 And here's what I was capturing of the kids, walking on the elephant tracks

And finally, one of me and the kids. We had a fantastic day!