The Jesters: Busy Month!

September was a very full month. Hallie kicked it off by celebrating her 9th birthday!

She had her traditional "8" pancake on the last day she was 8 years old.

And when she woke up, she was an older, wiser 9-year-old!

With an enormous #9 balloon!

I took the day off from work, so we could celebrate and pick Emma up early from school.

And by "celebrate," I mean that we accidentally scheduled Hallie's well-child doctor visit on the morning of her birthday. Oops!

But I made it up to her afterwards by taking her to Waffle House for breakfast.

It was her first time there, and she loved it!

We also picked up a birthday cupcake from Nothing Bundt Cake.

I took her to the mall to shop at Claire's, but we arrived a little before the store opened. She spent the extra time shopping for candy in these vending machines.

We had a short time to browse at Claire's before we picked Emma up from school and headed to Hunt Club Farm for the afternoon!

There were so many sweet baby goats to feed.

Hunt Club has a huge aviary with about 100 parakeets. They sell birdseed sticks that you can hold to attract them. We spent tons of time in the aviary, enjoying the colorful birds.

I also paid for a miniature highland cow experience. They were absolutely adorable!

We had the best time bonding with tiny Mr. Coffee

And beautiful Bean

They let us put sombreros on their heads. Hola, Señor Coffee!

Hermosa jóvenes

And they let us share their naptime.

They were the warmest, fluffiest pillows!

We returned to the aviary, and we were the only people there for a while.

We discovered that if we sat down, the parakeets would climb all over our shoes and legs.

They wanted to eat everything on our shoes, from chewing on our shoelaces to eating the gunk stuck to the bottoms of our soles (ewww.)

Before we left the farm we swung by the chicken coop

The girls each found redheaded chickens that matched their hair color.

It was a great celebration of Hallie's birthday!

Our 9-year-old had a bunch of gifts to open that night!

She received a Wings of Fire blanket

Plus, several fun toys that she had asked for.

The next evening, we met the grandparents at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate again.

A few days later, we had another birthday party for Hallie with the Jester family. She chose a Krispy Kreme donut cake and brownies for her desserts.

Happy birthday to our beautiful 9-year-old!

Dan and Emma went to the mountains for a few days for the annual StoneBridge upper school retreat.

Emma had the best time hanging out night & day with her friends!

The teachers double as camp counselors and activity coordinators during the retreat, and Dan had the great idea of sending the kids on a teacher scavenger hunt. The teachers had to find a hiding spot (or comfortable place to sit) for an hour while groups of kids tried to find them all. Dan hid inside a drain pipe and nobody found him!

While Dan & Emma were away, Hallie and I had a couple of dates.

We ate dinner at Zaxby's and played at Chuck E. Cheese's

Hallie chose a cool-looking prize

Cheesecake Factory is our favorite restaurant, so we used some gift cards and ate dinner there the next night

Afterwards, we took a stroll around Virginia Beach Town Center

This year at school, Hallie was selected to be part of the 4th grade worship team, who leads songs during chapel. She has great stage presence and did a wonderful job with her classmates!

Dan's parents' deck had rotted boards that needed to be replaced, so we scheduled a Jester family workday to paint, cut, and place the new boards.

We had to recruit our 13-year-old nephew, Josiah, to climb under the deck and retrieve some things. He's a brave soul!

Our biggest adventure in September was renovating our master bathroom. I've hated this bathroom since the moment we moved into our house, but it was perfectly functional, so we couldn't justify spending the money until we had plenty saved and no other pressing financial needs. 10 years later, we finally made it happen!

My biggest complaint about our bathroom was the open "hotel room" style sink area. It had no door closing off the vanity from the bedroom, so this was the view from our bed. If Dan or I needed to get ready early in the morning, we couldn't help disrupting the other person who was trying to sleep. Also, the vanity area had carpeting, which is harder to clean than a tile floor.

The right side of the vanity led into a walk-in closet.

The left side of the vanity led into toilet & shower room. The shower was a one-piece insert with a built-in seat on both sides, which made it feel tight on space, especially for Dan. My biggest complaint was that the light switch to the toilet/shower was outside the room. So you had to switch on the light before you went inside and shut the door, which meant you flooded the bedroom with light.

The previous owners covered the original linoleum floor with cheap floor paneling that had visible gaps right beside the shower.

And we had the original 1970s vanity, complete with a seashell-shaped sink. The marble was stained from years of use, which kept it from looking truly clean. These were mostly aesthetic issues, but we were ready to finally have a bathroom we'd enjoy!

We hired a good friend, Cynthia, to guide us through the process, and she was absolutely wonderful! She scheduled one of her most trusted contractors to do the renovation and made sure we knew what we needed to choose and purchase in order to be ready for them to start. There were so many decisions to make, from the layout of the major elements, tiles, flooring, colors, and the placement of accessories. Shopping at the warehouses became overwhelming quickly! But once we had some general ideas, Cynthia created a floorplan and collected samples for us to compare at home, which simplified our choices.