This and that

Mark and I went over to UVA this week to attend their production of "Wonderful Town" this week. I love musicals.  They are so fun. The songs were great and the performers did a nice job but it was so long. It was 2.5 hours long and they didn't start till 8:00! That is probably normal in the theatre world but when you have a 15 minute intermission and start at 8:00 it makes for a late night. We enjoyed the show and going out and doing something different together. This picture makes me smile because honestly I think we have maybe 3 selfies of us together. We just aren't that cool.

Jared on the other hand is pretty cool.  He has been interested in playing Connect Four lately and one day while I was gone he and Mark were playing and he beat Mark. It was his first time beating Mark so a picture was needed.  It is a pretty boring game until your opponent starts learning to block you.

Saturday turned out to be a rather eventful day. Mark took Jared and Lydia to Charlottesville's Dogwood Festival Parade.  It was a little rainy but he said it was a fun parade and Jared and Lydia enjoyed it.

 Dogwood Court Princess's

I was not with them as a few months ago I had signed up to attend an all day women's conference here put on by Southern Virginia University.  They had some great presenters and different service opportunities.  I decided weeks ago I would sign up to give blood. I have't given blood in a really long time but the last time I did it everything went well. Not so much yesterday. I got in, completed my mini physical and started the process then I passed out! I remember waking up and drinking some apple juice and then I passed out again!  It was so bad.  After I came around the second time I started to feel really sick. I told the attendant I thought I was going to throw up and they got me a bag just in time.  It was so gross.  I felt so bad.  I called Mark and asked him to come pick me up.  I had plans to go to lunch with some friends and totally canceled on that.  I felt pretty sick all afternoon and just tok it easy at home. I do not think I will be donating blood again any time soon. I tried to help out but I think I was more of a hindrance to the people working there. They did almost get all they were aiming for so at least something was gained.

This Thursday we close on our house!  We are updating the kitchen so for weeks we have been going  back and forth on cabinet colors.  Do we get painted white cabinets or go with a really dark stain? Mark thinks he wants white more and I tend to like the dark stain more but really I just want to get them ordered so I am good either way.  What would you do? We are also planning on repainting the walls a nice aqua blue. Here are some pictures of our kitchen as it currently looks. We are also ordering new counter tops and Mark plans on tiling the floor. These are big projects so I am anxious to get them going.  Mark plans on demoing the kitchen May 09th!

This coming Saturday is my first ever 10K! I have been training since the beginning of March and am feeling ready.  It is great to see/feel how much I have improved. Saturday (the day of my fainting) I was supposed to run 4 miles. I got back to the entrance to our neighborhood and decided to keep running. I just wanted to see how I felt running more.  I felt great!  I ended up running 5.5 miles instead of the 4 and am really happy with how I felt after I got home.  I am pretty excited for the race.  We are driving up to Winchester Friday night.  The race is part of their Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival so we are killing 2 birds with one stone.  We will stay the night Friday then I will do my run the next morning and then they have a big parade and all kinds of events all day Saturday.  I am not trying to set an amazing time record I just want to run the whole 6 miles.  Hope it goes well.

More homework please

Yesterday as Mark and I were finishing dinner Jared and Lydia were both doing "homework."  Lydia was actually drawing a picture and using a glue stick but not actually gluing anything... and Jared was working in a tracing book. He has recently discovered mazes and thinks they are pretty great.  I so wish I knew how to keep this enthusiasm for learning active. Mark and I talked about how even good students really don't want homework and I don't expect Jared to really enjoy it when he gets older but I am sure it would make teachers and parents really happy if kids could keep this level of enthusiasm. Maybe all homework just needs to be in the form of mazes?

He was on a homework kick because Tuesday was Jared and Lydia's first swimming lesson and their teacher gave them homework to complete while they took their baths. Jared and Lydia were so excited to be at their lesson.  They are in the same class which makes it really nice for me.  They are in the first level and loved their first lesson. There are only 4 kids in the class so lots of one on one time with the teacher.  I really hope they get some good practice and we will all feel confident that they can swim this summer.  I am hoping to sign them up for a second session in June. I had never been to the pool before and totally got lost on my way.  Luckily I was not far off and got there early enough that it all worked out fine.  They were great listeners and so excited to be taking their lessons.

Yesterday, a local ice cream/frozen custard store, (Khor Brothers) was having a .05 cents cone day. It was such a deal.  We tried to go around 10:30 before story time but they didn't open until 11:00 so that was a bummer.  The property management people have been showing this town home to lots of people and while we do not have to be gone when they show it we most often are.  The showing yesterday was scheduled for 1:45 - 2:15 right in the middle of Lydia's nap (SO annoying) so I was planning on letting her sleep until they got here then leaving to get ice cream.  By 2:05 they hadn't showed up so I ended up getting her up and going to get ice cream because we had to pick Sam up by 2:45.  It worked out really well there were only 3 people in line in front of us and they had so many people working it was great.  We drove by later and the line was out the door and around the building.  It was delicious. I love when stores do fun things like that.

Right now I feel like Jared and Lydia are just in these magical ages.  They are getting old enough to do fun things, we don't have to worry about naps as much and they get along so well.  It's so nice. We were able to go on a nice little bike ride yesterday too.  When we came to visit Charlottesville last April we did not get a very good first impression as the road we came in on was a huge construction mess.  They have since then almost finished the road and as they completed a side road that comes off it they extended this really nice paved walking path. (I love paved walking paths!! So much!!) The other side of the path is not very level but this new side is perfect for bike riding.  Jared and Lydia had a blast speeding along it. It is fun to see them enjoying their bikes. I think Lydia will be ready for a new bike (not a balance bike) pretty soon.  They both do great.  I am so happy we are having some nice spring weather and that we live somewhere that has all these great places to check out.  Charlottesville is such a perfect place for us right now and we are so happy to be here.  This year really has been kind of magical. Next year Jared will be in school which will really change up our routines.  I am just so glad we were here for this time.

Fun things

I looked though the pictures on my phone the other day and found some fun things we had done that didn't really fit under a specific title but I thought I should mention here so here they are in no particular order.

Jared and Lydia both got their charm jars filled and both opted to watch movies. Mark and Jared watched Hook at home and I took Lydia to see the new Cinderella movie.  It was the first time Lydia went to a movie in the theater.  (We watched most of "Meet the Mormons" at the DC temple visitors center back in January or February which is very movie theater like. I was surprised when I walked in there how huge that room is) She did great and liked the movie. Jared said he wanted to watch Hook again when he filled his jar.

With the beautiful spring weather we have been having we have taken lots of walks. We have also gone on bike rides and today we went "creeking".  I am so impressed by the variety of flowering trees here!  It is so gorgeous.  First came the daffodils and then the popcorn trees started.  There were white, light pink, dark pink, purple, yellow and red! It has been so fun to drive around and see all the colors and the stages they go through.

 White popcorn trees

 This is like a weeping cherry blossom tree!  It is so pretty this picture does not do it justice at all!

 These are a beautiful purple in real life. I had never seen purple popcorn trees and they may be my favorite.

These yellow forthysca trees are so bright.  People told me spring was amazing here and they were so right!

We stopped by Ivy Creek today to go on a little hike and then play in the water. The water was still pretty cold when you first touched it but I was surprised at how quickly we got used to it.  I went with my friend Laura and all our kids ended up getting soaked but they all had a great time.  I was slightly paranoid about ticks and poison ivy but we all seem to have come out just fine.  Jared did trip while running down the path and got a nasty scratch but he still had a great time. I had some crocs for Lydia in the next box of clothes but they are way too big. I grabbed Jared's flip flops from last year for her but they ended up being more of a hassle. Poor Lydia. I will have to get her a real pair of water shoes that actually stay on her feet. It was a beautiful day and I can see us going back many times.

We also spent a morning downtown a few weeks back at the Paramount Theatre.  Charlottesville hosts a "Festival of the Book" each March.  Authors and speakers are invited from all over (and many local ones too) to host seminars and classes and book signings. Many schools put on plays and poetry readings.  It's such a great idea. They have events for all ages.  I love that they have a community festival about reading! We did not participate in too many events this year but they did have PBS come and show 2 episodes of Daniel Tiger in this fancy old theater.  Each family who attended was given a free Daniel Tiger book.  Jared and Lydia were not familiar with Daniel Tiger so we watched  a few shows on Netflix that week.  They loved watching it on the big screen and being in the theatre. Its actually a pretty cute helpful show!

We also had a few fun outings last week while Mark was on Spring break.  We couldn't do anything too exciting as I was watching Sam all week but Jared and Lydia really enjoyed having Mark around. It was kind of rainy that week too so that sort of limited our options.  The first day was beautiful though and we headed over to Walnut Creek to play.  We met my friend Laura there. It is about 20 minutes away from town and not really by anything so there are not too many people who go out there which is too bad for them because it is a great little park.  They have a lake (we went swimming there Labor Day), hikes. a playground, a frisbee golf course, and space to ride bikes.  We took a picnic lunch and enjoyed playing on the playground, hiking, searching for shells in the lake (and scaring away any fish people were trying to catch), and riding bikes.  Mark even got to play 16 holes of frisbee golf so he was really happy.  He lost one disc and got a nasty scratch from a fallen brandh but still had a good time. It was great to ride bikes there because there is so much space, its level and there is so few cars.  It is fun to see Jared riding so confidently and going so fast.  He loves it. We stayed for a good three hours and wore our kids out.

We went to the temple Friday.  It typically takes us just over 2 hours to get there but this time it took us just over 3!  It was pretty torturous.  My phone said there was a traffic "incident" and a traffic accident not too far from each other. I am not really sure what the difference is but they really interfered with our drive. It was nice to be there though.

Saturday we went out to Duck Donuts. They are a doubt store from the Outer Banks in North Carolina and they just opened a location here. They are a similar operation to Krispy Kreme's only in my opinion they taste so much better. They have a basic cake donut that they make fresh and then you choose your "toppings".  We picked chocolate with rainbow sprinkles (Jared and Lydia), orange, lemon, maple and cinnamon sugar.  It was fun to see them make the donuts and then watch them "dip" them in the toppings.  I loved the orange one.  They have bacon pieces as a topping which so many people love but I am not a bacon person so we did not try that.  The orange was my favorite.  They were all so good, so fresh.  We will for sure go again.

So... there are the highlights.  We close on our house on the 30th which is coming up really soon. Mark has been researching kitchen cabinets and they are sadly really expensive!  We will see what we come up with.  We are going to the house on Friday for some final measurements then we will start making our choices.  We are getting really excited!

Conference Weekend

Conference was hard this year! The first session typically went well as Lydia was napping and we hadn't been sitting around for 2 hours but we all struggled during the second session. Well, maybe Mark didn't but Jared, Lydia and I did although with those two struggling it was not the best listening environment. Thank goodness they talks are all available to read again.  We had fun treats and activities and they went well but 4 hours is a lot of sitting around. We also enjoyed our conference cinnamon rolls.  I made the bunny buns last Sunday because I really didn't want that much baking in one weekend! Mark had invited the YM over for the Priesthood session with some success.  There was one YM and 4 adults. Ice cream was enjoyed by all though and I think it was fun of him to do it.  As the adults were talking to the YM who came they asked him if he was planning on watching conference on Sunday and he said probably not, that he would rather do it if it was more of a group thing (not much of his family is involved with the church) so one of the counselors picked him up and had him watch conference with him which I think was really great.

These were our talk treats. When a certain word was said we got to eat one if we heard it. It worked better for Jared than Lydia but she tried. Jared was really excited that Elder Bednar spoke early on in the meeting. He said he is his favorite. When we asked him why he was his favorite his first answer was because he wore a blue tie! He was thrilled when he was wearing a blue tie again this year.  We talked about how lots of other speakers did too but Elder Bednar was still the favorite I don't blame him as I really enjoy his talks too!

One extra fun part was that Mark's niece Hannah and her husband Matt came over from DC to hang out with us. They got here Friday evening and spent most of Saturday with us. It was so great to see them! They have been in DC since January for an internship for Matt but we have't gotten to meet up. We are so glad they were willing to drive over here. It was great to visit with them.  They were good sports and hung out at the park with us for the egg hunt Saturday morning and watched conference with us. After the first session Saturday we headed over to UVA to get some fresh air. We loved visiting with them.

Easter

Easter came so soon after St. Patricks day this year!  I always prefer the years where it is at the end of April. Having it the same weekend as conference makes it sort of tricky too but it is a very special holiday that we have had fun celebrating.  I'm always sad when Easter is over because the next big holiday in my mind is the 4th of July which is quite far away.  It may be a good thing this year though because between now and then we will move into our new house, I am running a 10K, I will spend one week at girls camp, and we will spend 2 weeks out West.  It may be helpful that I am not trying to do all these "traditions" with the whole packing and organizing a preschool thing as well. It is going to be a busy summer!  Mark is on spring break this week so we are hoping to get out and play a lot.

We made Easter treats and art projects, had some fun learning activities, dyed eggs, went on an egg hunt and got all our Resurrection eggs done on time.  For the longest time I always thought there were 14 eggs like 2 weeks, so I always started late.  This year I remembered there are only 12 and started on time.  Jared and Lydia really enjoyed them.  I love how they tell a little part of the story each night.

Here are our Easter activities highlights.

 The "Feed the Bunny" game from last year was the favorite!

  Working hard on identifying numbers.

Bunny Buns!  Jared and Lydia added the tails for me.

We went to a park for an egg hunt that some friends from our ward organized.  It was nice and low key.

Jared was not into pictures after Church last week but this cute little girl was.