Nina Turns 16

As hard as it is for us to believe, Nina turned 16.  Honestly, I don’t even know how it’s possible that we have a daughter who is 16, but somehow we have arrived here.  Nina’s birthday this year fell on a Monday, so we took the Saturday prior to celebrate her.  She’s always wanted to get acrylic nails, so I took her to a nail spa to get that done in the first part of the day on Saturday, then her friends arrived in the late afternoon, and we took the girls down to Georgetown.

 

It was an unusually hot day for May, but it was a dry spot amidst plenty of rain and some colder temps that we’ve been having, so we enjoyed the chance to hang outside, walk around in Georgetown some, and then head to dinner.

Nina loves Italian, so we got reservations at il Canale and had a fantastic meal followed by Georgetown Cupcakes for dessert.

  

We ate our cupcakes down at the waterfront, listened to some music, took some pictures, and generally just enjoyed a beautiful night in the city.

  

  

  

  

She continued her celebrating the next day with dinner and cake with our family and Mouse and Pops, then the following day (her actual birthday) was quite eventful.  We started with the usual donuts and trip to Starbucks, but not long after being at school they were evacuated for a suspicious package threat.  Emergency personnel had to do a full sweep of the school, backpacks, etc before the students were allowed back in school.  However, once they got back in school, fire alarms went off and the power went out.  In the end, everything was fine and the students were safe, but it was a stressful day for them to have all those things happening in sequence.  She made it through the school day, went to practice, and came home for her dinner of choice, so at least all ended well.  

  

Happy Birthda to our sweetest 16 year old!!!

 

Mother's Day and More Spring

This spring has been busy with school, sports, and activities.  Honestly, I really enjoy it.  I would rather be watching the girls do their thing or heading to their activities than not, so I’ve enjoyed seeing lots of soccer and track in the past few weeks.  

Lyla’s team has been busy in the past month with rounding out their spring season, tryouts for next season, and preparing to finish out the season with a Memorial Day tournament.  Lyla is still enjoying her role as a central defender.  Her height and speed are great advantages to her at that position, and she seems to really enjoy herself and her team. 

  

  

  

Her team is a blend of a great group of girls and familes.  While that changes from year to year somewhat (as teams are always fluctuating from year to year with players moving up and down in the rank of teams in the age group), we’re so happy that she’s surrounded by a great group of girls.  Their coach who was new to them this year won’t be returning next season, so they’ll have their 3rd coach in 3 years, and while consistency is nice, we also see value in being able to adapt to different coaches/teachers.  So, we will enjoy watching them finish out this season over Memorial Day, and we’ll look forward to seeing them play again in the late summer as high schoolers…if that’s even possible to fathom!

Dropping in a quick picture here from Mother’s Day.  I love these two so much, and being their mom is one of the greatest gifts in my life. 

While Lyla has been busy at soccer, Nina has been busy with track for Independence High School.  They’ve had a great season, and they even get the help of “coach Mark” from time to time at the high jump pit.  We know when Mark is working the high jump pit, the bar is going to be EXACTLY the right height and perfectly level.  While I like joke Mark for bringing his own measuring tape and level, it’s a jumper’s dream to have things so precise.  We’ve been at meets before where the bar was visibly crooked…talk about a distraction!

  

Nina’s events this spring were high jump, hurdles, and either the 4x100 or 4x400 relay team.  She progressed through  5A Regionals for 100m hurdles and high jump, and she’ll be attending states as the 4x100m relay alternate, so it’s been a busy season for her that will wrap up next weekend at states in VA Beach.  She’s done a great job of keeping up with school, sports, and homework.  It’s a lot to balance, but we’ve been really proud of her hard work.

  

 

(sister spectator at the District Championship) :)

In addition to sports and school, Nina is still enjoying art.  She recently had three of her pieces entered into the cluster art show for schools in our area and drove us to her own art show. Times are changing!!!!  The apple painting below was the piece that her teacher selected from Nina’s work to go into the show.  

  

Catching up to Spring

Our spring so far has been busy so far with track, soccer, spring break, and Easter.  The girls have kept busy between school and practices, and Nina is in full swing with outdoor track for Independence High School.  She loves her team, and even when the workouts are tough and the meets are either very hot or very cold (as has been the case so far this season) the group dynamic keeps her loving being a part of the team, and we’ve enjoyed watching her compete.

  

 

We stayed home for spring break, and with no break in practices for the girls, we tried to take a couple days to fit in some fun things when we could.  One day we biked the Mount Vernon trail from Alexandria towards Roosevelt Island.  Last summer we biked from the same starting location to Mount Vernon (the opposite direction on the trail), so this time we went the other direction.  The sights were way better going this direction, but the only problem was that we went about 8 miles not realizing there was a strong wind at our back, and when we had to turn around and head back, the riding was tough!  We did see some really cool spots though along the way, and stopped for a bit at Gravely Park to watch the planes come in to National Airport which the girls thought was really cool.  I promised ice cream on the way back, so we stopped at the Ben and Jerry's in Old Town Alexandria (about 1.5 miles away from where we parked the car) as the girls were tired from the headwind and it was ice cream or mutiny at that point!  It was a beautiful day though to be out biking, and I love getting out for adventures like that.  

  

    

We got another beautiful day for our trip to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  We took Nina’s two friends, and arrived in Baltimore with some time to explore and grab some food before heading in to the aquarium.  We took our time exploring, then the girls all slept over, so it was a fun, long day of activity for them. 

 

 

 

 We managed to also get over to Beaverdam Reservoir one day for walking around the resevoir and fishing.  Cayenne loves it there.  She runs, explores, swims, and has a blast.  Unfortunately, the fishing wasn’t as great, but it probably needs to still warm up a bit more for that.  Spring is beautiful at the reservoir though.

 

We capped off the week with a fun Easter celebration at Mouse and Pops’ house.  As always, the girls did their egg hunt, the pups did their egg hunt, and Mouse did not disappoint with her game selection.  We played a couple rounds of poison ball with the dogs in rare form.  Moose kept stealing the cones and poison balls, and Cleo and Cayenne just barked at each other and everyone while Maggie sat off in the distance just wishing everyone would be quiet and go home.  Lyla and Mark won the egg toss game, and Emme and Poppy won the Toss the Rag on the Head game.  Don’t ask! It’s never a dull moment with the Mouse orchestrating games.

  

  

  

  

  

Each year it gets harder to hide eggs from the girls.  Do you spot it in the picture below?  Mouse and Pops prepared and amazing dinner, and as always, the real joy is in spending time together.  We are so fortunate to have a family that has a great time hanging out together, and we are grateful for both the resurrection of Jesus and the blessing of family on Easter.