Also in March

Lydia had a busy March at school.  First she had her First Grade Musical. It was all about the "Litter Muncher" and working together to keep your community clean.  There were some fun songs and she (and all the 1st graders) did a good job.  Mark was able to come watch her show as his student teacher could just cover the class and she was thrilled that he came.

She also had Kid Town.  First grade puts on Kid Town every year as part of their economics unit.  They learn about money and buying and selling and how communities and business work.  They make things to sell and elect officials.  It's a big deal.  Jared still talks about how much he loved it.

Her first task was to be a worker at the Bowling Alley.  This was actually really fun.  We set up the pins together and chased down the bowling balls.  It was nice to have something to do instead of just stand around at a shop.  After I left she became a shopper and had fun buying pets and other items. In previous years Kid Town has been held in the first grade classrooms and families can walk around and visit each one.  This year it was held in the cafeteria and everyone was altogether.  It was pretty crowded but I guess it felt more town like?  They were also selling actual pizza which I know they did not do when Jared was in first grade.  Students could still use Kid Town money to buy it which was nice.  Jared really wanted to go to Kid Town and since Lydia was involved his teachers let him come.  I thought he would leave when I did but he stayed the whole time which was nice for Lydia, especially since I left to get back to work.  His class was just watching a movie so it worked out really well. 

Admittedly I was pretty irritated at the time they chose to have parents come participate this year.  It was scheduled for the last day of school before Spring break (Thursday) which also happened to be a half day.  They set it for 9:30 - 10:30.  School starts at 7:55 - 8:00 and on half days it ends at 11:30.  For working or even not working parents this is kind of ridiculous.  If they did it at the start of the day they could go into work a little bit late then have some solid time to get stuff done before their kids are out of school for a week.  Even if they did it at the end of the half day they could have a solid chunk of time to be at home/work.  I mean people are already probably taking off time or paying for care for Spring break so to interrupt the half day like that just really rubbed me the wrong way.  I am very fortunate the Mark takes Jared and Lydia to school each day and that the people I work with are so awesome and flexible.  I went into work a little early (7:40 instead of 8:00) and they told me to use a parking pass instead of parking in my assigned garage.  (I am still above 100 on the waiting list 6 months into working so maybe by next January I will have a place in the lot by my building.) That way I was a 2 minute walk away from work instead of a 12 -14 minute walk (depending on crosswalk lights). It's a 20 minute drive to their school so I left at 9:10 got to the school just after 9:30 and stayed until 10:10.  My goal was to be back at work by 10:30 and it worked out fine.  Jared and Lydia took the bus home (getting here around 12:00) and I got home around 12:45.  I actually had a real scare as I left work.  I called home to let them know I was on my way and that I would get there in about 35 minutes.  The phone rang and nobody answered.  I waited 10 minutes and called again still no answer.  By this time they definitely should have been off the bus.  I mean they should have been by the first time I called (I later found out they were).  So having just finished listening to the Podcast Serial and having a pretty worse case scenario mindset I was starting to freak out.  I called Mark to give him a heads up and left him a message (his school got out at 1:00).  I told myself that they were most likely just playing outside.  I pulled into the driveway and saw books and a cup on the front porch so they had made it home.  As I parked the car Lydia popped her head our from the back deck to say hi and told me Jared was out in the woods!  This was really not cool.  I called Jared in and told him how I called home and was really scared that they didn't answer.  They were very apologetic and said they had just forgot they weren't supposed to go outside.  Its very uncommon for them to come home and there to not be an adult here like it never happens.  We will have to remind them better the night before if the situation comes up again.  UVA gives employees 8 hours of school/community volunteer time but I want to save that for their Field day in June.  So, back to the annoying hours, if Kid Town had been scheduled for a different time or an afternoon (the last hour of school when I'm already off work) like it has been in the past, I could have not had to drive 20 minutes there and back and interrupt the work day and I could have been home to meet my kids off the bus.  End rant.

We also had a surprise visitor.  Mark's friend Justin (they met in Turlock in the 3rd grade and were really good friends growing up, still are today) called us at the end of last week to let us know that he was coming our way for a training class.  We figured he meant DC and said we would be happy to meet him there and hangout and he said, "No I am coming to Charlottesville, to Darden Business School at UVA."  We were really excited.  He got to town Sunday afternoon and we enjoyed visiting for a few hours and then we met up again Thursday after his class finished, around 2:00.  It was a really nice day so we went over to a park to play and then out to dinner.  It was really great to hang out with Justin.  Jared and Lydia, especially Lydia really like him. I don't blame them, he's great (and so is his family we would love to find some time to meet up with them)

Weekly Sunday Pancakes for Lunch 

  

After Dinner

Lastly, we went to a Cub Scout Pack Meeting and the activity was Human Foosball.  This was the night before the 10 Miler so there was no way I was going to play and risk an injury (which sounds so ridiculous but after all that training I was not going to risk it) but those who did play seemed to have a great time.  I did stay by the sidelines and throw the ball in when it went out of bounds.  Jared loved it.  Mark just called new Cub Scout leaders and they are really great.  I hope they can stay in when the new program comes out.  Maybe it will even get announced at Conference this week? It was a good evening. 

Jared as Goalie. 

Cherry Blossoms

Years ago my friend Tara told me about an amazing neighborhood called Kenwood near Bethseda Maryland.  The neighborhood has large, beautiful well cared for houses and over 1200 cherry blossom trees.  We sadly were there about 5 days too early.  Just now I read online that this neighborhood typically blooms about 4 days after the Capital. If only I had read that last night.  This upcoming Monday has been slated as the peak days for the blossoms in DC.  Next Saturday is General Conference and Mark will be out of town with Jared and Lydia Wednesday - Saturday so today was our best chance to go.  I am tempted to drive up there myself and check them out after work Friday! Even being early the streets were beautiful and I can only imagine how breathtaking it would be in full bloom.  Maybe next year.  Tara recommended taking bikes and riding around the neighborhood to view the blossoms so that is what we did.  I am happy we are to a point where we all have bikes and proficient riding skills to attempt such an outing.  We packed a picnic lunch and had a great morning.  This was the farthest we have driven with our bike rack and it worked great.  The neighborhood is just so well cared for.  There were hills involved but they were much more manageable than streets here in Charlottesville.  It was so fun to ride around there and the weather was perfect.  Lydia did struggle here and there which surprised me because she loves riding her bike so much.  But over all she was able to ride and enjoy herself.

This is actually one of the smaller houses in the area.  

After riding around the neighborhood we drove about 30 minutes away to the Meadowbrook Botanical Gardens.  Again we were about a week too early.  It was easy to see how pretty it would be in full bloom.  Even though things were just blooming and beginining to turn green in some ways it was the perfect time for us to go because I love daffodils and they were in full bloom. After wandering around the gardens we hit the road to our next stop Moo-Thru Ice Cream.  We were all happy to be there and didn't mind waiting in the crazy long line.

I am not sure I have seen this variety of daffodil.  It was gorgeous.  The center starts yellow and then as it moves up it merges into a beautiful orange and then coral.  It's different than the white and orange ones I have seen elsewhere.

One thing I noticed about VA after moving here was just how abundant daffodils are.  They are almost like weeds here!  It's amazing.  Even driving down 29, the main highway around here huge patches of daffodils just pop up.  Today I made Mark pull over so I could get some (bad) pictures of them.  They make me really happy.  Spring is really so beautiful here.

These guys (and ice cream) make me really happy too! 

Port days

The three ports we went ashore to were: Palermo, Italy, Mallorca, Spain and Barcelona.  None of us were particularly interested in Palermo and it ended up being our favorite one.  Had we made it to Malta and Genoa those might have won but I guess we will never know.

Palermo: (Sicily) 

We got off the ship made our way through the large groups of tour guides offering their services and started walking towards downtown. It was a beautiful quiet morning.  One of the many things we appreciated about Palermo was that we could just walk off the ship and be within walking distance to all the major attractions.  We were walking down the street and looked down a side street and saw this beautiful plaza and it became our first stop.  Just around the corner from the plaza was the Quatrro Canti (Four Corners) Each corner has a similar set of statues.  

Our next stop was the Palermo Cathedral.  We enjoyed walking around it and then noticed you could pay a small fee (5 euros each and Jared and Lydia were free) and go out on the roof.  We were so happy we could do this since we were not able to do it at Saint Peters.  It was beautiful outside and the views were great. 

We all loved being up there.  Next on the list was the Norman Palace.  Lydia was not thrilled to stop here but Mark was.  He loves mosaics and this palace had some amazing ones.  It reminded both of us of our trip to Southern Spain many years ago.   Mark loves buildings like this.  The arches and courtyards and mosaics.  They were impressive although Lydia would not agree with this assessment. 

She had a major meltdown but was able to pull her self together with some encouragement talk of gelato. 

None of these are painted, they are all mosaics. 

After the palace we headed back though the main shopping streets and did indeed stop for gelato.  We had read online that Palermo was known for their cannolis so I opted for one of them instead of gelato and was not disappointed.  While waiting to cross an intersection we got to witness one of those classic Italian stereotypes.  Tons of vespas waiting at a a light and then all of them pulling out.  It was great. 

We were all pleasantly surprised by Palermo.  It had quite a few negative reviews and we were glad we mostly ignored them and had a fun day there. 

The next port was Mallorca, Spain.  This is a tiny island about 125 miles away from Barcelona.  We sadly did not get any sunshine while we were there (which would have made the water so beautiful) and didn't have any time to look up things to do so Sue booked a city bus tour excursion through our cruise ship.  As I've now read a bit about it online I can see its appeal but for us it was kind of a dud.  Plus we were just disappointed to miss Malta and Lydia was still recovering from the day before where she was sick all day.  We started at Bellver Castle and got a pretty view of the city, again some sunshine would have been great to make the water its so called beautiful colors.  The tour guide commented that that day was the first cloudy day in weeks... After that we stopped at a pearl factory and a bull fighting ring.  I never really planned to visit a bill fighting ring so that was different.  We did enjoy a nice walk through their version of "Las Ramblas" and got some fresh juice and attempted to make some giant bubbles.  There is a giant Cathedral there but we only checked out the gardens and courtyards nearby.  So it was fine but we still wish we could have just gone to Malta.  We had such fun plans for that day.  

Our view:

Someone else's view:

Sue the matador. 

The Cathedral:  

Downtown walking area and Giant Bubbles

Mark is always on the lookout for cheap fresh juice.  

This was not cheap but he enjoyed it.  Belize will always win I think.

The next day we stopped in Barcelona.  This was sadly Jared's sick day.  Sue opted to stay on the boat and said she would check on Jared periodically and told us to go explore the city.  Its a really pretty city but it is so spread out.  We walked and walked.  Lydia was a really good sport.  Mark and I visited Barcelona in December 2007 (I think, or January 2008) and I remember walking so much then too.  Its really so pretty and has a great vibe but it is pretty exhausting.  One of the big attractions is the very unique work of Gaudi.  We slowly made made our way to Parc Guell stopping at La Boqueria a fun outdoor market on Las Ramblas and a cathedral.  We stopped at a chocolate factory in hopes of getting some hot chocolate and churros only to find out that that is a Madrid thing not a Barcelona thing.  Mark and I were bummed as we loved that treat in Madrid.  I also hoped we would see more chocolate being made but no luck.  After a long walk and 2 metro rides we made it to Park Guell only to find that it was being renovated and now a ticketed event.  What a disappointment.  When we went all those years ago you just walked through the park and could see the buildings.  Now you have to get timed tickets.  You can still see the structures from the street but sadly just can't wander around as you could before.  Our last stop was La Sagrada Familia.  We could see considerable progress has been made in the last 10 years since we were there last but they still have so far to go!  It was a beautiful sunny warm day and again its such a pretty city but we were pretty ready to get back to the ship.  I was really tired from being up with Lydia one night and then Jared the night before.  And it was sad to not have Jared with us. 

Las Ramblas

La Boqueria

This market was fun and colorful

Barcelona Cathedral

Chocolate factory: The tickets were bars of chocolate!  So clever.  That was my favorite part. 

There were some very impressive chocolate sculptures and cool displays about different chocolate chefs styles.

Bull Ring (since we had just been to one)

La Sagrada Familia in Chocolate

Parc Guell (Gaudi)

La Sagrada Familia:  it's a crazy piece of art.  It's just so different from any other church I've seen. 

We enjoyed visiting these different cities and it was cool how different they were from each other. Yes, it would have been great to finish the cruise so we could visit the other cities and see more than the Marseilles countryside but we were really happy to get home too.