We packed a lot of adventures into November! Voting day came around and I miraculously got the girls ready for school early, swung by our voting location (which thankfully had no line), voted, and got them to school on time! Whew!
They were proud to wear their stickers. I hope and pray that they appreciate and take advantage of their right to vote when they're old enough.
We took my parents out to lunch to celebrate Veteran's Day with my dad! We're thankful for his service in the Army during the Vietnam War, and for all American service members who help keep our nation safe. Dan had to work, but he was able to stop in at Cracker Barrel to see us for a few minutes.
Dan and I enjoyed a date at Busch Gardens Christmas Town during their opening weekend. We've found that it's not as crowded or cold in mid-November when they first open, so we try to go early instead of waiting until closer to Christmas. We've taken the girls in the past, but all they really want to do is play in the kid areas, so we went on our own this year and focused on the holiday shows.
StoneBridge School has a special celebration the Friday before Thanksgiving break, called "Christian Heritage Day." They let the kids (and adults) dress up like Pilgrims or Native Americans and participate in special activities all day. They learn about food, games, clothing, animals, and music appropriate to that time in American history. I volunteered to help at the elementary students' food tasting station this year, and served them sample plates of squirrel stew, corn pudding, fresh fish, root vegetables, and other foods that the Pilgrims and Native Americans ate. Some of the children tried the food, but some experienced hunger, just like the Pilgrims did during their first winter.
Me with my little Pilgrim and Native American. All morning when I asked the girls to do something, they'd respond "Yes, Mary Poppins."
Emma's 1st grade class.
And Hallie's K-3 preschool class
The preschoolers got to ride adorable ponies! It's all they talked about for the rest of the day.
A photographer at school posted this awesome photo of Emma and her classmates having a sack race.
I encouraged our parents to come and hang out with the girls since I was tied up at the food tasting station. My mom tried to get Hallie to sample some of the "yummy and interesting" food, but alas, she was one of the hungry little Pilgrims.
My dad got to roast apples at the fire pits with Emma!
Dan's parents and my parents came to school, split up, and spent the whole day with Emma and Hallie, which made their day even more fun!
Right after Christian Heritage Day was over, Dan's parents jumped in our minivan and we hit the road toward the Cincinnati, OH area!
Our main purpose for the trip was to visit The Ark Encounter in Williamstown, KY, less than an hour south of Cincinnati. The full-scale ark they built there was huge, beautiful, and well worth the drive!
It was three stories inside, and beautifully made. They only had a handful of live petting zoo-type animals inside the ark, probably for sanitary reasons. But they had filled each floor with life-sized models of animals so you got the idea of all the animals it would've held. There was a lot of speculation about Noah's in-laws and his family's methods of caring for the ark and animals during the flood, so we took it with a grain of salt, but it was interesting and well-presented.
Just outside the ark, they had a full-scale petting zoo and camel rides! I've always wanted to ride one, and the girls and I had a blast checking this off my bucket list. It had a smooth but swaying gait, kind of like a small boat rolling over waves.
The ark also had an amazing playground! Hands-down the most creative playground equipment we've seen, like a kid-sized zip line, a swing roller coaster, a stain glass maze, and of course lots of animal-themed climbing equipment.
They lit the ark up at night and had Christmas trees lit along the walkways. So gorgeous!
The day after our ark visit, we toured the Creation Museum near Cincinnati. It was interesting and fun, but we definitely enjoyed the ark more between the two museums. Besides presenting the biblical account of the creation of the world and the gospel of Jesus, the Creation Museum had a big emphasis on dragons/dinosaurs, so if you have kids who love dinosaurs, this is a great place to take them.
We attended a presentation by Buddy Davis, a Christian dinosaur researcher and sculptor (he sculpted almost all of the dinosaur models in the Creation Museum). He asserted that since "dinosaur" wasn't a term that was invented until the mid-1800s, all the legends we hear about "dragons" in historical accounts around the world were actually sightings and stories of dinosaurs.
After Buddy's presentation, he gave everyone modeling clay and a template to help us sculpt our own dinosaurs. Super fun!
This was the full-scale dinosaur head that Buddy had sculpted, and that we were trying to copy.
We left the Creation Museum and drove to Cedarville University, Dan's alma mater. It's grown a ton since Dan attended, and he thoroughly enjoyed taking a driving tour of the campus.
Next, we continued on to Columbus to watch the Blue Jackets play that night!
We drove most of the way home the following day, and made it to Charlottesville, VA to spend the night.
Charlottesville has a pretty pedestrian mall that we enjoyed strolling along. We took the girls to a cute toy store there.
The mall had "shadow art" that created silhouettes of people in different action poses. Dan and Emma are reenacting the artwork behind them depicting a dad lifting his child in the air.
Then we were home again! And we put up our Christmas decorations right away. The girls were so excited and did a great job decorating the tree.
On Thanksgiving Day, we hosted 17 people at our house! We normally go to Dan's parents' house for major holidays, and it was fun to change it up and have everyone over to our home.
We were thankful to be surrounded by amazing family and friends.
Emma and Hallie loved playing with their friend from church, Matthew.
My favorite picture of the day was Hallie getting her toes tickled by Matthew's baby sister, Luciana.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Emma and Hallie were invited to their friend, Kate's, birthday party. They decorated shirts with puffy paint, decorated and ate cookies, and ran off all the sugar in the backyard. It was a great time.
Kate is in the back with a black shirt on. Her favorite animals are cats, so they all painted cats on their shirts.
We've made a tradition of seeing one live performance at Christmastime. Last year, we went to a Mannheim Steamroller concert, and this year we saw "A Magical Cirque Christmas". Just as it sounds, there were circus acts performing to traditional Christmas music. It was a strange combination a few times, but highly entertaining and we all enjoyed it.
Dan's parents joined us for the show. My parents didn't come because circus acts make my mom too nervous and tense. After sitting on the edge of our seats through a couple of the nail-biting performances, Dan and I were glad she decided not to come to this one! We'll choose a calmer show for her next year.
