Companies in Concert Fall 2018

I wanted to do a really in depth post on this, Natalie's final show as part of the Showkids company at Loudoun School of Ballet, but as I'm coming up on being 4 months behind, I've realized that I just have to start condensing posts. There just isn't any other way to get caught up, and given how crazy my next couple of months are, the likelihood of me spending the time needed each night to do this is pretty much nil. Especially when I have an awesome cross stitch to work on!

So instead I show here, with very little narrative, my favorite photos of Natalie and her friends from the show. She was so excited for her dances this year, and her energy on stage really showed.

 

I did my best to get photos of Natalie with all of her friends...

 And managed to get one of all of the Showkids together before they went on stage.

Because it was Natalie's last show, I asked and was allowed to take photos of her onstage during dress rehearsal. I was going to do a whole separate post of these, but again in the interest of moving things along, here is my favorite photo of her from each of her 3 dances.

Halloween 2018

We finally broke away from princesses and Star Wars for Halloween last year! Natalie got it in her head a couple of months earlier that she wanted to dress as a "dark fairy" - I had no idea how to do that, but a quick search on Amazon showed me that indeed there are "dark fairy" costumes for kids! I stress that "for kids" part as some of the costumes were definitely not age appropriate.

After reading the first 4 books, Henry was excited to go as Harry Potter - that's quite the easy costume to find!

The fun part about these costumes was that I got to do some makeup on them both. Henry's was simple obviously - we used his existing scar but turned it into a lightening bolt. I had fun playing around with face makeup for Natalie; ultimately we settled on a spiderweb-inspired design that we were both really happy with.

Natalie still likes for her and I to do costumes together, so last minute I pulled together a costume for myself using all items I already had - she was a dark fairy, so I was a light fairy!

 

We were out trick or treating for quite a while, venturing further through the neighborhood than we'd done previously. As we walked around, we ran into a group of 5th grade girls trick or treating together and joined up with them for a bit. It was great that Natalie got to do this with some friends for the last time in Leesburg!

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! 

Inaugural half-marathon

After I cut my hair, and had some new head shots taken, I had one more new thing to do - walk a half marathon! I set this as a goal for myself after really stepping up my weekly walks during the first half of 2018. Why not try to go from my regular 4-6 miles to do a full half marathon? I can train for that! Since I don't like the heat, I didn't want to do this during the summer, so I set a date in October (also because October is the best month, as we all know!). I found a recommended training schedule for runners who are doing a half marathon, and was able to stick to it (mostly) for the 7 weeks before my scheduled walk.

I decided to walk from the end of the W&OD trail in Purcellville back home to Leesburg. Because I wanted the walk to be novel, I never trained on that part of the trail, sticking instead to my normal routes through Leesburg (but varying them up some to keep it interesting). The longest training walk I did was 10 miles (as I missed the week I was supposed to do a 12 mile walk), but I felt good about my ability to go 13.1.

Evan and the kids took me out to Purcellville to the end of the trail, so I could start there!

I was ready to go with my arm band, my headphones, and some snacks in my belt pouch.

Oh yeah, and we brought Lucy too! We also stopped at Starbucks so I could get my usual refresher for the first part of the walk... and then it was time to start!

I did take selfies at each mile, but I'm not going to post them all here. Just a few to show progress... oh, and some pretty sites I saw along the way.

Mile 2

Before mile 3:

During Mile 4:

Mile 6 - it's getting warmer out there!

During mile 6, I walked the trail underpass at the Route 9 intersection in Hamilton. Turns out that just past there is this great old bridge that you walk through!

Mile 7, during pee break #3 (yep that refresher went right through me! Luckily the trail was pretty deserted) and stretch break #1

Mile 8 - where I also took stretch break #2. And yep, definitely warmer out at this point!

Mile 10 - I'm back in "civilization!" This was on the outskirts of Leesburg.

At Mile 11, I left the trail at the kids' school to head back towards my house. The final 2 miles were not on the trail. Mile 12 photo: just past the bridge over Rte 15 bypass on Sycolin Rd.

And finally...Mile 13.1! Right in front of my house. I did it!

All in all, I walked the whole thing in just over 3 and a half hours. Average pace was the highest I've EVER done on a walk - the trail is such an amazing place to walk! I love how the Fitbit app tracked everything - really fantastic to see my progress.

In fact, looking at the mile times, it's even more obvious how much easier it is to walk on the trail - the last two miles were by far my slowest, and they were once I had left the trail.

Overall, I have to say I am really proud that I did that, and I want to do another one! Unfortunately there is not a great trail like the W&OD in Charlottesville (I really miss that thing), but I'm sure I can figure out something. I haven't gone longer than about 5 miles since we moved, so I need to step up the training as it gets warmer and try to do this again! 

Also, a big thank you to everyone who donated, as I did this as a fundraiser for St. Jude's (Natalie chose the charity). It really meant a lot to me.

Our going away party

I've been missing my Leesburg friends quite a bit lately; I know this is normal when you have a big move, but having that knowledge doesn't make the loneliness go away! It goes up and down; some days I'm busy and doing great, and other days I really miss everyone that had been such a part of my life over the past 10 years. I'm trying to focus on positives: we have met some new people, I'm reconnecting with some old friends, Evan and I have had a lot of time together (so we talk even more!), and we've had a lot of family time just the 4 of us. These are all good things...but none of that replaces the ladies that I no longer get to see every week! 

So, because I've been feeling sentimental, here are photos from the going away party that our dance friends threw for us in September. This was actually before we had even officially sold our house, but once we had the date set we couldn't change it as too many people were involved!

Our friends booked a pavilion at Franklin Park, and unfortunately it was a cold rainy day...but we had a nice time anyway! Well, as nice of a time as you can when saying goodbye. The girls were adorable together - I love these two photos of them taking a photo of themselves! I got the first one, and another mom got the second one, at the same time from a different angle. Then the girls were nice enough to pose for me.

This photo kills me. Natalie's friends were all going to miss her so much...and she definitely misses them.

Henry's buddy Garrett was there too - these two are so darn cute together, and Henry's asking now when he will see G again! We are hopefully going to get G and his sister down here for a sleepover before too long.

The dads braved the weather to grill for us; here are a couple of them with Evan. Beer and meat help to make the weather less dreary!

Then, at the end of the party, they surprised me with a birthday cake as my bday was only a couple of weeks away. So nice to be able to celebrate with friends!

Of course, once again, we failed to get a pick of all of us awesome ladies together. Thank you to all of you who were there (Lisa, Danielle, Stephanie, Jennifer, Debbie, Cheryl, Lydia, Leah - I hope I didn't forget anyone!). I miss you all!

Dog Swim at AV Symington

Not quite two weeks after our final group trip to AV Symington for the summer, I went back for a special event - the dog swim! They do this every year, after the pool closes on Labor Day, and I always thought it would be so much fun to go, but Calla HATED the water so we never really had a reason to. Knowing how much Lucy LOVES the water, I immediately signed her up for the event!

Unlike when we had gone just two weekends prior, the day was quite overcast, and frankly a bit chilly! But Lucy doesn't care about that, right? Nope, not a bit.

We didn't spend too much time in this area of the pool (where it's easy to just walk in), because not long after this a dog had a pretty bad #2 right there and I really didn't want Lucy to be wandering through there.

Some of the other dogs really enjoyed swimming in the lazy river (the labs, for example, really liked the current moving them, I could tell). Lucy wandered through the lazy river entrance a bit, but decided it wasn't for her.

What she really loved was the pool where the big slides spit out. There were a lot of tennis balls floating around for the dogs, and she loved having us throw the ball into the water for her.

This was definitely fun, and I'm really glad we got to go! We went pretty early, and there were probably about 50 or so dogs there when we left. I heard it got busier; we left once it reached the point where Lucy was just kind of running around and not really swimming anymore. Other dogs are distracting! Here's hoping there's an event like this in Charlottesville next summer.

AV Symington with friends

Before the summer ended, we were able to get back to AV Symington with our friends! We really love that water park; it's been so nice having one right in Leesburg. And it's always a good excuse to get together with our friends there for the day! So, at the end of August, Kathy and Beth came out with their families so we could all spend the day there together. I took a bunch of photos; here were my favorites (from my waterproof camera).

Natalie & Rosie

Kathy & Stella (gotta love that tongue!)

A Freeburt family photo!

Fun with my family in the lazy river (a family favorite). Henry is too darn cute.

An attempt at a selfie with the waterproof camera!

To try to recreate an older photo we took here years ago, we put all of the girls up on the snake. Now they can all hang on without needing us moms to keep them up there!

But we decided to jump in anyway and get a photo of ALL of the ladies.

A couple of my cute kiddos

A Macbeth family portrait!

And us lovely mommas

It's nice to go back and look at these photos again now for two reasons. First, it's so chilly (and will only be chillier on Thanksgiving!) that it's almost hard to imagine being this warm outside. Second, we will miss AV Symington! I'm pretty sure there's a water park somewhere in C'ville, but we will have to investigate that. I'm glad we had one more time there with our friends before moving!