Memorial Day Weekend 2013

We spent the Memorial Day weekend again this year at Hartfield.  Because of the fun the girls had last Memorial Day on the river, they were so excited to get back and swim in the river, ride on the pontoon boat, float on the tube, etc.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate for swimming in the river this weekend, but we still had a great weekend at Hartfield and got to enjoy being out on the pontoon some and relaxing river-style. 

One of the first things that Nina and Lyla wanted to do was climb in their favorite tree. 

Then, while Mark was mowing the grass, they were running around collecting all the flowers (actually weeds) that they could before he mowed them down.

  

As I’ve mentioned before, when we’re at Hartfield, Mousey makes the girls almost any animal-shaped pancake that they ask for.  On Saturday morning, here was Nina’s request list of pancakes, and Mousey made them all!!

Saturday was a little too windy and cold to be out on the boat, so we spent some time setting a minnow trap and catching minnows, walking down to the pier, playing outside, etc. 

   

We even visited the Gloucester Walmart – which is a treat for the senses in itself!!

Sunday was sunny and warm, so Poppy got the boat in before lunch, and we spent the afternoon riding around on the river.  The water was too cold to swim and tube, but that didn’t stop us from having fun.  The girls were dancing, helping Poppy drive the boat, and checking out some of the sights on the river.

As always, it was a great weekend at Hartfield, and we’re excited to get back there again soon when the weather is warmer so we can enjoy all the river fun!

Nina Turns Seven!

Well, we’ve got a seven year old in the house.  It’s hard to believe!!!  We started here, and now we’re here. She sure gave us a run for our money in her early days, but she’s a wonderful blessing to our family and an awesome girl to have around. 

Since her birthday activity was going to Kings Dominion, there was no kid party this year, but after school she had some friends on the street over for cookies, then the family came over that evening for dinner and celebrating.

The one thing we were most looking forward to on Nina’s birthday evening was the chance to tell her that we were getting a puppy.  We couldn’t wait.  We thought and thought of ways to tell her, and we ended up with this idea.  We typed out a little letter to her, complete with Vizsla puppy pictures, and wrapped it in a box with a keychain that said, “I My Dog.”  The letter explained that the puppy would be born in a couple weeks, that we’d get to pick our puppy, then the puppy would get sent to us in August, etc.  

We saved that gift for the very last one, and sat with cameras ready to capture the elated reaction!  Her reaction was everything opposite of what we expected.  We expected screaming, running around, jumping up and down, etc.  After all, she’s only been begging us for a dog for years now!  Her reaction was instead very calm.  She read the letter with very little show of emotion, and when we kept asking her if she understood what it meant, she explained the details of everything back to us.  She understood exactly, but she didn’t show much emotion at all initially.  As the night wore on and into the next morning, she was definitely excited.  I think it was a little hard for her to grasp the concept that this time we’re definitely getting a puppy for certain.  It’s not just like we’ve always said that sometime in the future we’d get a puppy. 

Sure enough, come Sunday evening after we get home from Hartfield, it really starts to hit her. We watched a few puppy training videos on the computer and found some with little Vizsla puppies.  That’s when she started jumping up and down with excitement, wanting to throw a party to celebrate the puppy, and kept confirming with us that, “nobody can take that puppy from us, right?”  Getting to bed was a little tough too – she said she just felt like jumping around!  So, she’s excited, we’re talking names, and we’re going to spend the summer getting ready for a pup.  When the day comes where she actually has the puppy in her arms, that will be the day for the elated reaction!

   

   

Fun Friday

For Nina’s birthday this year, we gave her some options for ways to celebrate, and she picked going to Kings Dominion for the day.  Mark has been waiting to take her ever since she eclipsed the 48” height (enabling her to ride all but 3 rides at Kings Dominion), and I honestly don’t know who was more excited to go yesterday – Mark or Nina. 

We let her skip a day of school, and they got on the road about 7:30am.  The only bad part of their day was that they got stuck in a massive massive traffic jam on 95 S that resulted from a hazmat truck accident that spilled acid on the highway, closing it down completely.  It took over 3.5 hours to get to KD (which normally should take 1.5 hours), but once they got there, they had an awesome time!!!

Nina’s favorite ride was the Drop Tower.  It’s 272 feet high, and you sit in a seat that takes you all the way to the top of the tower then just drops you straight down.  They rode it three times.  Nina said her Top 5 rides were: Drop Tower, the Grizzly, the Anaconda, the Hurler, and the Rebel Yell.

Because the lines were nothing, they got to ride all the rides they wanted multiple times (they rode the Grizzly 5 times), and Mark said that Nina was a blast to have at the park.  She was so enthusiastic for all the rides and didn’t shy away from trying anything. He said she even gave a “double awesome” rating to some rides. In 7 year-old lingo, that’s pretty cool!

    

This is definitely my favorite picture of their day.  Mark took this one right at the top of the big hill of the Hurler.  Gotta love Nina’s face!!  They walked their legs off, enjoyed the beautiful day, rode all the rides they wanted, and got home late after having a very fun day.  We’re happy Nina had so much fun on her birthday activity this year!!

Even though it wasn’t her day of celebrating, Lyla didn’t have a bad day herself.  She had her Friday friends over for a play date, and I took them to the park for play and a picnic. 

After her friends left, we rode bikes over to Sweet Frog, and Lyla got her frozen yogurt the way she likes it – filled with gummy worms, fruit snacks, jelly beans, and marshmallows.  We threw some coins in the fountain, played some more outside, and had pizza dinner out on the deck, so she didn’t have a bad day either!

Mother’s Day

Today was a really nice Mother’s Day for me.  It was just my type of day – nothing crazy or fancy, but just some good family time and some good memories made.  We started off the day heading to church, then after church we took Nina to get her ears pierced!!!

A couple of “before” pictures before the big change!!  She has been talking about wanting her ears pierced, and we told her that she was able to get them pierced for her 7th birthday if she wanted.  Even though her birthday is still 1.5 weeks away, we decided to let her get her ears pierced today.  She really wanted to do it, but of course she was a little nervous about whether it would hurt badly or not.  There was actually a teenage girl getting her ears pierced right before Nina, so she was able to watch her and ask how it felt.  We were actually very proud of her.   She didn’t get cold feet at all once she got in the chair, and she sat so still and was super brave – no whimpers or tears!

   

To say she is excited about her ears pierced would be an understatement.  She has talked about it all day since getting it done!!!  Nina’s favorite color is green, and her birthstone is an emerald, so she picked little emeralds as her first earrings.  It seems like she grew up a whole year in like an instant!

After we got home from ear piercing and a little shopping, we got ready for the family to come over.  My mom, dad, Bo, and Richelle all came over for dinner and some Mother’s Day celebrating, so the day finished up great.  I feel so blessed to have a wonderful mother in my life, and I feel very blessed to have two awesome daughters that I can celebrate today as well.  Thanks to the girls for the sweet cards and to Mark for all the treats, the dinner, and thoughtful little things that made my day great.

(Yes, we’re missing a little Lyla in this picture, but she didn’t want to be in it…oh well)

Random Phone Pictures of the Week

Here are just some snapshots of our week via my camera phone.

Nina keeps saying she wants to be in gymnastics…ok, I get it!!!

Lyla found a nice Mustang.  Her dream Mustang would be a convertible blue one with what she calls “black tires” (but what she really means is black rims).

Instead of Cinco de Mayo, we enjoyed a lovely Quatro de Mayo dinner with friends.

Lyla “graduated” from Awana Cubbies last weekend. 

Catching Up

It’s spring, and you can catch up with us if you can find us outside!  I love these days.  The weather is beautiful, school is winding down, and our neighborhood emerges from the winter with tons of kids who just want to play outside.  So, that’s what we’ve been up to.  Biking, scootering, hanging with neighbors, cookouts, and walks up to Sweet Frog have been the majority the girls’ activities lately.  There is one month of school left, then it’s no schedules and summer break – we’re all excited!

 

Lyla chose to play soccer again this spring.  She loves it.  She’s a good little player, and she has lots of enthusiasm for the sport.  While her age group isn’t very competitive at this point, it’s fun and she loves to go to her games every Saturday. She still loves cars and anything that has to do with speed.  She rides her bike fast, rides her scooter fast, and wants to drive fast. At five, she’s already anticipating getting her drivers license, and currently her favorite cars are Ford Mustangs and Chevy Camaros. So…Speed, a Mustang/Camaro, a little blondie, and a track record for making questionable decisions – I see no trouble there in our future!!

A quick cute story: Like I said, she loves Ford Mustangs.  Before the soccer season started, her coach sent out an email that asked the kids to come to the first practice with an idea for a team name.  Lyla’s idea: the Mustangs.  So, when the coach asked all the kids what ideas they had, all the typical ones came out…Tigers, Sharks, Bulldogs, etc.  then Lyla (who is waiting patiently with her hand raised) offers out the Mustangs.  The coach loved it, and her team is now the Mustangs!

She loves jelly beans, bunnies, popsicles, Legos, riding her bike and scooter, making us laugh, Fridays (which she has named “The Day of Lyla”), and hanging with Nina. 

Nina is less than a month away from turning seven.  Talk about hard to believe!!!  She’s closing out her year in first grade, and is our outgoing, social, dancing daughter.  As has always been, she talks constantly.  She always has something to say, some question to ask, or just wants to talk for the sake of talking.  She decided to “take a break” (as she says) from her one year of playing soccer, and opted instead to do dance - which I feel like we always knew was coming.  She definitely got the rhythm gene in the family (contrary to her sister, a.k.a. Elaine from Seinfeld) and loves to dance, so it’s been a lot of fun for her.

She is growing up fast but still loves her family time.  She is still our resident pastaterian (as Meg so aptly named her), still loves dogs, loves to play outside, and loves anything chocolate.

In recent exciting news, we haven’t told Nina yet, but we’re on the list to get a puppy – officially!!  She is going to go bananas when we tell her!  She has been asking for a dog for years.  About a year ago, I did a post that mentioned this breed of dog I really liked, the Vizsla, and that’s the type of dog we’re going to get. We had done a lot of research and talking to different people about dogs, and after meeting a puppy that was born at Chenoweth Farm and talking to it’s owners, we decided to pull the trigger and commit to a puppy. I don’t have a picture of the mother dog, but this picture of her brother was on their website, so this gives you an idea of what the pup will look like.  The puppies are due in the middle of June which means we’ll get to bring our puppy home in the middle of August.  Behind the breeder we get the next pick of puppy, so once they’re born, we’ll tell Nina and let this summer be the summer of learning to take care of and train a puppy before her arrival in August.  

This spring has also been one of good news for the Virginia Cavalry/Loudoun Hounds group.  The county supervisors unanimously approved their plans for a stadium/ball park at One Loudoun, so they’re on schedule to be playing games there in 2014.  Last night we had the chance to go to the grand opening of the first tenant at One Loudoun to open it’s doors, the Alamo Cinema Drafthouse, and it was awesome.  They had at least 30 great local microbrews on tap, awesome theater rooms, and a really neat atmosphere.  I had a Hatch Chili burger and a Devil’s Backbone Eight Point IPA while watching “42” – great night!  The ball park will be a short stroll from the Drafthouse, and assuming all goes according to plan, One Loudoun is going to be a great area for family nights out, date nights, sporting events, etc.  Looking forward to 2014!!