Afton's 6th birthday

Afton turned six! Her birthday was on a Wednesday and G&G Cheney were going to be out of town, so they drove over the Sunday before and went to church with us. Then we celebrated afterwards. We had dinner and then she opened her presents. She had made a birthday list and tacked it on the fridge 2 months in advance, so we had a pretty good idea what she would like. Grandma and Grandpa Cheney got her a Captain America shield, a switch n' go, and a beanie boo.

 She also got an Ariel dress, a stuffed animal Raja from Aladdin, and an Ariel wig. That girl loves her dress up!

She requested a white cake with red balloons on it.

She had to try a few times to get them all.

We love our Afton! She is such a fun and happy person and brings a lot of joy to our family.

On her actual birthday, she asked if we could go to SkyZone, an indoor trampoline park. I said sure. We got there right when they opened and bought a pass to jump for an hour. Five minutes in, I got in trouble for holding Eli while I jumped, so I set him down and he just walked around falling and getting in other people's way. The dodgeball area (which Sam loves) wasn't open, nor was the basketball hoop area for most of the time. They had fun jumping and at the foam pit for about 30 minutes and then just wanted to pretend to play arcade game. ('Cause there was no way I was forking out more money for games when I was paying for them to jump!)

Anyway, they had fun. Even if they weren't jumping.

We came home and hung out - Afton danced around to her new favorite jam. This video is twice as long as it needs to be, but I don't feel like editing it so here it is.

 I love this picture of Eli pointing at her nose.

That night she finished opening the rest of her presents.

August Randoms

 Our HOA sent us a lovely note about our old, cracked driveway, so we replaced it. Eli liked watching them work on it.

 I took the kids to a fun park in a nearby neighborhood. It's got a zipline, a little village, and all the other things that most playgrounds have. It's lots of fun.

Literally the night that our driveway was done, Dan came home to find approximately 40 geese pooping all over it. It's been at least 6 weeks now and some of it is still there. Punks.

 Trip to the temple.

 This is how Eli helps himself fall asleep when we have long car rides.

 More library trips.

 Costco.

 And no words for this one, really. She is hilarious.

The Rest of July

 Sam continued his piano lessons this summer. While he went to lessons, I took the other two to the park each week for a little while. It was stinkin' hot.

 Dan's sister's family came to visit us. Heather had been taking a class in NYC, then Lael and the kids came to see her for a few days. Then they took a train down to Richmond to see us. It was really nice of them to make the visit! Texana is closest in age to our kids and she and Sam got along really well. Marshall and Mica were also really sweet to our kids.

 While Heather was here, Katrina also came by for a morning on her way to the beach. It was so nice to see her for a little while! (Spencer, Katrina, Luke, Juliet, James, Afton, Sam, Eli, me.) Why couldn't we have lived in Texas at the same time??

 We went to the art museum.

 This was my favorite of the day. So beautiful and life-like.

 Lael was really good at making Eli laugh.

 One night Mica watched our kids while Marshall and the adults went to see Jason Bourne. This is a selfie of me and Matt Damon, obviously.

They wanted to see the Capitol so we did that as well.

I've probably mentioned this before, but the Capitol building houses the only statue of George Washington that was done while he was alive. Pretty cool.

And that was our July!

The Homestead

Dan was asked to be a presenter at the Virginia Bar Association's annual meeting in Hot Springs, Virginia at the Omni Homestead Resort. We dropped the kids off with my parents so that I could tag along! We drove over on a beautiful Friday morning and while Dan presented, I relaxed on the front porch and read a book.

 That place is massive.

 After he was done, we went to this cafe for lunch. (Really yummy peanut butter pie if we ever go back.) There are only like 5 restaurants in the area, and this was one of the top-rated.

 Next we drove south another 10 miles or so to see Falling Springs Falls in Covington, VA. It was really pretty. Apparently, in Thomas Jefferson's day, it used to be like 200 feet tall, but a mining company came along and wrecked it/redirected it so now it's about 80 feet tall. It's on private property, so we just saw it from the road.

 Saw this ranch on the way.

Our room at the hotel was super nice. We actually got a suite, but when the people on the other side of the shared door opened it on us while we were getting ready for bed, we decided to close off the suite and just use the bedroom!

 Hot Springs, Virginia gets its name from some thermal pools that people claim have healing properties. Thomas Jefferson used to come and wade in the baths. Dan and I decided to check it out. The only time we could go was during adult hours, which meant clothing was optional. Here's Dan in front of the men's bath house.

 And me nervously standing in front of the ladies' house. When you walk in, it's just a big round room with a pool of really clear warm water and you walk down some gross carpeted stairs that are all submerged so they're slimy and then you're not allowed to swim so you have to float with noodles but that's fine because I didn't want my feet to touch the slimy floor anyway. There were 3 other women in with me and they were all clothed. Thankfully. It's kind of big, 20 feet across maybe, so you just float around and think of nothing. Then a spider came dangling down the ceiling at me and it's hard to get away when you're not allowed to swim. I handled it for about 45 minutes and then I just went out and waited for Dan (we had an hour).

 Dan had a bonding experience with all of the men in there. Apparently Dan was the first one in and kept his suit on, then 3 or 4 other guys came in and went in the nude. No one was talking, they were all just floating around. Then Dan decided to shed his layers as well and then they all became a happy naked family.

We then went back to the resort and played at the pool area which has a lazy river and two water slides. That was fun. Then we met up with a colleague of Dan's and his wife and two daughters for a nice dinner at the resort. They were really sweet. Dinner took forever. Then we went and watched fireworks which the resort puts on every night this year to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

I had done some research before we came and figured out a hike we could do that was not too far out of the way. We woke up super early the next morning and headed out.

 The lobby.

 There were actually two hikes - Little House Mountain and Big House Mountain. First we had to drive up some backwoods roads and then park, then walk another almost 2 miles to the saddle with the trailheads.

 This was on the road we had to walk up. We weren't allowed to park closer for some reason.

 We weren't sure if we'd have time for both hikes, so we started with Little House Mountain, which was touted as being more strenuous. It was also longer, so we thought we'd do it and then see if we had time for Big House. It was a fun hike and we were the only people on the trail on the way up which was great because the lookout at the end can't really fit a lot of people. We had beautiful views of the Shenandoah Valley.

We were SO sweaty. Yuck. When we got back to the saddle, we realized we should just head back. We'll come back and do Big House some other time. We had a nice stinky drive back to pick up the kids, who were spoiled by G&G Cheney with TWO movies in TWO days. Thanks for watching our kids! We had a really nice time. We didn't realize the Homestead was such a family-friendly place. If Dan presents there again, we'll have to bring the whole crew.