Parker seems to have collected a lot of weapons and fighting gear. Let’s see how he puts it all to use…
Blog
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Parker birthday
For Parker’s birthday we had celebrated with Nana and Poppa D over spring break and he got lots of fun stuff including a Dungeons and Dragons board game, bunny lovey, etc. For his party at my house Grandpa and Grandma came up and had dinner and cake with us.
I should have taken more photos, because Parky got lots more fun stuff including a new compound bow and arrow, airsoft guns, and a Captain America aluminum shield. Parker requested an ice cream cake and I decorated the entryway with “Happy Birthday Poco”.
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Easter 2022
For Easter we got up and opened what the Easter Bunny brought. Chocolates, fishing rod for Parker, hula hoop for Skylar, and some kites which as to date (12/20/2022) have yet to be flown.
We also had eggs hidden all over the house with all kinds of fun surprises ranging from candy to cold hard cash!
We spent the afternoon on a picnic at RiverBend Park with the Wilkenfelds (Abby, Rachel, John, and Hillary). Parker and I walked the entire way to the big falls, while Skylar and Abby hung out on the rocks above the falls.
In the background you can see Parker’s Dungeon and Dragon’s kit that Nana got us and the “Parrots in Paradise” impossible puzzle that we worked on for 9 months and still never finished. We’re taking that one to the beach to see if we put 6-8 people on it for a week if it can be completed!
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Spring break 2022
For Spring break we went to Culpeper to hang out with family and celebrate an early Parker birthday where he turned 1 years old. We departed Sunday morning and went to an indoor water park at Massanutten. While waiting for me to get lunch, Parker got in line for the Flow-Rider and ripped it up!
There were some slides that went out of the park and wound around the outside of the building and then exited back inside – super cool! Skylar and I got a bit cold, but luckily they had a massive hot tub, aka warm tub, that could fit about 50 people where we could warm up.
After our day at the water park we went to the most ghetto Air-BNB I’ve ever visited. It was supposed to be a guest house and ended up being a garage next to a no-so-great house. I didn’t feel too bad because the previous week I had the kids give me their input on where they wanted to stay and they chose what we thought was a nice place over a traditional hotel (this choice will come back to haunt them as I now choose off-the-beaten-tracks for all our stays – see Dutch Wonderland post July 2022). The pool table was about half the size of a standard pool table and you couldn’t hit the balls from one corner because it was too close to the wall.
There was a sign that said there was only 9 minutes of hot water, so each of us had to take a 3 minute shower. The stone wall with fireplace was actually stone wall-paper. The picture of the fence that went around the firepit ended just out of view so you couldn’t see there was a bank on one side and a barn falling down on the other side. Lovely!
Regardless, we laughed at the whole situation and it ended up being the most memorable part of the vacation. Skylar and Parker enjoyed making fire in the fire pit, and we all slept well despite the accommodations.
We left our Air-bnb and went to Lexington to visit with Nana and Poppa D. We had a most delicious dinner at the mountain. Parker and Skylar took the floating dock out for a spin. Parker commented that ‘everyone in your family is a good cook’. Lots of yummy steak, corn, and potatoes on this trip!
The next day we got a personal tour of VMI via Jean and her husband including a trip to the gun museum and some goodies from the gift shop.
We returned back to Nova and met up with Ryland for a bike tour of the city. We visited the major landmarks near Ryland’s house and then got ice cream. I was in the process of coming down with a cold and the trip uphill about killed me. Nothing a little ice cream can’t fix!
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Parker – weapons expert
While Skylar is at gymnastics in Burke Parker and I either go to Burke Lake or the parking garage / trail to play. On this occasion we brought the bow and arrow and took some target practice. The goal was to see if we could knock the wood over. Look out Clint Barton!
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Montage Mountain
We got lucky and got a cold spell at the end of the season which enabled us to spend a weekend at Montage Mountain in March. Montage is similar in size to Snowshoe and while it doesn’t have a hotel or village at the resort they had a sound stage with the Spin Doctors and the Verve Pipe.
They also had all these picnic tables and canvas tents at the top of the hill for tailgating. Interesting setup. Montage also claims to have the steepest run in the Mid-Atlantic.
A 10-foot wide by 30-foot long swimming pool was cut out of one of the blue runs for people to try skiing across. That was fun to watch! One out of every 10 people would make it.
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Canaan Valley Skiing
We rented a house at Timberline and ski’d Canaan Valley for a long President’s Day weekend with Uncle Gillette, Mason, and our friends Ryan and his dad Paul.
The house was called “Ranger Station” and it had a parks of America theme to it. Apparently the dogs name was “Ranger”. We enjoyed reading about National Park’s each night prior to bed.
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Wolftrap sledding
We got a couple massive snow storms and decided to go sledding at Wolftrap. If you don’t have a sled prior to snow coming you can forget about buying one at the store – the closest sled for sale was over 80 miles away, so we improvised.
The mattress and gymnastics jumper are surprisingly fast on the snow!
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Parker – paper crafts
Parker started making these amazing paper crafts from memory – no tutorial, book, etc. Here is his work on a star wars destroyer:
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Skylar skiing
Skylar ripping it up on the slopes. Her form looks so good! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get Propulsion Parker on video as his goal was to dust everyone to the bottom every run…
