OBX: Walking around Manteo

In August the kids and I went to the Outer Banks for a few days, staying with my Aunt Linda in her condo in Manteo. I was so glad we got to do this, for many reasons, including the fact that it was our only beach trip of 2018. Unfortunately Evan couldn't join us due to work, so the kids and I packed up for the long weekend and headed down.

The first morning after we arrived (we got down late on a Wednesday night), I went for a walk through Manteo, along the water. I'm so glad I had my phone with me, as it was so pretty that morning!

And the following evening, we all went for a walk together in the same area. The setting sun made for some beautiful photos as well.

This is the same dock/building as in the second photo above!

It's always nice when the kids pose for me!

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!

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.

Final pool party of the summer!

Our friend Will hosted one last pool party at his house in August, before summer ended. Can you guess, from the photos below, what the hit of the party was?

Who doesn't love a giant inflatable rainbow unicorn?! This was a gift to Will from Kathy & Eric, after Eric broke the giant swan raft that Will had purchased. I think the unicorn was a bigger hit :)

There were other floats in the pool that were well used by the kiddos too.

The other big hit were the water shooters.

 What's a good target? Why, the unicorn of course!

 And then, what's a good target for the girls? Henry on the unicorn, of course!

As always, lots of fun to spend the day with our friends. Thanks for having us all over, Will!

Sunflower farm: Kids' photos

In August, I took the kids to Burnside Farm. Located on Route 15 South of Leesburg, they do a number of pick-your-own events throughout the year. I knew about their sunflower event from other photographers in the area (it's a popular place to do photo shoots!), but we hadn't ever had a chance to go. On the last weekend of August, I was able to carve out some time to take the kids. Each of us was armed with a camera, ready to take some sunflower photos!

First up: my favorite shots that Henry took. He had my point-and-shoot; I made sure the settings were appropriate for the lighting, gave him a short lesson on zooming and framing, and he was off! Here are my favorite shots that he took.

I remember him pointing out the flower below - it hadn't yet fully opened, and was still green. He thought the fact that it was green was pretty darn cool!

Until I went through these photos, I had completely forgotten that he asked to take a photo of me! I really love it.

Oh, yeah - one of the cool things that they give you when you enter the farm is this very cool sunflower umbrella for while you're there! You'll be seeing that more in my photos in the next post.

Now, on to Natalie's photos. She was shooting on my Canon Rebel, which I'm slowly teaching her how to use. I did make sure her settings were good, too, but I look forward to explaining to her further what all of the buttons are responsible for! These are my favorite photos of hers. I like that she zoomed in for more macro shots.

I love seeing the flowers through their eyes - what they choose to focus on, how they view the scene, etc.

Musical Theater Camp: Aladdin

It's the final post on the kids' summer activities! For the first two weeks in August, Henry continued to attend Ida Lee Summer Fun camp while Natalie went to musical theater camp with a few of her friends. We (the parents) discussed, and with the kids' input chose to sign them up for Aladdin. In the course of two weeks they would cast, rehearse, and put on a full 30 min version of Aladdin of the show!

Because I was off work those two weeks (which was not planned when we first signed up for the camp), I was able to help with the carpool. In fact, I drove 5 girls to camp in Purcellville almost every morning. That was quite the experience - listening to them was very entertaining! But I was proud of them - they worked hard and helped to put on a fantastic show.

The girls actually put on 3 shows: one afternoon performance, and two evenings. I went to the first evening performance and offered to take photos to then be used as desired by the organization, and also to be distributed to all of the parents. Here are some of my favorite shots from during the performance - well, of the scenes that Natalie was in, at least!

Can you spot Natalie? She's a little hard to find in the above photo. In the next one, she's on the bottom right, wearing orange (next to the girl in blue).

Ok, Natalie's not in this one, but I love this shot. It's at the end of "Friend Like Me", and my friend Danielle's daughter Mia was cast as the genie (in the front in blue).

Natalie was then in "Prince Ali", complete with ribbon!

And here are a couple of shots from the big finale. Natalie is all the way in the back, in the middle.

This last one is definitely one of my favorite shots!

The girls all did so well; I know Natalie loved being on stage. She was even complimented by some friends who came to see the show on how much energy and stage presence she had! We may have a musical theater girl on our hands in a couple of years.

Here she is with her friend Carson after their show.

And after her last performance (the one we watched), I took some photos of her and her friends with my phone.  Carson, Lila, and Natalie were all in the show together. :)

But they had a bunch of friends from dance who came to watch them perform, which made them all so happy!

I like that in our family photos, Henry is wearing his tie-dye tshirt that he made in camp :)