Celebrations!

 We started the month of May by celebrating our 21st anniversary!  We hadn't gotten the chance to celebrate Dan's dad's birthday in late April yet, so we combined our parties on our anniversary.

Happy birthday to Roy - 86 years old! And happy anniversary to us - 21 years!

We love having everyone together for all the occasions!  

The following day, Dan's parents babysat Emma and Hallie so we could enjoy an anniversary date. We drove to Shenandoah National Park to do some hiking. We were expecting to see beautiful scenery while driving along the famous Skyline Drive, but this was our view:

The entire mountain was socked in by a cloud and we could hardly see the road in front of us. 

We planned to hike Dark Hollow Falls Trail, but a few concerns ran through our minds when we saw an ambulance parked at the head of the trail. 

We decided to go anyway, and we enjoyed hiking along the pretty trail.

There was a lovely waterfall at the end of the trail. The hike uphill back to the parking lot was pretty strenuous, but thankfully we didn't need to visit the ambulance afterwards.

We continued driving through the mountains to the cute town of Staunton and ate dinner at The Depot Grille before driving back to Williamsburg to pick up the girls.

While we were away, Dan's parents took Emma and Hallie to Yorktown Settlement and Museum, where they spent the day growing in knowledge and sophistication. 

Ummm...

Well, never mind.

Hallie (4th from left in the front row) did a great job in her classes' spring performance at school.

Hallie was one of only a few students to be selected to receive Music awards. She received the "David's Heart" award, for demonstrating a kind and loving heart throughout the year.

Dan received a surprise, also, when the student body dedicated the yearbook to him this year! They wrote an entire page about the amazing servant-leader and encourager he is to the entire school. 

I'm so proud of him and love that his coworkers and students appreciate how wonderful he is!

Dan with the group of high schoolers that he mentors. I think they played a big role in writing the yearbook page about him.

As a rising 6th grader, Emma got to participate in the middle school field day. She was on the "Teal Tornadoes" team.

She took a quick break from her field day games to see Dan receive his yearbook dedication.

Our nephew, Nathan, graduated from high school this year and plans to attend Regent University. We attended his graduation ceremony in Williamsburg, then spent the night with Dan's parents.

The next day, we visited Busch Gardens with my parents, Dan's sister Robin, and our nieces, Naomi and Miriam. 

The girls had a blast playing and riding rides together, and it was a nice cool day to be outside.

At the end of the evening, we all tried the Finnigan's Flyer ride together. Dan and I weren't sure if the girls would enjoy it or be scared. They LOVED it, and we rode it twice in a row!

Emma had her official science fair, and she had fun showing the other classes her project and passing out eraser animals.

5th graders have etiquette lessons at the end of the year, and one of their final field trips is an outing to a fancy restaurant to eat a formal meal while wearing their best clothes and demonstrating proper manners.

Emma invited Dan to come with her. Aren't they handsome & beautiful?

The girls and I attended a sweet birthday party for Luciana, who we've babysat a couple of times.

We also celebrated our nephew, Micah's, birthday in May.

Before we knew it, the school year was over. Time sure does fly!

Emma received a classroom character award and a class photo album from her teacher, Ms. Savides.

She was also taught by the other 5th grade teacher, Mr. Jennings. He was a first-year teacher who was often mistaken for one of the high schoolers.

Hallie received her classroom character award and some fun gifts from her 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Learn.

Mrs. Learn getting a group hug from the entire class!

Since the last day of school was over before noon, I took the girls to a farm to celebrate! 

We went strawberry picking.

And then we visited the animals at Bergey's Farm. They let you hold their baby bunnies, which is amazing.

Soooo fluffy and sweet!!

Emma loves holding piglets in her lap. They come running to her when she sits down in their pen!

Emma's favorite farm animals might be the baby goats, though. 

She played a fun game where she set the littlest goats on a waist-high platform and they'd jump down and hop back to their starting point. They didn't seem to know how to get down from that height at first, but they figured it out. Emma taught them their first trick!

Hallie enjoys the goats, too, but she needs help picking them up. They're almost as big as she is!

Hallie's favorites are the tiny bunnies.

We re-visited the bunnies before we left, and Emma accidentally discovered that her baby loved to burrow into the sleeve of her jacket!

Hallie had a long sleeve sweater that hers loved just as much. 

They looked like newborns in swaddling blankets - it was the cutest thing ever!

We ended our afternoon with ice cream at Sundae Scoop, and then we made dinner for Dan's parents and my parents at our house that evening.

For dessert, we had chocolate covered strawberries with our freshly picked berries. So delicious!

On Mother's Day, I was showered with homemade gifts by the girls, and Dan bought the most beautiful flowers for me, my mom, and his mom.

I'm blessed to be mom to these sweet girls!

Spring Events

Dan's Lexus blew its head gasket, and has been staggering along with a lot of prayers and daily TLC.  He had to refill the coolant every day and could only drive 20 miles at a time before it overheated. He looked into replacing the entire engine, but the cost was so high he decided it wasn't worth keeping it.  He got a great offer from Carmax and decided to sell his car as-is. 

Dan spent months looking for a replacement SUV, but couldn't find one he liked at a reasonable price. We finally decided that since our minivan has over 200,000 miles on it, it would be best to invest in a replacement minivan before our old one dies.  

So we're proud new owners of a second Honda Odyssey! The girls love having two vans with DVD players, and so far our 2005 Odyssey is still running like a champ. We hope our new van ages just as well.

We enjoyed a quieter Easter than expected, since all of Dan's family had a variety of sicknesses.

The girls enjoyed dying and decorating eggs

They received Eggmazing Egg Decorators, which spins your egg so you can color it with markers.

Their eggs turned out beautifully!

Both girls created their traditional cute egg characters, and named each one.

They're too adorable to eat! (But I still make the girls eat them) 

Dan played bass during the Easter church service, and Hallie, Emma, and I helped in the 1-year-old nursery. 

My parents joined us for lunch after church. We absolutely love getting to see them every week!

  

The girls took elegant Easter photos. Heh!

  

So pretty!

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday.

We had a make-up Easter dinner with Dan's family the following weekend, and we also celebrated Dan's mom's birthday.

On April 8th, we saw a partial eclipse in Virginia, which was such a cool natural event! One of the parents (an ophthalmologist) at StoneBridge School donated enough eclipse glasses for all the students and staff. They took everyone out to the soccer field that afternoon to see the eclipse.

I had also purchased eclipse glasses for the girls, and we saw it progress further by the time we arrived home from school. I vividly recall a solar eclipse from my childhood, and I hope Emma and Hallie remember this one!

StoneBridge had their annual STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math) day.

Hallie and her classmates created racetracks using a variety of materials, then they got to race cars to see how well the racetracks worked.

Another science event for our family was Emma's 5th grade science fair project.  She used a homemade catapult to propel objects of various weights.  

It was a family affair, with Emma operating the catapult, Dan carefully watching where the objects first hit the ground so we could record the distance, me taking notes and photos, and Hallie retrieving any runaway objects.

She created a posterboard, and did an excellent job. One of the objects she catapulted in her experiment was a cute animal eraser, and she decided to give away little erasers to all the students who came to the fair.

Speaking of science experiments, Dan's been going through the medical wringer this month. He's had some troublesome symptoms for a while now, like muscle cramps and twitches, toe numbness, and a left drop foot, which has severely limited his activity level. He's assumed all this time that the problems were stemming from his back injuries and compression, but his doctor recently referred him to neurological specialists to see if they could get to the bottom of it all. He experienced his first MRIs as well as a spinal tap, which resulted in him getting such severe migraines and dizziness afterwards, he had to return to the ER to get a "blood patch" to help the puncture site close more rapidly. The test results ruled out many possibilities, but some neurological conditions are diagnosed on a "let's wait and see how this progresses" basis.

So in the meantime, we're praying for his healing and he's carrying on with being amazing at so many things - like torturing his children. Haha!

They actually begged him to spray them, but they forgot that Dan doesn't do anything halfway!

Days after Dan's medical tests and appointments, my mom got the results of her own scans and spinal tap to discover the cause of her memory loss over the past few years. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which officially made it the Most Stressful Week of 2024.   

My brother, Steve, came for a visit to spend time with Mom and Dad following the news of her diagnosis. We love this wise, kind woman with all our hearts, and we pray for her daily!

Emma turned 11 years old in April, which seems impossible. She's grown in many different ways this year and she's an amazing kid - so creative and imaginative.  Her favorite things are reading animal xenofiction (written from the animals' points of view), watching funny shows and movies, eating pasta and chocolate ice cream, and spending time with animals, her family, and her friends (possibly in that order).

She had her traditional birthday pancake

Emma's class writes encouraging descriptions on the board for each student.

Since her birthday was on a Sunday, we had her party on her actual birthday! She opted for a Dunkin' Donuts cake and decorated it with characters from her favorite book series, "Wings of Fire."

She enjoyed playing games with her cousins all day long.

She also received some great gifts, like this giant "Stitch" blanket 

And a toy science kit with a frog skeleton that she dissected out of a slime mold. Eeeww.

We love you so much, Emma, and we pray that God will guide and bless you all throughout your life! 

We also celebrated my dad's 80th birthday in April! He's the best Dad and Papa in the world!

We took him to lunch at Mission BBQ, without knowing that they blast the National Anthem at noon every day, and the entire restaurant comes to halt to salute and sing together. The restaurant owner noticed that we were celebrating my dad's birthday, and brought us a tray of free desserts. 

I attended Hallie's big field trip to Jamestown Settlement

Her class in front of the replica of the Susan Constant

The kids loved exploring the ship and seeing what it looked like below deck.

They also worked together to trim a sail

We walked through the Powhatan Indian village

Each child got to use a natural tool, like a seashell, to remove fur from an animal hide.

Shockingly, Hallie and her friends, Sophia and Fiona, loved shopping at the gift shop best of all.

We were invited to a roller skating party for Emma's classmates, and had a great time!

And at long last - Dan and I got to go on a date at the end of April! We've been on an unintentional no-date streak for months now, because every single time we scheduled a babysitter and planned to go out alone, someone has gotten sick or injured and we've had to cancel.  We had signed up to attend StoneBridge's Chrysalis event, which is their high school prom. True to form, Hallie got sick and started throwing up at school just hours before the event!  By the time we notified Dan's parents, they were already on their way from Williamsburg to watch the girls and they decided to come despite the sickness.  

Chrysalis was held on the Spirit of Norfolk harbor cruise, which included a very nice buffet dinner, music, and dancing. It was great to chat with Dan's coworkers and see all the students looking beautiful and having a fantastic time with each other.

We enjoyed the lovely views of Norfolk from the bay.

We're very thankful we were able to go!