Springtime Fun

A week after we returned from our Spring Break trip in Orlando, we celebrated Emma's 6th birthday!

We brought donut holes to celebrate with her class that week.

We partied all weekend to celebrate her birthday! Emma wanted a "5" pancake the Saturday morning before her birthday, since it was her last day to be 5 years old. This took me several tries and a lot of prayers while I was flipping it.

 We also took Emma and Hallie to an indoor bounce house on Saturday, as part of Emma's birthday celebration.

They had an awesome time! Emma raced through the whole place while Hallie tried desperately to keep up.

We gave her an early gift - a Playmobil Horse Stable - that afternoon, since it took a while to assemble and we wanted her to have time to play with it.

The next day (Sunday) was Emma's actual birthday, and we celebrated her and her cousin, Miriam, at Chuck E. Cheese's with the Jester family that evening. Miriam turned 4 later in April, and both birthday girls had a great time!

These girls got lots of special treatment at their birthday party!

 The Jester party

Emma's new best friend

Hallie and I have enjoyed going on a couple of field trips with Emma's class recently. 

They had a field trip to a lake for Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) Day, where their teacher's husband demonstrated some of his work as a wildlife biologist.

The kids got to learn about and touch fish and turtles from the pond

That was all fine and good, but the highlight for Hallie was sitting on the bus for a few minutes while it was parked. When she saw that Emma was getting to ride the bus and she wasn't, she bawled all the way to the field trip site!

We joined Emma's class for another trip to Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk.

They spent an hour observing paintings and sculptures, and asking really good questions for the tour guide (saint) to answer.

Emma got to participate in Pioneer Day at school to conclude the Kindergarten class' reading of "Little House in the Big Woods." 

The cutest pioneer girl I've ever seen!!

Emma's class and teacher, Mrs. Boyce

The kids rotated through hands-on activities where they learned to quilt, make bread, churn butter, mix natural medicines, emboss leather, punch tin, and learn about hunting and trapping. All the parents volunteered to lead the activities, and I was responsible for fence painting (with water) and clothes washing. There was very little that I had to do besides show the children the buckets of water and let them go at it!

Emma's friend, Elisha, celebrated his 6th birthday, so we treated him and his mom to ice cream after school.

Emma was also invited to her friend, Lalie's, birthday party.

We spent Easter celebrating our risen Savior at church and having a big family dinner and Easter Egg Hunt in Hopewell, where Dan's sister, Robin, and her family live.

Family Easter photo

Our beautiful girls!

One of our favorite couples in the world

We have absolutely loved attending church with my parents. It's such a blessing to see them on a weekly basis.

Every year, Dan's mom organizes the Easter Egg Hunt for the kids and gives a gospel presentation about the meaning of Easter.

 My mom helping Hallie find her eggs

Emma needed no help. She was done in 30 seconds flat.

My mom's cousins, Mark and Paula, visited them for several days and we got to have dinner with them a couple of times while they were in town.

We celebrated several family birthdays in April, including Dan's mom and dad, and my dad.  We had parties at Dan's parents' house for their birthdays, and took my dad out for dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

Dan's brother and sister-in-law, Tim and Dawn (left side of the photo), bought an Escape Room experience for Robin, Rob, Dan, and I. The six of us left all our kids in the care of a babysitter and were "locked" in a room together for an hour. (By law, they technically couldn't lock us in, but we stayed anyway.) The room had a pirate theme, and our goal was to solve several logic puzzles, discover how to connect the answers we came up with, and unlock the treasure chest before we could "escape".

We got the treasure! With only three minutes to spare, but still! It was a very fun time together, and we made a pretty good team.

In other news, Dan's transmission in his 2002 Isuzu Rodeo died and we decided it wasn't worth paying to have it repaired or replaced.

Dan and my dad spent an afternoon trying some at-home techniques to revive the transmission, but to no avail.

After a lot of shopping around and researching online, he's now the proud owner of a 2007 Lexus RX 350!  Hopefully it'll last as long and drive as well as the Rodeo did!

Spring Break in Orlando!

We had an action-packed Spring Break trip to Orlando in early April! We flew on Allegiant Airlines for the first time. It's a low-cost, no-frills airline that flies directly from Norfolk to a few major cities in Florida.  We had to pay for everything extra (choosing seats, flying with any luggage larger than a personal item, and even printing our boarding tickets - although we downloaded the Allegiant app to use electronic tickets and avoid that charge!)  But overall, we had a good experience and we got a great deal on direct flights to and from FL! We flew in and out of Clearwater (near Tampa) because the dates and prices were better than the Orlando flights.

The girls love to fly, and this was the first time we had to pay for Hallie's seat, since she wasn't quite two years old the last time we flew to Texas. 

As soon as we arrived in Florida, we drove directly to Clearwater Beach! It was a gorgeous afternoon, and the girls loved playing in the warm, gentle waves!

Emma loved this sea turtle statue

And Hallie loved the sand between her toes! They had a shaded playground area on the beach, which was perfect for getting their wiggles out after the flight and car ride.

The next day, we visited Legoland in Orlando!

This park is tailored for young kids. Most of the rides and play areas are appropriate for toddlers, or they have a toddler version of the bigger rides nearby for the little ones.

Emma got to drive a motorized car and they gave her a driver's license at the end. She had 3 wrecks in 2 minutes, so I guess their standard is pretty low. Heh!

There were playgrounds and Lego play areas all through the park, so you could only walk a few yards before the kids were begging to play at the next play area they saw.  

There's a boat ride where you're guaranteed to get soaking wet, because the spectators standing near the ride get to spray the boats with water blasters mounted to the walls.  The people on the boat have water guns to defend themselves, too. Dan is turning the water crank for Emma and ducking out of the line of fire while Emma aims the water gun at the boats and gets sprayed in the face. Haha!

Emma got to ride a Lego jousting ride.

Hallie was too young for that one, so she rode this Lego dog statue instead. I'm not sure what exactly she's doing. Probably saying "this hurts my rear end!"

And then the inevitable happened. The law finally caught up with Hallie for all her crimes. Tough break, kid.

The Lego city sculptures were pretty amazing, and there were buttons that put some of the Legos into action. They're pushing the buttons to make the firefighter boats spray water on the Statue of Liberty.

Emma rounded out the day with a spectacular wipeout on the concrete. I made her walk slowly the rest of the afternoon because she had used up all my bandaids.

It cheered her up to visit the Legoland Hotel after we were done at the park. We just went into the lobby and elevator and they were awesome! Lots of Lego statues, displays (like this uncomfortable-looking Lego bed), and a pirate-themed play area. The elevator played dance music and strobe lights as it went up and down.

We spent our third day at the Magic Kingdom!

We arrived early enough to see the welcome show, featuring Mickey, Minnie, and a lot of princesses. It's a great way to start the day there, but you have to be there a little before the park opens.

Belle's story experience was a highlight for Emma. They let the children participate in the story with Princess Belle and put on a show for their parents. Emma got to be Belle's horse, Philippe. 

Cinderella is Hallie's favorite princess. She still talks about her all the time.

They also got to meet Princess Alana (from the Disney Junior TV show)

Hallie skipped her nap altogether during our Legoland day, so she had a rough time at Disney World. She'd fall asleep for a few minutes in the stroller and then wake up with the sun shining in her face and bunch of strangers around her. So we had a few of those stereotypical "family with the screaming toddler" moments, but she shook it off and had a great time overall.

You can barely see Dan and Emma on the ride in this photo, but we made Dumbo our last stop before we found a good place to watch the nighttime fireworks show. Emma was nervous about not liking the loud fireworks, but both girls LOVED the show, and we were glad we kept them out late enough to see it.

We spent our final day in Orlando packing up and shopping for souvenirs. And one of the best parts is that we arrived home on Thursday, so we had a long weekend to recover from our active vacation! It was the best of both worlds.