Summer 2012

We have less than 2 months to go and school will be out for the summer. Actually, due to the lack of snow days this current school year, FCPS voted to get out 2 days early. I am actually ok with this and very much looking forward to the summer with the kids. We have some fun plans in the works.

I hope I've achieved a good mix of camps, quality time with the grandparents, some day trips, a few weeks away in FL and a trip or two to the beach. Plus, a good amount of down time with nothing at all scheduled, but hanging out at the pool or hitting the local movie theatre and bowling alley.

The kids are on board with all the plans, but the highlight for me this summer will be when I tell them we are making a return trip to Great Wolf Lodge. Jeff and I are keeping this a surprise and we will let them know the night before, when we are eating dinner. Oh, what fun it will be to spring this on them! We are meeting up with some friends and it should be a good trip. Sam is one year older now and will be able to do more at the waterpark. Plus, the outdoor area should be open for us to play and swim in.

I am very optimistic about the summer. As the kids gets older, each year it becomes more fun to plan things for us to do. Let's see how long I make it before I am counting down to when school starts again. :)

Lovin' the big Mouse!

And, no I am not talking about Mickey.  I am all about the "other" mouse, Chuck E. Cheese.  The last day of Spring Break was a rainy, dreary day and what better place to spend it than Chuck E. Cheese.  And not just any Chuck E. Cheese, but my most favorite location, the one in Herndon. 

We are lucky enough to have a Chuck E. Cheese within a 15 minute drive from Burke, but I will always prefer the 35 minute drive to the one in Herndon.  Why, you ask?  Ah, easy peezy to answer!  It doesn't get as crowded, the layout of the games and booths is well thought out, it is much cleaner than the one in Fairfax (or at least feels like this), and there is so much more room to spread out.  We always arrive at 10:00am and it takes until 12:30pm before any kind of crowd shows up.  By this point, the kids have had a blast and are ready to leave, with tummies full of pizza, of course!

I feel like the scales have finally tipped in favor of the mommies during this last visit.  We've officially become "those" moms. You know what I am talking about, the ones who can sit down and enjoy a conversation while the kids go play.  You give them just enough tokens that they have to come back frequently for more.  Plus, since it is practically deserted when we go, you can see the big kids playing clear across the room and keep an eye on them.  And now the little ones are able to operate all the games/rides themselves.  They loved having their own cup of tokens and had a wonderful time playing without us (the mommies) getting in their way.

Ah, we've hit Chuck E. Cheese nirvana.  Most moms hate this place, but I am not sure why.  I think they just need to come hang with me on our next outing to become a believer.  This place rocks!! 

The 3 amigos (James, Henry and Ian)

"I love Barney so much"  Sam spent 30 minutes on this ride.

Surviving Spring Break

We are now ending our week off from school for Spring Break.  I have to admit this week hasn't been bad and we've been doing much better than just surviving.  In fact, I never even started the countdown to how much longer we have until the kiddos are back in school.  Yes, we are doing that good!

The kids and I had a wonderful treat when Jeff took Wednesday off from work and spent the day with us.  We decided to go to the Children's Museum in Richmond.  I had heard great things about this museum and was curious to check it out. 

The kids had fun; Samantha more than Ian.  She was running from one exhibit to another and was very happy to be able to touch, explore and play with everything.  Ian had a great time too, but I think the experience would have been more fulfilling for him if he had a friend his own age with him.  I give Ian credit for jumping in and playing with the other kids at the museum.

Ian was in the "grocery store" and standing behind the register, checking out the shoppers with their groceries.  It was very cute and I had to laugh at this exchange:

A girl comes up with her grocery cart filled to the rim with play food.  It was crazy full and she was having a hard time even pushing the cart to Ian's station.  Ian starts helping her take out all the food, one by one and scanning it.  After about 5 minutes, Ian says to the girl, "Wow, you have a lot of food."  The girl (about 5 or 6 years old) replies, "It's for my kids."  Ian then says, "OH MY, Your kids eat a lot!!!".   It was hilarious.  Then Ian gets done scanning all her food and looks at this huge pile stacked on his counter not sure what to do next.  So he helps her take the food and put it back in the grocery cart, but this time it is not all fitting and keeps falling all over the place.  Honestly, I think this "shopper" was a little too high maintenance and I am sure Ian was wishing he was operating an express 10 items or less lane.


Now that's a lot of groceries!



Ian is not sure how much more he can take and he is trying so hard to be nice.



Always has a smile on his face!

The children's museum was all on one floor. We were able to time our arrival and departure to miss rush hour traffic on I-95 and still have plenty of time in the museum. The museum is small enough to not feel overwhelmed or that you were going to miss something. But it also offered a nice variety of stuff to play with and explore. I was pleasantly surprised to see it also had a fenced-in outdoor area full of more stuff for the kids to do.

Sam picking apples from the orchard



Sunny side-up, please.



So here is the oddest thing I've seen in a long time.  Part of the pretend food was Matzo.  Really.  How random is that?  Given that it is the middle of Passover, I am around Matzo all the time and readily recognized it.  But, you would think that the majority of the kids would have no idea what it is.  Wow. This sort of made me stop and wonder, could this be some other type of food and I've got Matzo on the brain right now?  No, it doesn't look like anything else.

Here is a picture of it.  I wonder if it is gluten-free like mine at home.  :)