Virginia Cavalry SoccerFest

This weekend is the SoccerFest hosted by the Virginia Cavalry.  Since Mark was going to be busy there all weekend, we joined in the fun of some of the festivities.

When Mark arrived at the SoccerFest this morning, he was surprised with this.  We definitely had a good laugh at it, and the girls were excited to try to score on their dad!!!

   

There was a lot of activity going on at the SoccerFest, and they got cute face and arm painting, bounced in the bounce houses, got some fun free stuff, and enjoyed the sunny day at the soccer park.  It’s great to see all the momentum the team is gaining as they prepare to play next year.  It’s exciting to see it all come about!

    

    

Gone to the Birds!

In the daily battle of Husband vs. the birds, the birds are winning. Case in point.  This morning, husband walks in sweaty from the gym muttering…

Husband: Oh, those birds don’t know who they’re dealing with

Wife: Maybe they do and that’s part of their fun

Husband: Well, they haven’t seen it all yet

Husband exits to the garage where there is much sounds of hammering, sawing, and wood clanking.  Not sure yet if the birds (or I for that matter) should be worried…

Then, I exit to see this monstrosity…

Mind you, this is for a blueberry bush that is about three feet tall.  When I questioned the husband about the necessity of it to be large enough to encompass an entire tree, the husband’s response was, “It’s for years to come.”  Great…just the answer I was hoping for. 

And that’s just the battle with the birds in the back of the house.  There is a whole other war going on with birds in the front of the house.  For my own sanity, I won’t document that at this point. As Lyla says, “Mom, Daddy is a little coo-coo with the birds.” So, if my next post is a picture of Mark in a straight jacket getting hauled off to the loony bin, don’t say I didn’t warn ya! 

Father’s Day 2013

I’m lucky enough to have two great fathers in my life to celebrate – Mark and my dad.  We started out the day at church, then after lunch Mark had some man-time fishing, then we headed out to my parents’ house for the evening. 

Shenley and Garland were back in NC to wrap up things with their move, but the Williams girls were there, and we got the chance to celebrate the dads with a nice dinner.

As usual, the girls enjoyed the time hanging with their cousins.  Nina and Lyla are very very happy that the Williams girls will be in VA for good now. 

      

Poor Layne – we asked if we could see “Sat” (her cat) to take a funny picture for her of Sat doing something silly.  She handed Sat over but then had this sad little look.  It didn’t last long though.  We put some sunglasses on Sat and showed her the picture, and all was happy again!

I feel very blessed to be a part of a wonderful family and have wonderful dads to celebrate today. I know a lot of kids don’t grow up in a home with a father who is really present in their lives, but we were fortunate enough to have that, and I’m so thankful for my dad and thankful to be married to a man who is engaged with his kids and present in their lives also. Happy Father’s Day!

School’s Out For Summer!!!

Nina’s last day of school was Thursday of last week!  School is over and summer break has begun – we’re all happy for that! It was quite a week.  The Williams family arrived in Virginia, so we got some cousin time, and Nina had a fun last week of school complete with field day, a first grade party, and a last day of school party with some friends.  We can’t believe we have an almost-second grader and an almost-kindergartener in the house!

  

Speaking of the almost-kindergartener, Lyla had the “brilliant” idea of trying to catch a bird last week.  She washed out an old jelly jar, put her Virginia Cavalry sticker on it, then enlisted my help in filling it with some bird seed.  She made a trail of birdseed that she hoped would lead the birds into her jar, at which point her plan was to go out and put a top on it and catch a bird (specifically she wanted to catch a Cardinal).  Surprisingly enough, a female Cardinal actually did come very close to getting in the jar. She pecked the bird seed around the jar but never got all the way in.  Only one small bird got all the way in, briefly, but the experiment made for fun bird watching for Lyla on a rainy afternoon.

    

Since being out of school, we’ve hung out a lot with the cousins – bowling, swimming, and just hanging out.

   

Today, the Williams family actually got to close on their Virginia house, so while Shen and G were doing that, the girls hung out with me, Nina, and Lyla.  We decided to walk over to the pond to feed the turtles, and the girls had a great time inventing ways to fish and feed turtles.

They got reeds and put balled up pieces of bread on the ends of the reeds, then held them stilly on the surface of the water.  They were all so excited because the turtles actually swam over to them and ate the bread right off the end of the reeds.

After feeding the turtles, they tried catching some of the small catfish in the pond with some poles they made out of sticks, reeds, and pinecones. They weren’t able to catch a catfish, but they had a great time being creative with things they found around the pond.

Groundbreaking Ceremony

Today was the long awaited groundbreaking ceremony of Edelman Financial Field – the soon-to-be home of the Loudoun Hounds and the Virginia Cavalry.  It was an absolutely gorgeous June day.  It was sunny, not humid, and very pleasantly comfortable for the outdoor ceremony and lunch to celebrate the stadium construction.

   

After hearing from the executives of VIP Entertainment, local politicians, and representatives from the Atlantic League and the NASL, the official ground breaking took place and the hounds were unleashed!

   

This is a little “before” picture of what the land looks like now…

…and here is the after picture of what it will look like when construction is complete.

It was a great day to see the wheels finally in motion for getting the stadium built, and we’re looking forward to the sporting events to be held there next year.  Mark, Lyla, and I had a great time today at the ceremony and lunch, and it was an exciting day for our family to see this all coming to fruition!

Date Night

Last night was our date night with the girls.  This month, Mark had the night with Lyla, so they went to downtown Leesburg for the classic car show.  Since Lyla loves cars, this was the perfect night for her.  She got to check out some really cool cars, then she and Mark had hot dogs and fries at a Chicago-style hot dog place, followed by ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  He took these pictures of their date night for me, and he said they had a great time!!!!

 Since it was my night to take Nina, we headed to Reston Town Center for dinner and the outdoor concert.  It was the perfect people-watching night for Nina.  One of the area high schools was having prom that night, and there were quite a few groups of prom-goers at the town center for dinner.  She loved sitting out by the fountain and checking out all the fancy dressed girls and their dresses, etc.  Since outside was the best place to be to enjoy the weather and the activity, we grabbed some dinner To Go and sat out by the fountains.

 

 When it's date night, you get the biggest cookie possible to eat by yourself!

After dinner, the concert was starting, so we listened for a bit until she realized that there was a dance area at the front of the crowd (right by the stage) where people were swing dancing to the band.  It was cute because there were some swing dance groups that were there who could really dance well, and Nina really wanted to dance also but was a little shy to go out on the dance area.  She asked me if I would dance with her, and only because it was date night, I went out there and danced with her. 

 

Clearly my ability to swing dance was quite lacking because at the start of the next song, one of the dancers came over and asked Nina to dance.  She surprisingly accepted, and I took a quick video.  She danced the whole dance (even though I couldn't capture the whole thing on video),

 

 

 It was a great date night evening for all four of us!