Wolf in Training

T and Dave on their first Scout Camping trip

T and his fellow Wolves-in-training

They spent the morning at Fort Frederick, built in 1756 and used as an active fort during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War, where it was used as a prison for British soldiers.

After lunch, the boys headed out on a 4 mile hike.

3 miles down, 1 to go....

And quite possibly the highlight of the whole weekend for T...... fishing!!

There is a den at our church that I was going to have Tan join when he turns 8 (they don't let you join prior to that age even though all the other scout programs/dens start at age six).  But, we have a very tight nit neighborhood and school - only our neighborhood goes to our school so everyone knows everyone.  AND Tanner watched every single one of his friends go through scouts last year and do all kinds of fun activities including these camping trips and begged me to let him join this year.  Dave and I decided that scouting would be good for Tan and the 1:1 time with his dad would be good too, so I went ahead and signed it up.  So... the first (of many, I'm sure!) scout camping trip is in the books and T absolutely loved it!

King's Dominion

This is our 5th year in a row going to King's Dominion, an awesome amusement park 2 hours south of us.  The first year we went (2011), Lacey was 4, Tanner 3, Riley an infant and Ella didn't exist.  It has been so fun to keep this tradition and see these babies and toddlers grow into roller-coaster riding crazies!

I came here pregnant with her in 2012, again as a baby in 2013 and as a 1 year old last year.  This year, she was tall enough to have a bracelet!  And that meant she could ride the log flume ride.  I have very few pictures from the day because I didn't bring my camera and my phone doesn't take good pictures.  On the log flume ride (Shenandoah Lumber Company - Rated 4 "High Thrill Ride" - 5 is the highest), I didn't even bring my phone because I didn't want it to get wet.  Anyway, I had this little ball of 2 year old cuteness in front of me with Lacey and Riley in the front of the log.  Dave and T were behind us.  Since it was a "big" ride that we could all do together as a family, we saved it for the last ride of the day.  I looked back at my boys and then in front of me at my girls and took a mental picture that I hope I'll never forget.  It was not only the end to a perfect day, but an end of an era.  We have done this every year because Dave's company rents the entire park for a day every September and allows all their employees and their families to go to the park for free (including parking and food!).  But he has decided to leave his company and has taken another job that he starts this week.  So, alas, I don't see us continuing our annual trek to KD.  But it's been a great ride......

Snoopy vs Red Baron

Since we have salivated over the "big rides" for the past 5 years, but have been extremely limited in this regard for obvious reasons, Dave and I each ran off and did a couple of the "biggies" while the other was with the kidlets.  Here's Dave about to Dominate the Dominator.

Woodstock Express

After this ride (the Flying Eagle), we all headed over to the water park where we could have easily spent all day.  Instead, we limited it to an hour and a half and didn't take any pictures.  But had a lot of fun!  Ella and I loved the Lazy River and L, T and R played at Tidal Wave Bay the ENTIRE time.  We had to pull Lacey out..... she's my beach baby!

Good-bye King's Dominion!  

I hope we meet again, but either way, we've had a good run......

The Compassion Experience

The kids had the day off school today for Rosh Hashanah, so as I was trying to decide what to do with the kids, I came across something called The Compassion Experience. It is basically a huge trailer set up to be a third world country and you walk through with an audio guide of a child that takes you through their life.

(Here we are entertaining ourselves in the rather long line!)

We went to the Philippines and heard the true story of Kiwi in her own words.  She is the fourth child born to her parents, but the first one who lived past infancy.  

Learning about her home life.

And what they eat

At the end of it, we learned that even though Kiwi's family was destitute, a family in the US helped to sponsor her and she ended up graduating college, getting married and now sponsors two other children.  I think it was a good experience for them to see that and for us to talk about being grateful for what we have and what we can do to give back.

And then, because it was an absolutely perfect day (sunny and in the 70's), we decided to skip Ella's nap and go get ice cream cones and eat them at the park instead.

I think that was a good decision.

And to cap off the day..... I took Lacey to her very first piano lesson.  She loved it and spent most of the evening practicing.  I know that won't last long.  But honestly, it just totally made my day as I went around bathing kids, cleaning up, doing laundry, etc and just had Lacey's piano practice in the background.  Love, love, loved it!

"Daddy Mmwwwah!"

I'm not sure when or why it started, but for the past several weeks, whenever Ella wakes up, I go and get her, change her diaper, dress her for the day and then she says to me "Daddy Mmwwwah" (making the kissing sound/face).  So, I take her into our room and she runs over, climbs up the side of the bed, finds Dave's face and gives him a big kiss.  It's pretty much the cutest, sweetest thing ever and a great way to start our day.  I love it almost as much as Dave.  And it just occurred to me that this is a phase.  It will end.  It might end next month, next week or tomorrow.  But inevitably it will stop.  And a year from now, we'll forget we ever had this beloved morning ritual.  Which is why I love to blog.  I can document these things that we want to remember forever, but would inevitably forget.

And speaking of wanting to forget...... man we have gotten NAILED with the stomach flu this past week.  It all started with Riley.  The poor girl was up ALL NIGHT LONG vomiting.  The following night, it hit me.  I wanted to die.  It was so, so horrible.  It hit Tanner while I was still in the throws of it, so Dave had to handle that.  And once Tanner and I were back among the living, it hit poor Lacey. Between the four of us, we missed church, school, soccer, etc. and did countless loads of laundry and spent some quality time scrubbing vomit out of carpet, rugs, clothes, sheets, etc while we waited for Dave and Ella to fall victim.  But miraculously they never did.  So, while this isn't scientifically proven, I have decided that the "Daddy Mmwwwah!" must have some secret immunity.  So, next time this nasty stomach virus rears its ugly head, I'm going to get myself a shot of "Mommy Mmwwah!"

One Small Step for Man......

One Giant Leap for Mankind

Tanner loves Space and has declared that he and his friend John John want to be "the first kids in space."  We've read several books together and I share his fascination with the fact that we've BEEN TO THE MOON.  Sadly, Neil Armstrong is no longer living, but the man who flew with him and walked on the moon just minutes behind him (~20 min to be precise) is alive and well at 85 years old and was speaking at the National Book Festival (that Laura Bush started in 2000, her first year as First Lady) on Saturday.  So after a crazy morning which included cheering Riley on in her first soccer game of her life (yeah Riley!), Lacey, Tanner and a neighbor hopped in the car with me and we raced off to DC....... where we met with one disaster after the next initially.  For starters, the Book Festival USED to be held outside on Constitution Ave.  They shut down the street and people went from booth to booth, tent to tent.  So, when I google-mapped directions to the National Book Festival, it brought me to Constitution Ave.  So, I found and paid for parking and we got out to go to the Book Festival.  I didn't see it anywhere.  I asked a police officer.  She had no idea what I was talking about. I took out the little newspaper clipping about Buzz Aldrin I brought with me and, while it didn't have an address on it, it did have that the Library of Congress was sponsoring the event.  So, we started walking toward the L of C.  It took us almost half an hour to walk there.  It was HOT and HUMID and the kids were DYING by the time we got there.  Waited in a long security line to get in, finally got in at 1:20 (the exact time Buzz was supposed to start speaking) only to find out..... the L of C sponsors the event but the entire thing is LOCATED at the Convention Center, which was just 7 blocks from where I had originally parked.  I counted to 10, told myself not to cry, kicked myself for not researching this better and then ran back outside where we hailed a cab and paid a fortune to get back to where we had already been.  And of course, by the time we got to his room, the doors were closed and we had missed him.  Major disappointment.  BUT, I read that he was signing books from 2:30-3:30, so we decided to stick around and head down to the book signing so we could still at least meet/see him.

While we were waiting, we decided to attend a session by Rachel Renee Russel, author of the Dork Diaries series (there are 12 so far) along with her daughters Erin (who helps write) and Nikki (who helps illustrate).

During the session, Nikki said she was going to pick out a couple kids in the audience and draw them and present it to them at the end.  She kept looking over in our direction, so we were hopeful, maybe one of the drawings would be L, T or their friend Sophia.

And it was T!

Pretty darn cool to get a self portrait from a NYT #1 best selling author!

The four lucky "winners."

So, maybe our luck is turning?  Not so fast.....  We dashed down to the Buzz Aldrin book signing arriving at 2:35 (he was signing until 3:30) only to be told the line was way too long and they had already cut off the line.  So, so sad.  So, we decided to just try to go around the side and catch a glimpse of him.  Sadly, that would have to do.  But, we got stopped by ushers telling us we weren't allowed to do that.  So we were seriously about 100 feet away from him, but were not going to be able meet or even see him.  So, so disappointing.  

In the meantime, I debated what to do.  Initially, I pictured us leaving by 3:00 and getting home by late afternoon, but then I noticed that one of the last authors of the day (scheduled to speak from 6:40-7:10) had cancelled at the last minute and Buzz had agreed to do another session during that time.  So, do we hang around for another 4 hours killing time and get home late tonight or do we cut our losses, be happy we saw the Dork Diaries author and head home.  I was vacillating but leaning toward staying.  Kids were starting to poop out on me.  But, first things first, I knew my meter had run out, so we raced back to the car and was very relieved to not find a ticket on my car.  Yeah!  We all got a drink while we sat there in the car with me decided what to do.  And, what do you think I decided?  

We are going to do what we came here to do and DC is one easy place to kill time!  So, we headed to the Building Museum where the final days of "The Beach" exhibit is taking place.  The entire main floor of this massive museum has been turned into a beach, full of plastic balls (water), lounge chairs, umbrellas, etc.  I suggested this to the kids and they were all on board.  Super excited.  So, drove there, finally found parking and ran inside (~3:20) and the first thing we see when we walk in the building....... a sign that says all the Beach tickets have been distributed for the day.  Sold out.  Too bad so sad.  Have a nice day.  "But" the security guard says "you can go up to the second floor and at least see it."

Bad idea, security guard.  Bad, bad idea.  Salt in the wound.  Take some thirst kids to an oasis and tell them they can't have any water. Major disappointment #4 of the day.

But, I had paid for parking, so lets see what else this museum has to offer?

But then..... as we were leaving ~4:30, the kids noticed the line was gone (probably because the last entry time is at 4:30; the exhibit closes at 5:00) and they begged me to try again.  I explained that the tickets were sold out, but they kept begging me. I finally told them that they could ask if they wanted.   Well, they did.  They pled their case and that nice man took mercy on us!  

And that led to some pretty happy faces!

"Beach" family selfie!

By the time we left, it was 5:00, so we drove back to the Convention Center, finally found a parking spot, grabbed some food, then B-lined it back to Buzz.  We had learned.  We knew where it was and we knew to get there early.  So, after waiting in line for an hour or so (giving T time to change into his NASA uniform), they opened up the doors and we were front and center!

And we got to see Buzz.  Up close and personal.  

So fun to hear him talking about piloting the Lunar Module on Apollo 11, walking on the moon and his dream of us one day reaching Mars (he recently wrote a book about this - he thinks it will be ~2040 or so that it actually happens).

Here he is talking about this iconic photo.  We learned that while most people think/assume this famous photograph is of Neil Armstrong, it is actually of Buzz Aldrin.  In fact, most of the pictures we see from that first moon landing are of Buzz because Neil Armstrong had the camera.

They opened it up to questions at the end and T went up to the microphone, but there were a few kids in front of him and Mr. Aldrin was a bit long-winded answering the questions, so never got to T.  Bummer! (I asked T what he was going to ask after the fact - he told me he was going to ask him if he helped make his shuttle and also wanted to tell him that he and his friend planned to be the first kids in space - what a bummer they didn't make it to him; I think Buzz would have gotten a chuckle out of that!) I tried to at least get a picture of the kids with him at the end, but he was promptly escorted off the stage, so alas,  while I got my picture, it's only of the side of him.  Oh well.  As they say in NASA...... Mission Accomplished!