Steve and Meera's Visit!

 My brother, Steve, and his daughter, Meera, spent some of their Spring Break with us in Virginia! Meera (age 7) falls right between Emma and Hallie's ages, and they're like three peas in a pod when they get together. We missed Steve's wife, Sheila, and their son, Rowan, but the two of them were able to spend time with Sheila's parents that week.  

These girls were inseparable for 5 days straight!

Steve and Meera arrived on Emma's 9th birthday! Since Meera's 7th birthday was earlier that week, we had a joint party for the two of them.

One of Emma's gifts was this fort-building kit. Put it together, throw some sheets or blankets over it, and voila! Somehow the girls all squeezed in there to play.

Emma also received a Magic Mixie, that revealed a special stuffed animal after she completed the magic spell.

Emma and Hallie loved having sleepovers with Meera!

Meera requested that we go to a farm again during her visit, so we introduced her and Steve to Bergey's Farm in Chesapeake.

The spring babies were so cute, and we had a blast! 

There were rather large piglets who ran to cuddle with whomever sat down in their pen with them.

Meera making some new friends.

Hallie and Meera were in heaven holding these tiny fluffy bunnies. We went back several times to hold them again before we left.

Emma loved the baby goats the best. She was really good at catching and holding them.

Hallie was the only one young enough to have a pony ride this time.

We took a wagon ride around the farm before we left.

A photo of the adults playing Quirkle. We spent half our time at my parents' house and half our time at our house. I took time off from work during their visit, but Dan worked each weekday and joined us at night.

Just before Steve and Meera flew back to Boston, we celebrated Easter Sunday with them. After church, we drove to Dan's brother, Tim's, house for a big lunch and an Easter egg hunt.

It was a pretty day to play outside, and Meera jumped right into the fun with the Jester cousins.

The kids holding up their bags of loot from the Easter egg hunt

Half the eggs had money and half had candy inside. I'm not sure which one Meera was more excited about.

We watched "Hop" that night and had our last sleepover. The girls dressed as Easter bunnies and were singing "I Want Candy!" (one of the songs from "Hop")

Before Steve and Meera flew home, the girls had most of the day to play, jump on our trampoline, and dye Easter eggs together. We always love our time with Steve and his family, and we can't wait to see them again!

Emma is NINE!!

 Emma is nine years old! This girl is a gift to us every day. She hit a big growth spurt this year and has also developed her strengths and skills, which are apparent when she does gymnastics, climbs trees, and tries new things. She's creative and makes up great stories and songs. Her artwork and attention to detail is fantastic, and she spends lots of time drawing intricate scenes on paper or a white board. She's crazy about lists and writes down her thoughts and ideas in a very organized list format. She loves to read - I'll come home with huge stack of books from the library, and she'll blaze through them in a couple of days. Some of her favorite books this year were "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," and "Black Beauty."  She also loves watching TV - especially funny shows. She's got a great sense of humor and is always making us laugh.

We love our beautiful Emma with all our hearts, and we pray that God will grow her closer to him this year.

This is such a classic example of Emma's creativeness and organization, I had to share. Right after Dan and I voted in Virginia's gubernatorial election, Emma created a voter's booth like the one she saw us use. 

We were voting on the "cutest animal" in her room.

We checked in at her table and had to sign our name to prove our identity.  Then we were given a pencil and ballot.

The ballot

She even labeled each animal for us. I'm not sure how you could vote wrong in this case!

Emma did several projects for school this year. This was her diorama for her biome book report on the Savannah. 

She got a first-place ribbon for her killer whale in art class!

She's such an animal lover, and regularly checks out books with facts about animals. Her favorites to read about are dogs, cats, and horses, but she enjoys most books about animals - even bugs! (ewww)

She's attended classmates' birthday parties, where she ice skated and went bowling. They had "walkers" to help the beginner skaters. I wish they had them in my size!

It was Emma's first time bowling at her friend's birthday party, and she was a rock star!

When we're out anywhere, she's always looking for something to climb. You'll usually find her at the tops of trees, rocks, statues, and playground climbing structures.

She's a terrific big sister to Hallie. She's listening to Hallie read to her and helping her with any words she doesn't know.

She keeps us laughing with her funny expressions and silly stories and jokes. She decided to use this balloon as a "tail" at her birthday party, and had the whole family giggling.  She recently made up a trivia game for our family to play and there were "penalty cards" we had to draw if we guessed incorrectly (she handmade all the cards, of course). Penalties for wrong answers included things like barking like a dog, doing pushups, and sitting on the toilet backwards. (I don't know where that idea came from!)

It's been a joy to watch this pretty girl grow and develop this year! We love you with all our hearts, Emma!

Spring Break!

Spring Break was a getaway/staycation combination.  The first weekend of break, we drove to Richmond for a couple of days. We'd never been to Kings Dominion amusement park, and we spent 6 hours there on Saturday. 

It was a cold, very windy day, but we bundled up and had lots of fun!

Emma and Hallie found some cute new friends right away!

They had a Driving School ride where kids could drive small cars freely down "city" streets, complete with stop signs and traffic lights. Dan said it reminded him of a similar place called Safety Town when he was growing up on Long Island, NY.

This guy reminds me of someone, but I can't put my finger on it...

Oh yeah! Dan's twin!

All the rides for young kids are in a single location at Kings Dominion, so we spent the majority of our day in that area. It wasn't very crowded, so if there were lines at all, they were pretty short.

Emma saw the big swings and had to try them. Hallie was too short to get on this ride, and Dan and I get nauseous on the swings. Emma surprised us by riding it by herself!  She's on the right side of the photo, holding out her arms and closing her eyes so she could feel like she was flying! Brave girl!

The worker at this jeep ride measured Emma carefully and declared her too tall to ride it. Hallie wouldn't ride without Emma, so they were both disappointed. Since Emma was barely at the maximum height, we revisited the ride later when another person was working it. The second worker let them both right on! They were super happy, but it may have been Emma's last opportunity to ride this one!

After we'd ridden ALL the kids' rides, we took a stroll through the rest of Kings Dominion to see what else it had to offer. Even though they were worn out, the park had large rocks in the Jungle X-pedition area that the girls couldn't resist climbing and playing on. 

After all that activity, they had to stop and take a nap with Snoopy and Woodstock!

We stayed the night in a nearby hotel with an indoor pool, and the girls enjoyed swimming until bedtime.

The next morning, we visited the Children's Museum of Richmond.  It's a little smaller than our Portsmouth Children Museum, but it had different stations which kept the girls busy playing non-stop for over 3 hours.

There was a deli where they could pretend to be waitresses and prepare food while we sat at a booth on our "date". 

They could actually milk this cow! It had a rubber udder that squirted water into a sponge in the bucket below.

The girls both loved it and kept going back every time we passed the cow.

A dinosaur-themed play area

There was a craft station with an attendant who worked at a counter handing out craft supplies. The girls made toilet paper roll butterflies. Emma was done crafting after this, but Hallie was in heaven and stayed at least an hour longer!

There was a theater section with a puppet stage, a sound booth, and a large stage with dress up clothes and a vanity. Dan and I enjoyed several performances starring our favorite dancers.

They had an NBC news station with video cameras and a news anchor desk. Dan and Hallie were in the middle of reporting the top news stories, when they were unexpectedly visited by Emma the Dog! 

Emma and I gave the weather forecast. It's all a lie - it was actually cold and miserable outside.

The Children's Museum had an indoor carousel, and the girls enjoyed a ride on some interesting animals.

After our weekend in Richmond, we stayed home Monday-Thursday. Each set of grandparents offered to babysit the girls one day so I could go into the office.  Dan's parents' local library in Williamsburg had recently added interactive activities for kids, so Emma and Hallie checked it out with Grandpa and Grandma!

A Lego-building wall

A vet area with stuffed animals to heal. 

During his Spring Break weekdays at home, Dan accomplished a lot of work around the house and yard. He installed two ceiling fans, weeded the lawn, rearranged furniture, and cleaned up the garage.

By Friday, we were ready to hit the road again and drove to Washington DC for a few days.

Our first stop was the National Zoo.  It was bigger and had more animals than we expected, including some giant pandas!

There was only one playground area, but the girls of course made every statue and rock along the way into their personal jungle gym!

The elephants were really active, and one even did a dance for us!

The meerkats were active, too. One of them looked a little shifty, though.

One of our unexpected favorite exhibits was the small mammal house. They had a habitat with dozens of naked mole rats, which were fascinating to watch. Emma couldn't decide: cute or creepy?

Here's a close-up so you can decide for yourself:

Hopefully you don't see that in your sleep.

After our zoo day, we went to the National Building Museum to pick up my race packet and t-shirt for the Cherry Blossom 10-mile run that I was running that Sunday. 

Washington DC is such a beautiful city, and Hallie and Emma enjoyed seeing all the memorials and statues around the city.

On Saturday morning, Dan took us on a driving tour of the most famous monuments, and the girls and I hopped out the car for a few minutes to walk inside the Lincoln Memorial. There were no parking spots available, so Dan had to keep driving around until we were finished.

The view of the Washington Monument is spectacular from the Lincoln Memorial steps.

When I visited Washington DC as a child, this monument and Lincoln's statue were the most awe-inspiring and memorable.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the Museum of Natural History.  We all enjoyed the Mammal exhibits and spent the most time there, but we did a faster walkthrough of the rest of the museum.

The girls could look through a window underneath this prowling black panther exhibit. 

Our Hallie Bear posing with the bears

Dinosaurs!

Holy giant geode!

Hallie would like one of everything, please.

The famous Hope Diamond

On Saturday evening, we met my running buddy, Lori, and her family for dinner. 

Lori and I used to work together, and we would run on our lunch breaks. We worked up to running a 5k and then a half marathon together in Virginia. We signed up for the Cherry Blossom 10-mile race in 2020, but it was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021 because of COVID.  In the past year, Lori took a different job and moved to Wisconsin, but she traveled all the way back to Washington DC to run with me!

Our starting line was at the Washington Monument, which was super cool.

Lori with her daughter, Haleigh, and husband, Terry

The weather couldn't have been more perfect on race day, and we ran the 10 miles slowly and enjoyed the views of beautiful Washington DC.

We ran past all the major monuments, over Arlington Memorial Bridge toward Arlington National Cemetery, through tunnels, over several other bridges with pretty views, and down roads that were lined with cherry blossom trees. I loved every minute.

Stopping to take a photo with the gorgeous cherry blossoms

We finished the race, and I found my favorite people waiting for me. Apparently, the kids slept until 9am, and Dan had to rush to meet me at the finish line!

Lori and I with our biggest supporters. I'm so thankful we finally got to run this race together. It was a blast!