Skylar’s first dance competition was December 9th. There were some tears shed over the fact that she had to wear makeup… Other than that the competition went well and Skylar did a great job despite having joined the team at least a couple months late!
Parker and I watched her and other shows and generally found stuff to do around the area. Funny – when I asked Parker on Sunday night what the best part of his weekend was – it was our downtime at Skylar’s competition.
Skylar was so pretty and helpful at her LAES 6th grade concert! She helped a special needs girl next to her get up and down the bleachers, which was very kind.
Sometimes we get silly at night.
We went to Luray to camp and do some climbing. It was supposed to dip into the 30’s at night so we brought electric blankets (great idea Uncle Gillette). Unfortunately what we failed to understand was that we were supposed to put them under us and not on top.
By morning the electric blankets were bundled up in a corner providing heat to no one, but luckily we had tons of blankets and stayed super warm even without the electric heat.
Skylar did an amazing job as film maker, getting close ups of Parker’s feet, which is pretty awesome to even think to do that, but we also found hilarious for no good reason. Skylar – if you go into the film industry we will talk about this moment…
We were on our 3rd trip of the summer for Skylar’s birthday. Our stay at the Yogi Bear campground was awesome minus the scrapes from the first day where Tweedle Dee (aka Skylar) decided to jump off a moving golf cart and subsequently crashed face down – minor scrapes only. Tweedle-Dum then decided he was smarter and could pull it off and he subsequently did the exact same thing but got some nasty road rash on his buttocks.
Yes, I wrote “buttocks”.
Nana and Poppa D hosted Skylar’s birthday and we played a round of corn hole. It was a beautiful and fun evening had by all.
We prepared Skylar (and Daddy’s) favorite cake which is angel food with chocolate whipped cream topping – NeNe’s recipe (my grandmother and Nana’s mom).
We also spent a night at the Col Alto Hampton Inn. The kids enjoyed the fancy amenities and played a round of chess while drinking their hot coco a la sassy.
Skylar’s end of the season gymnastics banquet was held at Great Country farm. It’s the interesting place with lots of fun stuff to play on like obstacle courses, inflatable bounce jump thingy’s, a maze, spinning human rat wheel, giant checkers and chess boards.
Skylar received an award for her competition scores and she played with her friends and Parker. We actually ended up staying there until after the park had closed because we were having so much fun and there was one other large family near us, so we didn’t notice the time and that everyone else had left as well as all the employees.
More fun for us!
We were originally scheduled to go to Blue Knob in PA for our Christmas break ski trip, but it became apparent that they were not going to be open in time. At the last minute I had to change our plans to go to Snowshoe and I couldn’t get a room for all the days, so we skied one day at Timberline, stayed in Elkton overnight, and then headed to Snowshoe.
Parker swam in the pool Monday night after Timberline, and Skylar and I were barely awake.
We had a great time skiing, and the our room at Snowshoe (which somehow I don’t have pictures of) suited us well as they had a giant internet enabled tv in the main room and we brought the bed into that room so we could all sleep together at night.
The slopes were about 65% open and there was enough challenging terrain to be fun. The sunset was beautiful on the ride home and Skylar wanted to snap some pics of it, but the phone camera doesn’t quite do it justice.
A Thursday after school we were killing some time in Vienna near the caboose and two monkeys decided to see how high they could climb:
Parker and Skylar made a window snowflake with glue, paint, and wood sticks and I put up a wreath, garland, and lights. Afterwards we decorated the tree with ornaments. It was a slow December day – nice to get some decorating done!
We listened to the Christmas song “Loot in the Hills” via Parker’s fortnite game.
Early December we went with the Scouts in Manassas to view the 1st battle of Bull Run. We took a guided tour of the property and then visited the museum and watched a movie. After it was over we hopped on our bikes and toured the fields – riding across the road and going to the top of the hill where we got a good look back at the museum and historical house.
Despite growing up in Virginia and touring most of the these with school or my grandparents, I don’t believe I had ever been to the 1st Battle of Manassas.
