Non-Disney February

Of course, the big news in February is that we went to Disney World.  But we did a lot of other stuff too!  I wish I could remember it all.  Haha

February 1 was SuperBowl Sunday.  I regretted not having a party so Ine could really experience the SuperBowl the American way, but my sister and my friend Andy came over and we put the game on.

The game was between my team, the Patriots, and my sister and Andy's team, the Seahawks.  None of us is totally into football, so we mainly ate, pretended to watch the game, Judy tried to explain American football to Ine, and we watched the ads.  The ads were not very good this year.  Really underwhelming.  At halftime, we enjoyed the Katy Perry spectacle, which made Leah and my niece new Katy Perry fans, which is fun since my sister only listens to music from the 1940's.  I look forward to Dot and I torturing her for years to come.  Then they left, and we took a vote and decided to switch over to Downton Abbey.

We watched Downton for an hour and put the game back on.  It was the final moments of the game and it looked like Seattle was going to squeak it out, but at the last minute, well, we all know what happened...  So Ine got to see one of the craziest SuperBowl finishes there ever was.  You can tell in the below picture that she is so impressed by this entire thing.

The following weekend, there was a lot going on, and Ine had to make some tough choices.  She had not finished her last swim meet in a way that made her very happy, and her last swim meet of the season was scheduled on the same day as a mandatory AFS mid-stay orientation.  When she told her coach that she couldn't go to the swim meet, her coach was really disappointed, and Ine was too, since she really wanted to finish strong.  She asked me what to do.  I told her that she should call the AFS people and see what she could work out.  She was VERY nervous to do this, but I felt it was important that she solve her own problems, and a few minutes later, she came downstairs with a big smile on her face, and happily told me she had been excused from orientation to go swim.

Unfortunately I had to miss her swim meet because it was my nephew's 5th birthday!  So we went up for his party and then hopped in the car and drove back to F'burg like crazy hoping to see Ine swim.  As we were driving, she hadn't swum yet, but she was getting ready to, and ultimately we missed it.  That made me sad.  But we made it in time to see the end of season festivities and get some pictures.

I was really pleased for her that she got to participate and that it meant so much to her.  I think making the choice to do something on the community side versus the AFS side indicates a level of assimilation that is very important.  And I'm sad swim season is over, I had a lot of fun attending the meets.

The following week was busy for me, personally, as I had applied for a job, interviewed, and was accepted, but as a condition, I had to go to traffic school.  I had also started my school semester, and my mom got married on February 14th, and I was catering and caking.  So it was a crazy week.  On Valentine's morning, we woke up and got moving for the wedding.  I got both Ine and Leah chocolate hearts and a card and told them both how much I loved them and was glad they were here.  Then we had to quit the niceties and get to the clubhouse for the wedding.

The first challenge was getting the cake over to the place from my house.  I had Ine holding it on the way.  It was hard on the wrists, but she didn't drop the cake, which was pretty amazing, because even though the top layers were small, they were heavy.

Everyone was assigned a task for the wedding, and Ine's job was to be the photographer.  She has a lovely camera and enjoys taking pictures, and since the rest of us were cooking, moving furniture, running sound equipment, shooting video, and corralling children, we passed off photography on Ine. My mom later said that the pictures moved her to tears, so I think she did a great job!

 Here we all are at the wedding, my sister Judy, Ine, and me.  Ine is wearing a dress she described to me as being "three colors that aren't really colors". I like this picture.  Ine doesn't really feel like my daughter, she feels more like a sister to me, and my sister feels like Ine is her sister too, so this is more a representation of us with our new little sister than anything else :-)  Also you might remember back in January (I think) I said that Ine and I made the floral arrangements.  You can see them behind us.  So it was a great day, and fun to share an American wedding (atypical, but nice) with Ine!

In the US when it snows, the first thing
everyone does is buy bread.

That being said, it was soon time for the stupid snow season to start.  Here in Virginia, there is a LOT of freaking out when so much as a single snow flake flies, and sure enough, school started shutting down for days at a time.  Sometimes for rain, sometimes for snow, sometimes for the anticipation of weather.  You couldn't tell.  You just knew the girls wouldn't have school.  To give Ine's school credit, she had school more than Leah did.  But every day there was either a delay or a cancellation.  At first it was OK because Ine had homework to do and we could enjoy the novelty of the situation.  But after a point, it was ridiculous.  One of the snow days was bright and sunny and beautiful.  I asked Ine what she'd like to do, and her answer was basically, "Anything out of the house."  haha  I agreed!  So we got in the car and started driving, but then I suddenly just decided we should go up to DC and do a Smithsonian day.  So I asked Ine and Leah, "Would you rather see dinosaurs and jewels, dresses and shoes, or art?"  I suspect Ine was still rather traumatized from the Philadelphia trip's art museum visit because she said quickly and firmly "Not art."  So eventually we decided on dinosaurs and headed to the National Museum of Natural History.  We splurged on lunch and then discovered that the dinosaur exhibit is under renovation.  I was so bummed, I really wanted to see those dinosaurs!  So we talked to a lady at the information desk and she recommended a portion of the dinosaur exhibit upstairs near the insects.  We stopped in first at the butterfly exhibit.

Ine is not a great fan of insects, but butterflies are pretty tame, and she and Leah enjoyed seeing them.  They both held some sort of moth larva as well--that sucker was HUGE!

I do not like moths, but I like butterflies, so I focused my attention on them.  It made me happy.  I also touched the moth larva.  It had weird feet.  I was happy to give it to Ine.

After we left there, we found ourselves in a room where there were all kinds of insects.  I held a Madagascar hissing cockroach, but that was where Ine drew the line.  We also saw a 70-something bad a** woman of a volunteer holding a tarantula.  As Ine was fleeing that scene, she found a case containing a bird eating spider.  That grossed us both out, so we beat feet out of there and went into an adjacent room where we finally saw some fossils and dinosaur stuff.  YAY!  We got to watch some scientists sifting through dirt to find fossils and they waved to the girls, which was fun.  Afterwards, we went to see the Hope Diamond and gems.

When we'd had our fill of natural history, we headed over to the National Museum of American History and looked at the first ladies' gowns and some presidential stuff.  I got a few pictures of Ine and Leah with the gowns and one of Ine pretending to be president.

She looks very presidential, doesn't she?

On the way back, we stopped off at the Metro Cafe for a mid-afternoon snack.  We watched the ice skaters and Leah wanted to give it another try, but Ine and I both said no. haha  it hadn't gone well the first time, we weren't doing it again!

After that, Ine had a couple of more days of school and then we left for Florida!  I wished I had known they'd have the whole week before our trip off, I'd have planned something else somewhere warm for that week, but ultimately, we had fun together and that's all that matters.  Stay tuned for the details of our Disney adventure!