Beach Notes and Baseball Season

We spent part of Brian's spring break down at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was a nice change of scenery and even though it wasn't very warm, it was mostly sunny. My aunt and uncle have a beach house down there and we stayed with them.

It sure is a lot of work to have kids, but I'd say they make most things more exciting. I like the beach, but showing it to them, helping them find seashells and build sand castles and hit golf balls in the sand and watch dolphins and dig holes to China-- it's way more entertaining than just sitting there on the sand. In addition to our beach-sitting, we went to the Wright brothers monument and museum, a kite festival in the sand dunes, to Cape Hatteras lighthouse, played some mini-golf, flew airplanes off the balcony, did some dog-walking, and Easter egg-dying and hunting.

Perhaps the most important discovery we made was that there are two parallel streets next to each other in Kill Devil Hills with some great names:

We checked out the names of the streets on both sides to see if perhaps we'd find Peapod's name. Alas, neither Baum nor Martin appeal to us. But the boys loved driving on themselves.

Here are some other beach pictures so I get them out here on the blog before I get all wrapped up in baseball's opening day today. Go Nats!

We made a stop at Richmond's science museum
on the way there...

The spot the Wrights took off on their first four successful flights

Boy-airplanes taking off- each marker marks the
 landing spot of the first four flights

Walking to the monument

Up at the monument

They momentarily ran out of steam after sprinting around for an hour...

Running from the waves

Finding crab parts and shells...

On the way to China

Sand castles

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Shooting gang signs Spiderman webs from the lighthouse door

Hitting golf balls

Saltwater taffy!

Clark's favorite was blueberry.

Hammocking

All set to dye Easter eggs with Kool-Aid

Patience...

Finished products

Aunt Anne made a March Madness bracket to determine the "best" egg.

The final showdown: Bunny vs. Funky Blue Buzz. Bunny was the big winner.

On the way to the kite festival

Climbed the sand mountain!

And ran down with Aunt Anne!

There was an amazing amount of sand in every possible crevice on the boys.

Sunset on the sound

Last night there- fell asleep on Dad/booth at the pizza restaurant

Zzzzz

Uncle Pierre finishes his drink before carrying Sleepyhead B to the car.

The Santa Post

Last Christmas I wrote a post about Santa and our decision to not play Santa with the boys, and got some good, thoughtful responses that were helpful for me and others. I thought I'd repost it today and hopefully get some more comments.

 

The boys had a chance to meet Santa when we went to Jingle on Lake Anne last Saturday, but both freaked out and didn't want to see him. The gingerbread man decorating, ornament making, and petting zoo were plenty to keep them very happy. The weather was beautiful and Santa floating in on a pontoon boat to crowds of swooning children somehow felt sort of normal.

 

Here is the link to my Santa post.

 

Decorating gingerbread cookies



One eye, one button...

Yum.

Delicious leg

Cutest donkey I've ever seen. He loved Cal brushing him.

Santa post

My Calvin Date

Today Brian and I split up the twins and took them on dates. I took Calvin to the National Book Festival and Brian took Clark to a Nationals game. We've only split them up this way a few times before, but I think it's important to spend one-on-one time with each of the boys. We surprised them. They didn't know what we were doing until Brian dropped Cal and I off at the festival on the National Mall.

It's hard because we don't want to put them in boxes and always assume that Cal will like the more artsy activity and Clark the sporty one...but it's also hard because we know that's what each of them likes the most. Cal is bored after awhile at a baseball game, but Clark knows the players and how to keep score and everything.

The date was rather last minute-- I had thought I'd be going to the festival by myself and so I hadn't paid much attention to the children's authors. I could have checked out books at the library from specific authors and then arranged to hear their presentations after the boys knew the books. That's what I've done in the past for myself. Next year I'll remember.

The author I wanted to hear and meet on Sunday was Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I love her adult book, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I've read only one of her children's books, and the boys and I like it a lot (Bedtime for Mommy). So we heard her speak with my friend Missy, who introduced the book to me years ago, and we got to meet AKR. (Missy wrote about our afternoon here.) She signed my book and signed Cal's festival poster. She and Cal talked about superheroes (Cal has named his superhero self "Throthen" and Clark is "Quesadilla"). I told her about Whispers & Shouts and I was even so brazen as to hand her my card when she asked what the name of it is. Maybe she'll read this...

I bought Cal a book written and illustrated by a husband and wife team. You know how Cal loves to paint; I thought he would like to see the person who painted his book as well as the person who wrote it. We watched Erin and Philip Stead read two of their books from the front row: A Sick Day for Amos McGee and Bear Has a Story to Tell. They were charming.

Then we had a traumatic experience with Cat in the Hat and Sid the Science Kid at the PBS Kids tent, a side trip through the insect zoo and bathroom at the Natural History Museum, and a fun time at the Storybook Station before we walked to Uncle A's house to meet the baseball-ers.

The weather was unusually perfect for the festival (I have horrible rain and sweat book festival stories). I also thought it seemed to be organized and managed better than in past years-- it was a smoothly-operating function. What a fun day!

Here is my Calvin date in pictures:

Mommy and Calvy date!

 

Meeting Amy Krouse Rosenthal

 

Philip and Erin Stead

He ended up being brave enough for a
quick high five from Sid.

Then Cal stood and stalked Sid.

This is a big place with books and pillows for reading!

Yep!

Drawing a ceiling fan

I don't know.

Walking back to Uncle A's house

Weekend Fun

I say this all the time, but I’m going to say it again. We live in a great place for get-out-and-do-something people. I am of course focused on family-friendly and kid activities because of the season of my life, but there is something for everyone around here.

Yesterday we took the boys to the Herndon Festival, which is in Old Town Herndon, about an eight minute drive from our house. The festival is four days of live music on several stages, tons of art and crafts for sale, other stuff for sale, a carnival, kids’ hands-on crafts, and a lot of chicken-on-sticks type of food. It also seemed like a good occasion for people to be walking around with stainless steel mugs of cold beer at 10am. The boys did some art, won a gigantic inflatable bat for hitting a target with a baseball, got some balloons; we ate some pizza, sampled a bunch of delicious dips, and saw a band play. We weren’t there very long, but it was a nice way to spend a beautiful morning—if we wanted to be festival-hoppers, we could probably find a local festival every weekend through the fall, since there are so many around here. Herndon Festival goes on today, for any interested locals.

Fern (Ellie Ward) and Wilbur
the adorable pig (Chris Hahn)
photo by Larry McClemons

After the festival, I got to take in a children’s play at a community theater: Charlotte’s Web! It has been a long time since I’ve seen a play put on by children, and it was delightful. Encore Stage is a community children’s theater in Arlington at a community center. The kids involved come from schools all over the area, and most of them have been involved in numerous plays through Encore. The costumes were adorable, the kids were clearly having fun, and a couple of the actors where very talented. The fan favorite was Templeton the rat, played by Thomas Schindler, a fifth grader. He stole the cheese.

The theater prides itself on being a theater by kids, for kids, and from what I saw that was true. Kids made up a big part of the audience. The show continues today and next weekend. If your children can’t sit and be fairly quiet for an hour and a half though, they are not old enough to enjoy it. I was glad I did not bring the boys. Seeing this would be great for any young children, especially if they're interested in acting.

We’re not only close to all that DC and big suburbs have to offer, we’re not far from more rural experiences like berry-picking and cave-exploring. We recently enjoyed a day picking strawberries and visiting nearby caves. Hartland Orchards is a farm we’ve gone to for apple-picking since I moved here (almost 10 years ago!), and also for pumpkins. This year we picked strawberries there. Cal loved it. He squealed and yelled, “Stop guys! Look what I found!” before every berry he picked. He also verbally sorted them out: “That one’s not quite red yet,” or “that one’s actually smushy.” Clark was not so entertained, and spent more time making “space shuttle smoke” which is a fancy way of saying he kicked dust around and irritated me. Strawberries are still at Hartland, and blueberries are supposed to be ready to pick in a week or so. 

After strawberries and some shortcake, we drove toward Shenandoah and toured Skyline Caverns. I’m not a big small-dark-spaces person, but I don’t want to pass on my fears to my kids, so when Brian suggested it, I gulped and agreed. Clark wanted nothing to do with it and had to be consoled for about the first half of the tour. He warmed up to it near the end. Calvin was curious and eventually started leading the small group into the tunnels. Skyline Caverns is closer and cheaper than driving to Luray Caverns. Apparently Luray is more impressive (all I remember from when I was there is trying to not let Brian, whom I had just started dating, know that I was afraid) than Skyline, but I thought it was incredible. It’s a fun tour and it’s only about an hour’s drive from the Chantilly/Centerville area.

Anyway, those are some recent excursions we’ve been on. If you’re local, consider taking in the festival today, Charlotte’s Web today or next weekend, doing some berry-picking, or caving. Let me know if you do! I love to hear that people are finding out about fun things to do because of my write-ups.   

Decorating butterfly fans at Herndon Festival

"Everyone stop! Look what I found!"

"See how many strawberries I picked!"

Kicking up shuttle smoke 

checking out

Ambivalent Clark, Happy Farmer Cal

Caving!

Looking at a stream in the caverns

Touchin' stuff