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!
