Sillyness

Self Portraits

This is what happens when your nearly 4 year old gets hold of your camera.

Dutch Wonderland is Wonderful

To celebrate Noah's and Sophia's birthdays, the Wiegolds joined us for a trip up to Pennsylvania Dutch Country. We drove up early Friday morning and spent the day at Dutch Wonderland park, then slept over at a local motel on a farm and then did some Amish tourism activities on Saturday before heading back to Virginia.

Noah and Sophia both loved Dutch Wonderland. It's the perfect park for the 4 year old set. They were big enough to ride almost every ride, and there were rides that really spanned the spectrum between tame and exciting. We learned that Noah takes after me when it comes to amusement parks because he was willing to go on pretty much every single ride and loved them all, even the ones that made Darren a little queasy. Sophia's favorite was the carousel. Noah had too many favorites to name.

Dutch Wonderland has a medieval theme, so there are princesses and knights every where. When you walk into the park, you enter through this castle. Somehow Noah got confused and thought that Pennsylvania is the name of the castle. We're not correcting him.

This is one of the first rides they went on. I wish the pictures could convey the pure love they had for the rides. Noah kept begging to go on more. It's a good thing we went on a weekday because the lines weren't long, if they existed at all, because he wasn't in the mood for patience.

Sophia, ever the princess, passed Noah to the reins so he could drive her around.

That's him on the blue slide going down on his own. He didn't want me to go with him the second time down this slide. Very independent.

Another favorite ride. See the video below.

On Saturday we decided to do some touring of Amish country. Here is the view from our horse and buggy ride.

We had gorgeous weather both days and the scenery is amazing. These are miniature horses at one of the farms.

Dinner at Greydon's House

Sunday night was our monthly dinner with Greydon, Sienna, Mia and their families. It was a beautiful night, so we were able to enjoy dessert outside in the back yard and the kids were able to enjoy Greydon's climbing toys. We also took a walk down to the beach at Lake Barcroft.

Strawberry Jubilee at GCF

Yesterday, Noah and I met up with Sienna and her family at Great Country Farms for the annual Strawberry Jubilee Festival. We did not join the farm this year, opting instead to make an effort to make it to either the Friday night Kingstowne farmers market or the Saturday morning farmers market in Old Town every week. But, we still love going to visit the farm for u-pick on occasion. In some ways it's too bad because I think-- as much as he loved the farm the last two years-- Noah is at an age now where he would enjoy the farm more than ever before. Noah and Sienna had a fantastic time picking strawberries, running about, looking at the animals, and especially bouncing on the moon bounce/bouncy pillow thing. It was hard to coax them down from that.

Take a look at the red strawberry stain all over the kid's face. He picked a lot of strawberries, and not a single one made it into my basket. They were all eaten right there and then. I think he easily downed a pint of strawberries while we were in the field. Luckily, I picked a lot! Now to figure out what to do with them.

Noah, Sienna and Sienna's grandma took a ride on the cow train.

And they were very excited to see the baby chick who was hanging out in this enclosure with some other chickens.

Of course, the moon bounce was probably the most loved activity at the farm.

The Spray Park

Today was the first full day that the new spray park at Lee Rec Center was open, so Noah and I met up with Karen, Sean and Liam to check it out. The county did a wonderful job. The park is much bigger than I thought it would be. Noah had a fantastic time running through the water. It's great to have something like this so close by (and free). I think we'll be spending a lot of time there this summer.

The Dentist

At long last, Noah had his first visit with the dentist. This has been a bit of a saga for us. I originally set up an appointment with a different pediatric dentist, who stood us up for his appointment. And, now I'm so glad. The dentist we ended up with was wonderful. I was really impressed. The dental practice was amazing from start to finish and the dentist herself was wonderful. She let Noah play with several of the tools so that he would be comfortable with them, and just had a great, kid friendly bed side manner. He had a blast. He even went into daycare that day and told the other kids about how much fun he had at the dentist. I have always had a terrible fear of dentists. I hate to go (yes, I do go, but I hate it). So, it was so relieving that Noah had such a wonderful experience.