Fun Fair

Friday night was the Fun Fair at Alex's school.  Selfishly, I wanted to go and do the cake walk to try and win one of the awesome cakes that were donated.  Apparently, this is THE most popular event at the Fun Fair, followed only by the moon bounces.  Needless to say, no one was willing to stand in line with me for the cake walk so I abandoned my quest for sweets.  The kids had fun burning through their pile of tickets playing carnival games and bouncing in the bounce house.  They even had that game where you use a rubber mallet to send a rubber frog flying towards a lily pad.  Alex won this game!  He hit the frog just right landing it right in the middle of that lily pad!  20 tokens for him!  After about an hour of good, crowded fun, even the kids were ready to duck out.  The beauty of living so close to the school is that we just turned around and walked home. 



Dinner Guest

While Aunt Jackie lives in the city, she works at a winery in the Virginia countryside, even further west than our suburb.  This makes it awfully convenient for her to be able to swing by for dinner and fill in as a guest reader at bedtime.  This is the first time we've lived in the same city as family and are happy to have her so close by!

School Playground

The absolute closest playground is the school playground!  On the weekend afternoons we can ride our bikes here.  We didn't realize the sidewalk is uphill to the school so Abby is learning to really push the pedals uphill and use her brakes coming downhill.  She is still working on this so Brad's been riding right behind her giving her nudges along the way.  Alex loves this school's playground because it is bigger and he can go on it everyday of the week, unlike at his old school where they had "boys day" and "girls day" on the playground.  He wanted to take some photos of the equipment to show his friends back in Illinois who may check out the blog.  The wiggly balance beam is one of his favorites, followed by the slide with no bottom that, according to Alex, "works best with a slippery coat and pants".  There is also a great park district facility across the street with a big play structure as well.

Scooter

Last Saturday, Scooter stepped out for a day of exploration.  I let him out, briefly, on the front porch that morning.  He took the liberty of venturing out for the day, doing who knows what in the woods surrounding our house.  Or maybe he was just lounging on someone's patio furniture in the sun all afternoon.  We spent much of the day calling for him up and down our street, meeting most of the neighbors along the way.  After going out to dinner, we came home and shook some food out on the front porch.  Scooter came crawling out of the bushes a few minutes later, hissing at me as he came into the house.  How dare I leave him out all day, with no food until 7:30?  The kids are glad he's back and we can all sleep easier knowing...oh, who am I kidding, no one gets to sleep when Scooter is in the house as he meows all night long!

Grandma's Here!

A nice dinner out at Cheesecake Factory

My Mom flew in last Wednesday to help kick start the unpacking/settling in process. We loved having her here to visit and help wherever needed. She is the first in a string of visitors over the next few months who we are happy to welcome to our new home! While Mom was here, I even snuck out to play Bunco last Friday night with a group of Moms I've met here. I am thankful for the friends I've made and the friends I've kept from Houston and Joliet. It is great to meet up with friends again here in Virginia!

All of our neighbors here are very nice too. Many have stopped down to introduce themselves and their children, bringing baked goods, wine, and their phone numbers. Their first question here is always "Are you military?", as most of them are. Most of Alex's school is military families as well. These children are very familiar with moving and making new friends and have been very welcoming to Alex and Abby!

First Day of School

Alex is very much enjoying his new school and liking that it is within walking distance of our house. His friend, Jennifer, two houses down, is in his class. While they do not have a separate computer class, they do break for Spanish class twice a week. That is probably the biggest difference from the school in Illinois. They still use computers in the classroom but it is not its own designated "special" at the elementary level. Spanish is not for a grade but is introduced in first grade and continued through elementary school. He has jumped right into Cub Scouts here, even participated in an outdoor clean up event at his school with the Scouts on Saturday. We are relieved that he feels comfortable with his teacher here and finds the school welcoming.

They're Here...

Good, he found the dustpan!
We usually start with the kitchen because everyone is so tired of dining out.

"Lady, where do we put the boxes marked 'basement' and 'garage'?"

**Note, that box reads Guitars and Baskets, who plays the guitar?

Happy Easter!

"I'm gonna find more eggs than Alex!"
Eggs in the shed? For sure.

Can you tell they had just woken up?

Alex and Brad at brunch.

Enjoying a beautiful afternoon at the park near our house.

Yes, the Easter Bunny will find you on Easter even if you have just moved to a new house. Before enjoying a delicious brunch, where the kids ate like they'd never seen food before, there was a modest egg hunt in the new backyard.

Roughing It

We chose to stay in the house over Easter weekend for three nights before our household goods shipment arrived. Our friends Kris and Renee loaned us two air mattresses and this was our version of roughing it. We had electricity and running water, just no furniture to sit on. Even the cats didn't know where to sleep!

Virginia!

Random fun with the tree stump!

They left bubbles!

Abby posing in the frontyard.

The kids before us had left this cool sword in the shed.

Our new house is nestled in the beautifully wooded suburbs of Fairfax County Virginia and is about 30 years older than our previous house in Illinois. We were certainly spoiled by all of the new appliances, new carpet, fresh paint, new fixtures, etc. in our last home. We've traded saplings for giant trees and soaking tubs for yellow tubs. I think it keeps us on our toes to have so much variety every couple of years and frankly, the kids are obsessed with the yellow tub/toilet combination!

The backyard is a little boy's dream with lots of sticks and bugs, dirt and leaves. There is no grass in our backyard, just out front, so less to mow and more free areas to dig! Within the first 10 minutes of playing out back Abby had cut her hand open on a piece of fence and Alex had rolled a tree stump down the hill, breaking a tiki torch. They will learn!

Adventures in Transportation

From the beginning of this move, Alex has asked for nothing other than to fly to Virginia rather than drive. Aunt Jackie, who lives in D.C., was happy to fly out and pick up Alex at Chicago Midway Airport the day before we all departed Chicago. Alex seemed intent on not driving 13 hours in the car with us, his sister, and the cats, and who can blame him? Alex got to stay the night with Jackie and Scott in D.C., then spend the day at the winery where Aunt Jackie works. She and Scott took Alex to see The Lorax after work and by that time we had arrived safely in Virginia at the new house. He had a great visit and was so happy to have skipped the lengthy road trip!

Move 'Em Out

There's nothing quite like watching all of your personal belongings being drug out of your house and stacked up on your driveway while a group of guys load them onto a large semi-trailer. They promise to deliver it all to you just as it was in your previous residence, but things get dented and scratched along the way. Our dear friends Mark and Sherri were kind enough to let us stay with them a few nights while our house was in boxes and then a night while it was completely empty. The cats never do enjoy that night of sleep in an empty house, nor do they enjoy the day of sedated travel and always seems to follow. Our friends Karen and Julie helped entertain the kids on the day of packing while Jen and Jim housed us during the day of loading. This was a week where it definitely took a village to raise our children and we appreciate all of the help we received!

Best Sitters Ever

Kristen and Lauren stopped by to say bye to the kids before our big move to Virginia. These girls spent many a weekend night and weekday morning with our kids and we are so thankful to have met them in Illinois! I know the gals in the gym nursery who have known our kids for years, including Ariana, their other babysitter, were all sad to see them go as well.

Mason's Birthday Party

Alex rode this pony over and over again. Abby, not so much.
Abby with Tommy and Emily, our dear neighbors from across the street.

Baby Mason across the street turned one and celebrated with a petting zoo and pony rides in the backyard! The party was complete with a pie eating contest that neither of my kids wanted to participate in. Abby at least donned the apron and pretended to play along, but she never actually ate the pie. This party should go down in the books as one of the best-themed first birthday parties ever!

Alex's Last Day of School

Alex's class practicing the President Song. He now knows all of the Presidents in order.
Alex and Ms. Mary, his bus driver for two years :)

The way Abby greeted Alex everyday when he got off the bus.

On Alex's last day of school, Ms. Grabavoy let him celebrate his birthday, what a treat! The children had an egg hunt in the classroom due to rain, but it was still fun for them to look for all the eggs with their name on it. We cleaned out Alex's desk and his classmates presented him with a book of letters written to him, wishing him good luck in his new school! He surely will miss Troy Craughwell Elementary!

Humpty Dumpty

In honor of Humpty Dumpty, the first graders at Alex's school were tasked with designing a contraption to protect an egg if it were to be thrown off of a roof. Brad was home for a weekend prior to moving so he and Alex came up with a foolproof device consisting of a tissue box, some bags of air from a shipping box, and tape. They buried the egg deep inside the tissue box, surrounded it with bagged air, and taped over the hole. Alex even tested it over the driveway that night to make sure it was secure. Then it sat in our fridge for a week until the assignment was due. That morning the teachers climbed up on a low roof and threw the egg boxes, one by one, off to test their stability. At the end of the day I believe they opened up all the boxes to see which survived, then let the kids throw the baggie with the egg in it against a wall for fun. Alex's did survive the initial fall, way to go!

Teachers

Abby's Weeping Willows Teachers

Ms. Nicole and Ms. Gail

Alex's Kindergarten and First Grade Teachers

Ms. Gomez and Ms. Grabavoy


Alex and Abby have been blessed with phenomenal teachers over the years. Abby's first "school" experience was in Weeping Willows this year through the park district. She attended two days a week, two hours at a time. From day one, she ran right in and got to playing. No tears. Abby loved Ms. Nicole and Ms. Gail! They were completely encouraging with potty training and it helped tremendously to have their support at school. Abby is so full of personality and always made her teachers smile. Abby's favorite part of school was the music time, when the teachers would sing fun songs with the class. I think snack time ranked up around the top too!

Alex learned so much in Kindergarten and First Grade in Illinois. These teachers helped him learn to read, write, do addition and subtraction, read some more, write some more, etc. Alex loves school. Everyday I ask him how school was and he responds "Great!". He misses them greatly and I'm sure will forever compare his new teachers to Ms. Gomez and Ms. Grabavoy.

Friends

Abby, Alex and most of the neighbor kids


When we first moved to Mallard Ln, there were only a handful of children. Over 5 years, a lot has changed! Cookouts and birthday parties with the neighbors became like a giant block party each time. The children quickly outnumbered the adults and these kids are all good buddies. One of the hardest parts of this move has been making the kids sad, both our kids and their friends. Technology is a great thing and our kids are proficient at email, FaceTime and Skype at such a young age. They still miss their friends, and who can blame them? What a great group of kids on our street and in their classes!