Last week we had a relatively free weekend, and the weather was going to be sunny, so we decided to take Saturday evening for one of my favorite family traditions. We drive our bikes to the W&OD trail not far from our house, then we bike to Fireworks which is a little place in Leesburg that has the BEST wood fired pizza. We do this at least one a year (more if we can), but it used to be a challengeing bike ride for the girls when we first started doing this. Now, that they’re older and stronger, we even started a little farther away this time and it still seemed rather easy for them. It’s a fun evening though, and, speaking of growing girls, this time we ate ALL the pizza before biking back home. No take out boxes anymore!
The next day, Nina and Lyla planned a campout in our backyard with neighbors. We recenly got new next door neighbors, and luckily for us, they have two girls who are similar ages of Nina and Lyla. They’ve made fast friends, and last Sunday they really wanted to camp out overnight. They had everything set up and in their tent by around 6pm, so they had a full evening outside - eating grilled hot dogs, making s’mores, cooking Jiffy Pop over the campfire, and staying out all night. They did come in the house at one point for about 45 minutes for "air conditioning break” as they called it. At 10:30pm, it was still 84 degrees, so it was a little hot and buggy for camping in my opinion, but they stayed out all night and had a great time!
Following the campout, the rain came in, and it was basically wet and soupy the next few days. Lyla started back to soccer with some off-season trainings for her team, so we spent some evenings at the soccer fields and during the days did a little back to school clothes shopping for the girls.
Thursday was a big day for Nina. This week she had her first ever camp experience by attending our church’s Jr. High Summer Camp. The group from our campus left on Thursday late morning and met up with groups from the other McLean Bible Church campuses at NorthBay Adventure Camp for four days of fun and growing in their relationship with the Lord and others. We had limited communication with Nina the whole time she was there, so we knew she was happy and having fun, but other than that, we hoped and prayed that she was having a great experience. She got back home yesterday evening, and she can’t stop talking about what a wonderful time she had.
Below is Nina just after arriving back to church after camp, and the group photo is of the Jr. High kids that attended from the Loudoun Campus (my phone camera cut off more boys on right), but everyone came home happy, tired, and fresh with great memories!
Whie Nina was away, Cayenne and Lyla got most of the attention around the house...
Lyla got to go shopping for some new soccer cleats, she had her favorite dinner made for her, she had a playdate with a friend, and got ice cream, but most excitingly had a special day with Mousey and Layne (Emme and Ryleigh were also at summer camp with the Tyson’s Campus) complete with a sleepover at Mousey’s to cap it all off. She had such a great time playing with Mousey and Layne, catching crayfish, doing some shopping, and going out to dinner. It was such a treat for her to having this fun day to look forward to, and while she was with Mousey and Layne on Friday night, Mark and I took advantage of the free evening and went on a date night. Suffice to say, we all had a great evening! :)
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