Columbus Day Weekend at Hartfield

Since we had a rare weekend with no soccer, plus a bonus of Monday with no school, we took the opportunity to head down to Hartfield to enjoy some relaxing family time and check out Howl-o-Scream at Busch Gardens.  We had a beautiful weekend of warm weather and sunshine.  It was actually warm enough for the girls to take a swim in the river!  We really enjoyed the chance to relax and play at the river, do some fishing, and enjoy the time outdoors.  

   

 

Mark and the girls found the perfect little fishing hole for bass.  Lyla caught five or six fish this size - one right after the other.  They were having a blast!

 

Catching minnows, swimming off the dock, and filled the afternoon until everyone was tired enough to head in for showers and dinner.

 

  

Right after her shower, Nina wanted to accompany me down to the water as I was going to try to catch the sun setting on the water (although I missed it by a few minutes), but I did get a picture of her instead.  Just as beautiful!

We went to Busch Gardens on Sunday to check out Howl-O-Scream.  It was actually a really hot day for October, and there were a lot more people there than we thought.  Lyla did a great job playing the Soccer Challenge goal scoring game and won herself a candy corn! :)

 

We had never been to Howl-O-Scream before, but i was reallly impressed with all the cool decorations that the park had.  They certainly did a great job making the park Halloween themed!  Things were very kid friendly during the day, but at 6:00pm, the haunted houses opened and some of the “scary” characters came out to ride rides and spook people around the park. We didn’t stay too late into the evening as they girls weren’t too sure about some of the really scary haunted houses, plus we had to get back to the baby dog, but by the time we headed home, we were plenty exhausted!  

   

  

We packed up on Monday to head back home, so it was a somewhat short visit to Hartfield, but I’m so glad we went.  After a busy couple weeks of school, work, sports, etc., it was great to have some laid back family time together.

White Oak Canyon

Lyla’s and Mark’s teams both were in a Labor Day soccer tournament, so we spent Saturday and Sunday at the soccer fields.  Both teams did not make it to the finals which were being held on Monday, but the upside of not being in the final was that we had more time on Monday than we anticipated having.  The weather was going to be nice and we had all day free, so we decided to head out to the Shenandoah National Park to hike White Oak Canyon - a hike that Mark and I had our eye on for quite some time.  Nina had gone with the Williams familiy down to Hartfield to spend the weekend there with them and Mouse and Pops, so we missed having her with us, but it was a great day exploring some more of beautiful Virginia!

   

You can take the hike several ways.  You can do a 9 mile loop, which we would have done if we didn’t have Lyla, or you could a route that was just over 6 miles.  We parked at the lower trailhead, and hiked up mountain for 3 miles.  It was a workout for sure, but it was one of the most beautiful hikes we’ve done.  We passed five waterfalls on the way up to our 3-mile marker turn around point.  We ate our packed lunch close to the top of the hike, then hiked back down the mountain and stopped at the waterfalls to play around and get in the water.  The water was cold but very refreshing on our tired legs!

 

  

 

The hike took several hours, and we were all quite exhausted at the end, but it was an awesome hike and a fun way to spend the day!  We stopped off on the way home to get Lyla a well deserved ice cream, and then dropped off our stuff and headed over to pick up Nina.

  

Based on this picture Shenley sent me, I think it’s safe to say Nina had an awesome time at Hartfield. It’s so great to have family who love your kids and take them for a weekend of fun.  Nina had a MUCH better time swimming, boating, and tubing than she would have had sitting on the sidelines at soccer games, so we missed her while she was gone, but we were so thankful that she could enjoy some fun of her own too.

First Day of School 2018

Last week started all the back to school activities for Nina and Lyla.  For Lyla, it was out last elementary “Meet the Teacher” morning.  I think I was more sad about it than she was.  Our elementary school has been such a wonderful place for both Nina and Lyla.  It’s a great school and a wonderful community that is so close to our house, and I’ll be sad to see our days at Legacy Elementary come to an end.  Lyla WAS very excited though for this year.  She got the teacher she most wanted (and almost every other 5th grader wants) this year.  His name is Mr. Rice.  There are eight 5th grade classes, so sometimes it’s hard to get the teacher you hoped for, but she felt very excited to get her to choice this year!

 

The first day of school was Thursday, August 23rd, and both girls had a great first day!  They like their classes, their teachers, and everything has fallen into a good rhythem so far (although we’re only a week in to the school year at this point).  We’re hoping for a wonderful year for the girls.  It’s just hard to believe that we’re already sending off 5th and 7th graders!  Where has the time gone?????

   

(On a side note: Cayenne loves her job of helping get the girls up in the morning and walking Lyla to the bus and greeting her on the way home, but I know she misses the company of these two during the day!)

   

Nina's Baptism

This past Sunday was a special day for all of us.  Nina made the decision to get baptized.  After attending Jr. High church camp a few weeks ago, she wanted to get baptized to publicly display her faith in Jesus.  At our church, once someone wants to get baptized, they meet with a pastor to talk about their faith, baptism, etc., then they write out their testimony to share with the church on baptism Sunday.  Mouse and Pops, Shen and the girls, and some friends of ours from church were there to see Nina’s baptism, and it meant a lot to have family and friends there for this special occasion.  Here is the video link to Nina sharing her testimony: https://youtu.be/-YIeOcT24cs

 

 

Sky Meadows Hike

Last weekend we wanted to squeeze in another hike before school started, and we really wanted to do a hike to White Oak Canyon, but we got a later start in the day and storms were in the forecast for the afternoon, so we decided to go to Sky Meadows State Park.  We’ve been there several times, and it’s a nice place to go for a few hours’ day hike.  We took the North Pointe trail, and it was quite muggy and buggy, so this wasn’t the hike of the most thrilled tweens, but all was made well at the end with a stop off at Scruffy’s in Middleburg for ice cream.  Evidently, ice cream cures all woes!  

 

 

 

 

The Past Week's Fun

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!  :)