Just a quick post

I've got lots to Blog about.  Spring is here and the kids have been playing outside more than they ever have.  Jeffrey just had his first Blue and Gold Cub Scout dinner.  He has completed his requirements and is now a full tiger!

But what I don't have is the time.  So I'm going to tease you with this.  My new favorite picture that just captures the essence of our little guy.

To Oz!!!

Erin with her Director!

We had a big weekend here at Wallace South.  Miss Erin had her stage debut as Dorothy in Wizard of Oz in her school play.  She's been working on this since last October and last night was her chance to shine, and shine she did.

The show was a huge undertaking for a group of 8-10 year olds.  They all worked hard and it came off wonderfully and so much fun.  Erin had more lines to memorize than either mommy or daddy have ever had in their lifetime.  And she knew them.  Only as they got towards the end of the show and parts that they didn't get to really rehearse did she falter with her lines.  But her hard work paid off.  She was simply amazing.  And she did it all with a smile.

She had much of her family come to see her perform (we missed you Aunt Robyn, Uncle Jeff, Rylie and Avery and Uncle Jonathan).  I'm pretty certain I was more nervous than she was.  Once she stepped out onto the stage she simply owned it.  And let me tell you, her Over The Rainbow brought the house down.

I will have more (and better) pictures to share in a week or so.  But here is a taste of our amazing evening.

Back stage with some best friends

This is her tell when she's trying to remember her line.  She looks straight up :)

We're off to see the Wizard

Sitting captive in the Witch's castle

The Balloon home!!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

It's Daddy's Birthday!  Time to celebrate!

The kids have been very excited about Daddy's birthday for a few weeks.  There's something on Jeff's calendar that reads "Dad Biday" (or something like that).  I took them shopping at Target on Thursday to pick out their gifts.  As usual Jeff headed straight for something he wanted, Erin went to the food.  Jeff ended up choosing a DVD of Hugo (which we haven't seen, but have heard good things about) and Erin chose a Zen snack mix.

Today started rainy and yucky.  Tom made pancakes as is his usual Saturday morning tradition.  Then we hung out around the house and did some puzzles, played games etc...  About lunchtime, the clouds broke and the sun came out.  We bribed the kids to clean their play area by telling them we'd take them biking.  So 2 hours later we finally got out the door with the bikes.

Erin is working on mastering starting on her own with Buttercup.  She's making lots of progress with it.  She's also working on turning around without stopping.  Our biking excursion ended when she tried to make a turn too slowly and lost her balance resulting in scraping her chest on the handlebars.

Jeff holds on to his training wheels with abandon.  He's not ready to let them go. Or is he?  Today Tom just took them off and worked with Jeff for about 45 minutes on learning to ride a 2 wheeler.  He's still got a long way to go, but I think that the training wheels are going to stay off.  Yay buddy!!!  He does have steering issues though and enjoys riding into the middle of neighbor's lawns.  Ooops.

Don't Let Go Dad!

All On My Own

Then for dinner, Tom chose an ale house over in Harrisonburg, so we headed over the mountain.  Food was great, beer was fantastic!  Erin didn't want anything from the kids menu, she was all ready to order an apple and bleu cheese salad when she saw mussels on the adult menu.  The server looked at us a little funny when she ordered them, but that's what she wanted.  30 minutes later she's polished off nearly a pound of mussels (with a tiny bit of help from Jeff and dad).

Notice Tom's Necklace.  Tom and both kids have matching necklaces.  Someone got left out :(

mmmmmm - mussels

After dinner we wandered around the town a bit as we we would have after a meal in Italy.  We showed the kids where a few local geocaches were (Tom and I took a day in H'burg this summer to do some caching).  There's a really cool one in a park nearby the restaurant where you need to pour water into a rain gauge to make the cache float.  Probably one of the coolest caches we've come across.

the moon shining through the trees

Retrieving the cache

  So I'd say all in all daddy had a pretty good birthday.  Happy Birthday Daddy, We Love You!