Marathon in a month, kayaking, BYU Ballroom Dance Performance

We didn't intend for Saturday to be so filled with fun events but sometimes it just happens. We started the day with a very un fun event, weeding. Weeding is one of mine Jared and Lydia's least favorite tasks.  Its just that time of year where we have to get out and do it all the time.  One of the preschool families had dug out a lot of daffodil bulbs from their yard and brought them over to me.  From my experience daffodils are supposed to be planted in the Fall but she assured me that I could plant them now with the green stems still attached and they would be fine so we did it.  We weeded our fire pit area and planted lots of bulbs.  Work first play next.

Marathon in a month has been going strong and Saturday was the day for our final mile.  We met up with a few other families to run our last 1.2 miles.  The two days before were so hot I was so grateful for the perfect weather we ended up with. We met at 10:30, ran our mile and then celebrated with popsicles and a simple medal ceremony.  One day earlier in the week I asked Jared if he wanted to get up early and run 3 miles with me.  He didn't pause for a second but excitedly said "yes!" He did great.  I was proud of him. I'm glad we did it as the idea of going out running after school on those 90+ degree days sounded awful to me.  It was nice to get the last 3 miles in on one day even if that is not technically the way it is supposed to go.  He was happy for the challenge and I was happy to get to do it with him.  Lydia finished off the month with a lot of scooter riding and not much running but she did it.  On Saturday she ran with Mark.  After the first lap she was ready to quit but Mark convinced her to finish strong.  I had brought streamers for a finish line and everyone loved breaking through it.  Jared was thrilled that he finished before everyone else.  It was a fun event.

Also, Lydia pulled out her own tooth Friday. It had been wobbly for awhile and she got tired of waiting for Mark to get home from school so she just did it herself. The top 2 have come in about half way and she now has 2 holes on the bottom. 

After marathon in a month we headed home with the idea to lay low until our fiesta.  But after being out in the perfect weather we decided to get a quick paddle in on the lake.  Mark quickly mowed the lawn and then we got the racks on the car.  I had just showered so I ended up skipping out this time but the three of them had a great time.  We are looking forward to some good kayaking time this summer.

After our fiesta we headed out to the final event of the day, the BYU Ballroom Dance Company performance.  I love these performances so much.  I have such fond memories of attending their events in Yuba City and then our family hosting dancers.  It feels like groups came out to Yuba City pretty frequently.  This July marks 4 years for us here in Charlottesville and this was the first time they or any performing group has come out here to my knowledge.  Jared was not looking forward to the performance very much and Lydia was so excited to see it and then she was such a pill during their show.  Part of it was just being tired from a busy day so I could see why but it still drove me a little crazy.  Right after the first number she looked at me and said, "don't ask me which one was my favorite at the end."  Noted.  Jared on the other hand loved it.  He was really glad we went. They do some awesome flips and lots of lifts which both kids thought were amazing.  They have fun costumes and are really talented. Their opening number was really impressive.  Every time they did a cool lift Lydia would look at me to see if I saw it too. That part was super cute and fun. The opening number was a song from The Greatest Showman and Jared recognized the song even before I did.  That was another movie he watched on a flight (with permission) and he loved it.  He really likes musicals which I totally get.  Even with Lydia's shenanigans it was a fun event and worth the later night.

 

Theme dinners

If I had to pick between a fun dinner for Star Wars day or Cinco De Mayo, Cinco de Mayo would always win.  Its too bad Star Wars day will always be the day before Cinco De Mayo.  The being said we had have fun celebrating both days with fun dinners this year.  Jared is making good progress on the Star Wars books I brought back from California he is on book 8 in the series. That and the fact that he sneakily watched Star Wars 8 on one of our flights has made it to so Star Wars is on his mind more than other times.  Therefore he was very interested in celebrating Star Wars Day.  He helped me plan a fun dinner for the night and made sure we watched a Star Wars movie for family movie night.  We came up with:  Tie Fighter Fettuccine, X wing bread sticks, light saber grapes, and Star Wars Jello.  I attempted to make a Death Star brownie by simply cutting a brownie into a circle, frosting it and drawing lines in it.  It worked.   I also made some lightsaber pretzel rods to put in their lunches. We watched Return of the Jedi, my favorite Star Wars movie and had a good time.  The only down side was the fact that our house was 90 degrees during this time.  We don't have a traditional AC, its a heat pump system and we haven't had any real problems with it since living here.  Sadly last Thursday and Friday were 90+ degree days and our heat pump was not working.  We watched the movie in the basement but it was so hot upstairs as I made dinner that I couldn't even keep the brownie with frosting out, it was breaking down.  That was one of the most uncomfortable dinners I've cooked in a long time. It was so miserably hot.  We ended up having Jared and Lydia sleep in the basement that night.  They were happy with that arrangement, and we were happy that the hot weather went away on Saturday.

Earlier in the week I talked to some friends about the idea of getting together for a Cinco De Mayo fiesta.  We each made our favorite Mexican dish and the Carter's brought a piñata.  It was a huge hit.  Thankfully the weather was perfect and we ate outside and the rain held off until everyone was packing up to go home. We will miss the Carter's when they head out to Alaska this Summer.

Ice cream, outdoors and neighbors

Awhile back we stopped by Kohr's Brothers for their annual .5 cents cone day.  They host it every year on Tax day and we have made it the last 4 years.  This year we waited to go until Mark could go with us and I think it was the longest line we have had to wait in.  We got there around 4:15 and waited about 25 minutes.  They really have a good system down and we all enjoy going. We always run into people we know (most often members of the church), which makes us feel like real locals.   This year it was a friend from our current ward and a family from the 1st ward.  It was a little bit chilly that day but we are always up for ice cream.

Every now and then I remember that many of the activities I do with my preschool class are ones that Jared and Lydia would enjoy too.  In fact many of them I first did with Jared and Lydia when they were little. One of those is the classic, Fruit Loop rainbows, it was a great Spring time after school snack for them.  I was recently talking to a friend about how when I pictured myself as a mom I had this dream of making fresh cookies or brownies or banana bread for my kids for a snack after school.  They would sit at the snack bar and enjoy the delicious baking smell in their home and tell me all about their day.  I do not often give into the many "ideas" about good parenting but one that has gotten to me (even though you couldn't tell by the above two paragraphs) is that I should attempt to limit the sugar they, (really all of us,) eat.  I want to make the cookies and homemade treats but understand that I really shouldn't. At least not that often.  It makes me sad though.  A little dream unfulfilled.  Thats not to say I have never done it I have, but not nearly as much as I envisioned.  And fruit loops are not exactly sugar free but feel strangely better than a cookie?  Too bad all the healthy cookies recipes I have tried have been gross and not worth the ingredient cost.  Regardless it was fun and thematic one of my favorite things. 

After church on Earth day we went on a walk down our road and picked up trash.  Our road is a gravel, back road that runs somewhat parallel to the main highway in Charlottesville. When there is an accident or traffic is backed up on 29 our road becomes a lot busier.  Often we will be eating dinner and suddenly know something has happened on 29 because there is a steady stream of cars compared to the 1 that may go by while we are eating.  So being a back road it gets trash dumped on it a lot.  Not just garbage but mattress's, tires, old TV's.  Its really obnoxious.  As you continue down our road there are 2 one lane bridges.  The road connects to a large neighborhood but there are less than 10 houses on our actual road and they are pretty spaced out from each other. Since we live at the beginning of the road we have next to none of the trash, just all the dust but when we drive down the road and get past the houses it looks so bad.  Its really a bummer.  So we tried to go clean it up some.  Some people have tried to make a set of trails through the woods to connect to the neighborhood and even put a large trash can at the head of the trail but it seems to rarely get emptied and since its not covered I am sure animals love it. It is always messy right by the trash can so its a good idea that is not really working.  We were glad to help out some. 

After we got back from Texas, where they jumped on a trampoline a lot with David and Emma, Lydia and to some extent Jared, suddenly remembered that we have our own trampoline!  Lydia has been out jumping a lot which has been great.  Its kind of the worse when you buy your kids something they really want and set it up and then they don't use it.  Her favorite is to have Mark squirt her with the hose or a water gun when he gets home from school.  Lately though she is out in the rain or sun.  She is also loving her ballet class and looks forward to it each week.  Its really cute to watch her.  

The other day we were out enjoying a snack (popcorn (with coconut oil nonetheless) and pink lemonade not homemade cookies) on the porch and a car suddenly pulled into our driveway.  This car happened to be the same model as a good friend of ours so we were happy to have a surprise visit.  It turned out to actually be one of our neighbors that we had yet to meet.  She stopped and chatted with us for a good 15 minutes.  It was really nice.  They have been here around 10 years and homeschool their kids.  We have been here almost 4 so its a little embarrassing that we haven't met but they are down a good 5 houses and each house is 2 acres so not that close to each other. Neighbor is a loose word on this street. She had mentioned mentioned wanting to stop by quite a few times but when she tried to talk to the other "newer" neighbors closer to her she had gotten the cold shoulder so was a little gun shy.  Most of the people on our street have been here 20+ years, they have all raised their kids and are on their own now. It was really nice to chat with her.  Their kids are 16, 14, 12 and 10 so older than Jared and Lydia.  They apparently have lots of animals which was one reason why she stopped.  She wanted to see if Jared and Lydia would be interested in caring for their animals when they are out of town at the end of the month.  They have a bunny, 3 guinea pigs, 3 dogs, and 15 chickens. Jared and Lydia would love to. I'm not sure how I feel about it but would be willing to let them try it out.

Jared is loving going out in the woods.  He takes his walkie talkie, survival kit and heads out to explore.  Yesterday he went out and headed over to our neighbors tree fort.  Shortly after I hear his voice over the walkie talkie telling me that he sees a large black snake with a white belly right by the ladder on the tree fort.  We strangely rarely see snakes around here so I tried not to panic.  He quietly backed away and made it back home with no incidents. From his description I'm pretty sure it was either a Virginia Northern Black Racer, or Eastern rat snake. Both are native to Virginia and harmless but then today at preschool drop off one of the moms showed me a picture of a snake she and her daughter found at Chris Greene Lake and it didn't look quite as harmless.  Again why do so many people love Spring?  Sure its pretty and warmer weather is nice I guess but there are so many more things to deal with when it comes!   Jared has already gotten 2 ticks this year and has poison ivy in a few spots.  Hopefully he will be more careful with the poison ivy and we are back to checking for ticks every night before bed. He has also become quite the tree climber.  We met up with friends to ride bikes and play at the church and they climbed up quite high in one tree.  His friend Tyler is at the bottom, you can barely see Jared above him.  He's wearing brown pants so he really blends in with the trunk of the tree but he's pretty much right above Tyler.  Now that he is climbing higher I am paranoid about him falling but at the same time I love seeing him being outdoors and exploring and taking simple risks.

San Antonio, TX

Mark's oldest sister Shannon and her family live down in San Antonio.  They happen to have a son leaving on his mission next week and we rarely get to see them so we decided to use Mark's flight benefits and go visit them.  Jared and Lydia were so happy to get to play with David, Emma and Matt.  They are really thoughtful kids who even though they are older than Jared and Lydia happily played with them.  They bounced them on the trampoline, played Legos and the Wii with them and genuinely seemed happy to be around Jared and Lydia. It was really sweet.  We were really glad to have a chance to visit with Shannon and her family.  Emma is quite the cross country runner (she is fast!) and she kindly went on a mile run with Jared as we are right in the middle of marathon in a month and he did not want to miss any days.

We flew out of Charlottesville early Friday morning.  Our flight left at 6:00 am so we were at the airport by 5:10 meaning we were up at 4:45.  We flew to Atlanta and magically all got seats on the first flight to San Antonio.  By then we were all really hungry so on our way from the airport in San Antonio we stopped to eat at Lulu's Bakery and Cafe.  A few nights before we left I looked up some fun things to do in San Antonio.  When I read that they sold a 3 pound cinnamon roll I knew I wanted to stop there. It was worth the stop.  Mark's mom was also in San Antonio to visit so she met us at Lulu's with David, Emma and Matt.  The cinnamon roll was delicious and gigantic.

After eating we were ready to see San Antonio.  We parked downtown and found our way to the famous San Antonio Riverwalk.  We all loved the riverwalk.  Sue offered to take anyone who wanted on a riverwalk boat cruise so Jared, Lydia, and Dvid quickly signed up.  The rest of us walked along the river enjoying the greenery, bridges, cute restaurants and beautiful weather. I do not like hot weather and was so pleased to have a cool, cloudy 65 degree day.  The riverwalk is super relaxing and enjoyable. San Antonio has done a really great job maintainig it.  Way back in the day people in San Antonio were worried about flooding so they wanted to create a bypass system and eventually with funding from Roosevelt's Work Progress Administration it was completed.  It ranges from 2 to 24 feet deep and was designed in part by the same people who did designs for Disneyland.  It was great.

Emma and Lydia

Since we were in San Antonio I felt we should at least stop by The Alamo.  Jared loved all the military displays and Lydia was mostly just tired but we stopped and now we can say we did.

This tree was awesome, it was my favorite part of The Alamo. 

Besides visiting family we love, and seeing some new fun things we really wanted to go to the temple while we were there.  David and Emma kindly watched Jared and Lydia while we went to the temple.    It was really great to get to go to the temple with family.  It doesn't happen often for us and was a special treat.  We really have to plan temple trips on our vacations now that the DC temple is closed. We are so thankful to Shannon for taking us over and to her kind kids for hanging out with Jared and Lydia.  Mark and I also don't often go into the temple together as one of us is with our kids outside so it was great to go in together too.  Its a beautiful little temple with tons of beautiful stained glass windows.

Afterwards we stopped at In N Out for lunch.  Matt actually works there the last 9 months or so.  I was really the main person who wanted to go there.  Sue offered to take us out to lunch wherever we wanted but everyone kindly let me go there. It was really thoughtful.  Mark really wanted BBQ, we were in Texas after all, and later on in the day when we went to get Bahama Bucks he noticed a Rudy's right down the street and walked over there to get some smoked brisket and turkey. He was quite pleased that he did.  We all were actually as Rudy's is really good.  There is one in Colorado Springs that we went to years ago.

Jared, David, Matt 

Shannon's family was taking care of some dogs for friends in their ward so we drove over with them and while the kids took care of the dogs (Jared and Lydia loved those dogs! They were a highlight of the trip, they are still talking about Shadow and Boo. ) Mark and I went on a really nice walk with Shannon through the neighborhood. It was so great to get some time to visit with her one on one.   We originally planned to attend Sacrament meeting with them so we could hear Matt's farewell talk but the flights coming back looked really bad.  So we got up super early (again) and drove the 40 minutes or so to the Austin Airport to catch the 6:00 am flight to Atlanta.  We luckily all got on and then instead of flying to Charlottesville from Atlanta we flew to Richmond and then rented a car to get home.  Not the ideal plan but one that worked.  It is so tricky to get back to Charlottesville which is really a bummer as we live right next to the airport!  At least it works well for leaving town. Having these two really early morning flights so close together was rough!  Lydia was especially so sad to get up Sunday morning.  It was really nice to go see Shannon and her family, I'm s glad it worked out.  When I think about our trips I sometimes think the people we go visit are sort of getting the short end of the stick.  Having to drive us to airports at odd times and not completely knowing exactly when we will leave.  We try to be as non intrusive as possible but you just can't know with standby.  I certainly appreciate Mark working these late nights for us to go do these cool things that we could never do otherwise and appreciate people who still want us to come.

Back in Virginia

We started Marathon in a Month the day after we got back from France, Friday the 06th. We did one extra mile on Sunday (just walking) which made us caught up with our friends the Lenox's in Texas.  We are running more of our miles around a lake in the Forest Lakes subdivision this year as it is easier to feel Lydia is safe there.  In the past when we ran on our road we typically had Mark and I running with them so one could be with Jared and one with Lydia but Mark is unable to run much this year with his airport schedule.  So we are spending some good time at the lake each day.  Jared and Lydia are doing really well.  Jared started out running 2 miles each day for the first 5 days or so but has now backed down to one mile each day which works just fine.

 

Lydia and I trying our our new shoes. Hers are actually from last March or so.  We got a great deal on them at the Nike outlet here but had to wait over a year for them to fit her.

Friday night I went to a friends baby shower and had a great time visiting with friends and celebrating this sweet friend. We ended up being double booked because Mark was asked to speak at a youth event at church.  I really didn't want to miss this shower.  This sweet friend has been waiting many years to have a baby and I am so excited for her.  We decided to copy the idea of our old Bishop in Colorado Springs and have Mark take Jared and Lydia to the church with him and have them watch a movie in his office.  It worked beautifully.  They were happily contained in his office so he could socialize with people at the dinner (it was a teacher appreciation dinner which is a really nice idea for an activity, it was a bonus that Mark is a teacher too) and not have to make them sit through a dinner they would have been bored at. And it would have kept him from having a good time too as he would be worried about how they were acting/feeling. The only flaw was how late they got home.  I got home around 9:00 and just beat them!  I did not think the dinner would last that long. Two years ago I never would have dreamed of going to the shower and letting them stay out that late but now that they are older it hardly mattered.  Not that I am going to regularly let them stay up that late but on occasions like this it is just fine.  Mark's calling definitely "invites" us to do things differently than we previously had. They even both slept in the next day.  Jared till about 7:20, yes that is sleeping in for him, and Lydia till 7:45. I was really happy that it worked out.

Saturday morning we took Jared and Lydia to Jump for Jared's good friend Marcus's birthday. His family rented out the whole building and we had a great time jumping around and celebrating Marcus.  That was the main activity we had planned for the day but after we got back home the day quickly filled up. It was fairly warm out Saturday so as we were driving home Jared and Lydia asked if Mark would spray them with the hose.  He did that while I did some preschool work on the back deck.  Eventually Jared decided to go into the woods to explore and I set the water table up for Lydia.  Shortly after that I got a text from a friend telling me about a coin show at the local Elks Lodge.  She knew how much Jared loved coins and was so kind to tell us about it. We considered all going to the coin show but decided to have it be a date for Mark and Jared instead.  I had heard about an event at Ivy Creek and decided to take Lydia on a date to that.  Mark and Jared left and then Lydia and I headed to Ivy Creek for their "Farm days".  We made fresh butter, planted seeds, made a nature window hanger, learned about bees and tasted different honey's, milked a cow (mechanical) and made a bird feeder.  After Ivy Creek we headed to Wendy's for a frosty.  We both love chocolate frosty's with french fries so I ordered us each a junior frosty and an order of junior fries and the cashier only charged me for the fries.  When she said the total, $1.08 I checked to see if she got the frosty's and she said they were on her.  It was really thoughtful. Both those things were great fun but since some clouds had moved in we decided to go to a playground we don't go to often to finish off the date. I loved getting to hang out with Lydia and know she appreciated it too.  Mark had made plans to play tennis with a friend at 3:30 so we left the park to meet them at home. Jared would have stayed at the coin show until it closed if he could have, he was in heaven.  While we were in France the one souvenir he really wanted was some old French money.  We were unsuccessful in finding him any but he found some at the coin show! He was thrilled.  Mark said the people at the booths were really kind and happy to have a younger coin collector to talk too.  It was a perfect date for him and Mark. Sadly no pictures of Jared and Mark and more than we needed of Lydia and I, (it was a cool event with tons of good activities) but lots of good memories made. Its good to be back in Charlottesville.

Fresh butter. 

I loved learning why the honey was different colors and tasting the differences.  Bees are pretty fascinating and according to Lydia terrifying. She has come really far from those horrible Spring days 2 years ago when she refused to go outside for a month.

The perfect salty/sweet combination. 

I'm not sure what she got all over her, most likely grease from the "elevator" but it just shows she had a great time!