Fun with friends from Leesburg

In February, we were fortunate to host three of Natalie's Leesburg friends! Her friends Bella and Bridgette came first, to join Natalie at a modern dance workshop at CBA and then to spend the night. The girls all agreed that the workshop was not exactly what they were looking for, but they were glad to have tried something different.

And of course, no sleepover with friends is now complete without some time in our hot tub!

Followed by movie and dog cuddle time on the couch!

Then, a couple of weekends later, we did a kid-swap with the Carlsons - Lily came to our house for the night, while Henry went to their house for a sleepover with Lily's brother Garrett. We had a lovely dinner out, and the girls stayed up late having lots of fun catch-up time in person.

What did I say above? Gotta have hot tub time!

And the boys had a blast too! Love this photo of them :)

Natalie's 11th birthday

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had a really big snow storm in December that kept us all in the house for a couple of days. The snow fall started on the day we were supposed to have Natalie's 11th birthday party, so sadly we had to cancel that, but luckily her friend Kendall from our neighborhood was able to walk over, play in the snow, and have cupcakes with us.

 

The week before, Natalie was given this lovely card signed by all of the dance teachers at her studio, many of whom she's never even had! What a nice thing to do for the students.

On Natalie's birthday, although it was a Monday and Evan and I had to work, we wanted to make sure that it was a super fun snow day!

So we bundled up early and headed out. How lovely is my family in the snow?!

As we anticipated, Lucy REALLY loved the snow. I had to keep dragging her back in to pull the snowballs off of her fur (see photo above). Plus I didn't want her paws to freeze!

Our house and yard was just so pretty. I loved as the sun started to come out.

 

By mid afternoon the plows had come through, we had a neighbor kid shovel us out (with his fantastic snow blower!), and we were able to leave the house for Natalie's birthday dinner. She chose Bonefish Grill as she wanted seafood, and they gave her a small box of chocolates and a gift card for later use! She was one happy camper.

And since there wasn't going to be any school the next day, and it was her birthday, we agreed to some evening hot tubbing in the snow! It really is fun; I'd never done that before moving here!

And afterwards, was time for birthday singing and cupcakes. A pretty great birthday all around, I would say!

OBX: Wrap-up

While I would say the biggest excursion we did during our quick OBX trip this summer was our day at the aquarium, we did a few other things as well!

First, we went all the way up to Duck to go to the Sanderling Inn pool, as my aunt has a membership there due to owning property in the area. Waterproof camera for the win!

We went to lunch afterwards at a cafe in Duck and got some delicious desserts after lunch!

Second, I took the kids one afternoon to a trampoline center in Manteo to burn off some energy. Pretty fun place, and it worked to get rid of that energy!

Henry wasn't ever able to knock Natalie off of this joust, so it wasn't his favorite thing, but this video is pretty cute (this was before he got upset).

We tried this first climbing area multiple times - we called it the ninja warrior course because it was really hard! Natalie made it up onto the first of those thin, red climbing pieces and didn't get any farther. Henry was unfortunately too short to reach from one part to another for much of it, but I give the kids a lot of credit for not giving up and keeping trying (while we all laughed a lot at their failed attempts).

Third, on our last morning there (before heading home later that day), we finally hit the beach! The kids and I got up very early for sunrise donuts on the beach, some seashell hunting, sand digging, and ocean swimming. Advantage to going to the beach at that time of day, in far south Nags Head - the beach was empty!

While I wish we could have spent more time at the OBX this year, I think that we got a lot out of our 3 days there!

End of 2017-2018 school year

As we just started the new school year (photos of that to come soon, if all goes to plan!), I thought I'd post a few photos from the last week of the last school year. I try to do these comparison shots every school year, to show how the kids have grown over the year. Definitely both of them are bigger - I particularly see it in Henry in these shots!

I actually missed the last day of school (which was a Wednesday), and the two subsequent days as I was at a conference in Toronto. Evan arranged for the kids to have a couple of playdates with friends on those days.

 

Natalie got to go to the lake in Maryland with her friend Sara (they've done this every summer now for years!).

While Henry got to go play with his friend Roman at the Douglass Community Center, in town.

It was a good kick off to many adventures with friends throughout the summer!

Lucy loves the water!

Springer spaniels, as a breed, have no problem getting dirty, or wet, or generally liking nature. For those of you who know us well, you'll know that those behavior traits are pretty much the opposite of Evan (and I to a lesser degree). So, we have to find ways to let Lucy engage in getting dirty and/or wet, without driving us crazy. Well, when it got hot, I figured - why not bring her down to Goose Creek, where the kids and I like to go?

Lucy of course loved the creek, as I thought she would. She stayed close enough to us that I was able to take the leash off of her, and let her explore some on her own.

 

The creek is fairly shallow there, with enough rocky shore spots that Lucy could escape from the water whenever she wanted. That's one wet dog!

 

The creek was actually pretty shallow, which let her really start to explore and see what this whole water thing was about.

But, it did get deep enough for her to actually swim - you can see her swimming a bit at the end of this video. Lucy did a great job on her first time swimming - a total natural. 

I took her back solo a second time, but I think she enjoyed it more the first time when we were there with the kids. We'll have to go again before the summer is over! She also had a totally different swimming experience just last weekend, but I'll talk about that when I post about it :) 

Lucy's first bath!

About a month after joining our family, I realized it was time for Lucy's first bath. She wasn't smelling so much like sweet puppy anymore, but much more like stinky puppy. There's a dog store called Happy Hound in Lansdowne that has two bathing stations set up - you bathe your dog, but you get to use their space and bath items. I had a coupon from them for a free bath, so I figured why not try it? The kids and I packed up Lucy and took her over.

As I expected from reading about Springer Spaniels, Lucy LOVES the water. She had no problem getting wet, loved standing in the spray, and was a really good pup during her bath!

She did NOT love the industrial hair dryer they had for drying pups; we'll try again with a regular hair dryer at a later date.

But overall, her first bath was a success, I would say!

I had Natalie record a couple of videos while I was bathing Lucy, as I had to capture the cute. Enjoy!

Finally, I had to include Lucy enjoying her very first "puppucino" from Starbucks on that same day (prior to her bath, actually). I found out they give these to you for free for your dog - it's a small cup filled with whip cream! I have yet to let her finish the whole thing (as that's a ton of whip cream), but she certainly enjoys her treat and has already learned that a walk to Starbucks means getting one!

Beach 2017: Family photos

In my penultimate beach 2017 post, I thought I'd pull together my favorite photos of the 4 of us from the beach. These don't really need much description - just my favorites! Let's start with photos taken with my waterproof camera - these first 4 were selfies. I've gotten pretty good at taking them with the waterproof camera!

 Beta was great about taking photos of everyone on the beach. She didn't go in the water too much, so she got photos of all of us while we were in the water. Here are some fun ones hat I didn't know she took!

A posed shot of us on the 4th of July.

 A family photo in the ocean.

 And one of Henry flying!

 Finally, Kathy used my camera to take this family picture in the pool (after I took them of all the other families). Yay beach vacation!

Beach 2017: Favorite shots from the pool

When we first arrived at the beach house, I pulled out my new camera to take some practice shots at the pool. This thing does not disappoint! Here are my favorite shots I took of the kids in the pool over our days at the beach.

 With this one, I tried to get all 5 to jump in at the same time. Katie jumped just a bit too early! But I still love the picture :) Look at those happy faces!

 Rosie (my friend Beth's daughter) absolutely loves Natalie. It was great that Natalie is finally old enough to be trusted to hold Rosie in the pool.

 I'm so glad that I finally invested in a good waterproof camera last year. The kids love when I take photos of them underwater!

 On one day in the pool, Kathy grabbed the camera and took a bunch of pictures of the kids. These are my favorites of the ones she took.

 Natalie looks like a mermaid here!

 On our last full day at the beach, we ended up being alone at the pool (I can't quite remember why; other families were doing other things). So, I used the opportunity to grab some photos of the kiddos. They loved these full snorkel masks that Zabby and Zane have; I think we'll have to get some next summer.

 Again, I tried to get synchronized jumping; not quite there!

 And finally, one last family selfie (of which there were others - I haven't posted those yet!) in the pool.