Canal Boat Ride with MULES!

Have you ever been on a boat drawn by mules?  Well, neither had we.  Until today.  Another great trip brought to you by my friend who finds quirky things to do that turn out to be awesome fun.

Although today was awesome fun, it was and hot.  Very hot.  But that is what happens in Virginia from June to October so either we do nothing (which is the case many days) or we just brave the heat with our water bottles and hats.

Exhibit A: hats and water bottles.

This ride was a jaunt on the C&O canal.  We experienced a lock in action and have a park ranger dressed in period clothing (I wonder if that is part of the job description) tell us about travel and transport on the canal.  Apparently the speed limit of the day was 4 mph - which is about how fast we were going on parts of the beltway on our way there.

The mules.

The boys.

The boat.

And then we came home and sat in front of the fans for a while.

Bobcat

And Michael is off and running in the wonderful world of Cub Scouts.  Last week was his first pack meeting and he received his Bobcat badge (after a very loooooong Family Home Evening activity the night before where all the boys got to work on the requirements).

EIGHT

It is great to be eight!  At least that has been Michael's impression so far.  His birthday was last Wednesday and at 6:24am he came knocking on my door.  I am not always fully awake at 6:24am.  So I was a little groggy at first when he burst into my room head held high and chest puffed out with pride to declare, "I AM EIGHT!"  

I mustered some excitement for him, gave him a high-five and then asked him to go back to his room until 7-0-0 (normal wake up/come out of bedroom time for the boys).

That started a pretty good day that involved a monster chocolate chip pancake for breakfast, cupcakes and s'mores at school, and pizza, cupcake and jello for dinner.

Eight turned out to be not bad at all.

Then Saturday came along and it just got better.  Michael made the decision to be baptized and Saturday was the big day.  We had lots of family from the area, plus Aunt Rachel on Skype and Uncle Doug on FaceTime, with us for the big event.  He shared the event with another little girl in his class so we didn't get to pick all the speakers and such this time, but Opa gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, Oma was the chorister, Josh gave the closing prayer, Nana was in charge of Aunt Rachel's head and Aunt Marilyn was gracious enough to let us hijack her iPhone and she was in charge of Uncle Doug's head.

Afterwards we headed back to the house to eat dinner and, for the kids anyway, to play Pokemon.  And because I am trying to compensate for being grumpy, pregnant mommy most of the time, I made a Pokemon ball cake.

Yeah, I am just that cool.  Although, if one were, hypothetically, to go on Pinterest and search for "pokemon cakes" one would feel unbelievably overwhelmed and inadequate.  Just sayin'.  As it was, in this particular case, one did not allow the children to search on Pinterest with one, so they all thought this cake was AWESOME!!!!

Awards

Today, Josh and Michael's school held the 4th quarter awards assemblies.  The boys work very hard, so I am always so pleased to see their hard work get recognized.     

Recital

This was the year of piano lessons for Josh and Michael.  Michael had started last year, but when his teacher had the audacity to move on to college, we had to find someone else.  Based on a recommendation, we found Mrs. Gorman and the boys had a lovely year and made great progress.  I love that she had this recital at the end of the year to showcase her students AND because it gives them the wonderful experience of performing in front of a crowd - so different from playing at home or in lessons.  If nothing else, you generally don't have people doing nonstop flash photography when you are playing at home.  In retrospect, I should have had the boys practice while I did that.  Just kidding - they did great.  Michael played The Piggy Boogie (he renamed The Sunflower Boogie).  Next he and Josh played Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as a duet.  And then Josh played The Can-Can.

We were lucky enough to have Grandpa Roberts, Oma and Opa over to watch the recital.  The boys were so excited to have them here that they were bouncing off the walls (well, more so than usual).

We are so proud of the boys!

Memorial Day

Still playing catch up here.  On to Memorial Day.  It was a low-key and fun day.  In the morning, we took the boys' bikes to the church parking lot (for want of a flat surface near our house).  We hadn't used them since last year, so Jason and the boys worked on cleaning them up and pumping the tires up.  We also decided that this would be the day that Josh would lose his training wheels.  He has been resistant to losing them and to biking in general, but with much cajoling we convinced him that he might actually LIKE biking if he had no training wheels to slow him down.  

Also, this was the day that Ben was going to graduate from his balance bike to a real bike.

This was also the day that Ben threw a fit about his helmet.  I made him throw it in the car.  Mean mommy doesn't have any patience for children who want to throw fits right next to me to make sure I feel the full impact of their anger.

In any case, Josh mastered riding the bike quite easily and he is thrilled with his new skill.  Ben made some good progress, but just needs a little push to get going and perhaps a little confidence as well.

All in all, a good morning.  To make things even better, when we got home there was a message on the answering machine inviting us over to play on a slip and slide.

Yeah, that was pretty awesome.  Then the boys played a little known game which involved "plucking the goose" or chasing each other around trying to grab feathers off whichever child was it.

A fun day.

The 23rd

Friday the 23rd was another fun-filled day.  In the morning, Ben and I headed over to the elementary school for a Poetry Cafe being held by Michael's class.  Michael did a great job reciting his poem in front of his classes and a bunch of parents.

Then we had to scoot because we had planned on heading up to the Shenandoah Discovery Museum with some friends.

I will just let the pictures speak for themselves, but as you can tell it was a win.