May has come and gone

It's funny, when it was May 1, I thought, "Our last full month together, but at least it has 31 days and it always takes a long time."  Well, now I'm sitting here in June, wondering where the heck May went.  It literally flew by.  I really don't know where those 31 days went.  I'll hit the highlights here, but honestly, it's gone in a blur.  It makes me sad at night to turn out the light, knowing another day is behind us in this awesome experience.  And knowing that we're basically done, with only 3 weeks left of the 10 months we had.  I've read back over this blog in the past week and I can't believe how much I have forgotten of what we did.  It's amazing how much we crammed into a year and how much fun we had.  I'm really grateful I kept this blog, to say the least!

Ok, so on to a wrap up of May 2015!

When I left off, we had been to Virginia Beach.

Because of graduation and everyone traveling afterwards, we decided to have Ine's birthday party early on May 16th.  We held the party at the local bowling alley and four of Ine's friends came--Ann Tillery, Mary Grace, Spencer, and Wyatt.  We had planned for a few others to come, but it was a good crowd and Ine said she was happier that way as she doesn't like too many people being involved in things to the point she feels overwhelmed.  We had a cake made with her picture on it and the kids bowled a couple of games before giving up and just hanging out.

Then it was time for Ine's end-of-the-year school activities to kick in.  Because she attended school as a senior, she was invited to participate in all the graduation activities, and I'm pleased to say she did.  There was a senior overnight which she skipped, but she wound up attending the day time field trip the next day and had a blast.  The week of graduation, they had a senior lunch.  I signed up to help bring food as well as serve and clean up, and I really enjoyed being part of the parents team for the event.  One of the moms arranged a beautiful taco bar theme, and at first we wondered if there was going to be enough food, but ultimately there was enough not only for the seniors and all the faculty, but also the juniors and some sophomores who wandered by.

The weather was just gorgeous that day, so the kids were able to eat outside.  Afterwards, there was a lovely ceremony where the seniors read their senior wills to the younger students, and the 1st graders gave the seniors advice on how to get along in college ("Always brush your teeth" "remember your manners" and the like).  It was adorable.  Ine said she wished everyone would have the chance to have a 1st grade reading buddy like she did.

The night before graduation, there was an honors convocation where awards were handed out to students in different grades in the high school.  The school specifically recognized Ine and Jana for participating in the school as AFS students and they gave them some FA blankets.  It was really a lovely moment that made me feel so good that AFS and the two girls had such a positive impact on the school.

The next day was graduation.  I had to pull Leah out of school early and we headed over to drop Ine off before picking up my mom and her husband to go to the ceremony.  The dress code for graduating girls was that they had to wear a white dress.  Ine and I spent 2 days and went to 13 different stores before going back to the first store to get the dress she liked in the first place.  Haha... I am NOT a good shopper, so shopping with someone so indecisive was difficult!!  But she looked just beautiful on graduation day, and fit in very well with the class.

It was a typical graduation ceremony, although with such a small class, they were able to make it very personal.  When it was time for the diplomas to be awarded, they started with Ine and presented her with a certificate of attendance and talked about how she had come from Belgium and what she had added to the school.  Everyone else got their name read out and their paper, but they really made a fuss over Ine and I was so proud of her and very moved.  FA has been a wonderful school.

Ine receiving her certificate from Karen Moschetto, head of FA

Afterwards, there was punch and cookies, and I took lots of pictures of Ine and her various friends, as well as our family.

Ine and her friend Cami

Ine and Tony Durso, head of the upper school

Ine and Karen Moschetto, head of FA

Ine and her friend Elma

Ine and her friend Maya

Ine and her friend Spencer

Afterwards, Mom and Craig treated us to dinner at a local restaurant...  It was rough on Leah, who had been sitting around all day, and now was being asked to sit some more, but she made it through, and I got possibly the most adorable picture of them ever.

The following day (Saturday), we went to a graduation party that Ine had been invited to, which was really nice.  It was a busy weekend due to the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend, which is considered the kick off to summer here in the US.  We had a TON of invitations and events going on besides graduation, so it was a crazy weekend.  

Saturday night, we went to the Fredericksburg Luminara.  It was Leah's and my first time going, although I have lived here in town for 10 years now.  The Luminaria is put on at the local national battlefield where many of the Civil War dead for this area are buried.  The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts go and put out candles on all the tombstones, Taps is played every 30 minutes, and you can go walk along and see and remember the price of freedom.  It was really beautiful.

Ine was our chief photographer, and Leah just ran around the place.  As did most kids.  We also ran into my friend Nancy over there, so that was pretty nice as well.

The next day, Sunday, we had a barbeque to go to at my friend Allison's house, and we stayed there for a few hours in the afternoon.  Amber came over with That Baby and we had good food and just hung around for a couple of hours.  Afterwards, we drove up to Vienna, VA, about an hour north, to attend the summer kick off concert at Wolf Trap.  I love Wolf Trap, and we usually go to the free winter concert in December, but this year, we went to Amber's family's Christmas party instead.  So I was really excited to see there would be a free summer kick off.  The concert features The President's Own Marine Corps Band, which was started in 1798 by John Adams. John Phillips Sousa, a famous American composer well known for his very American marches was once the leader.  One of my chief complaints, indeed maybe my only complaint, with AFS is that they require the students to go back home before July 4th, which is the ultimate American holiday and in my view, the perfect way to finish off their American experience.  It is a time of cookouts, music, and fireworks.  Well, we had the cookouts underway, and now this concert would give us some really American music and fireworks to boot.

We met up with my sister and her family at the show and everyone contributed to a picnic.  We had sandwiches, fruit, cookies, drinks, all kinds of goodies, and we sat on the lawn and sang and listened to the wonderful music of the band until the fireworks started.  It was an incredible performance--the picolo player in Stars and Stripes Forever moved me to tears.  I have heard that song a million times, but never like that.  The 1812 Overture was incredible, it was just a great show.

The following day, we had been invited to another cook out in Stafford at a local garden center/nursery and to hear a member of the UU sing and do some entertaining there.  It was fun and I was really impressed at the generosity of the nursery to provide food for the community at no cost.  Bruce was fun to listen to singing as well.

Afterwards, we went down to my mom's house and had another cookout, making our total on the weekend three plus a picnic and a pool party.  Pretty crazy!!!  After that cookout, we were headed home, but Leah asked if we could go to the park, so we took the opportunity to teach Ine the popular activity of Geocaching. Geocaching is an electronic scavenger hunt where you get coordinates online and use a GPS to go and find the location out wherever you happen to be. There are bunch of caches at Pratt Park near our house, so we turned on my geocaching app and went hunting.  We found 4 caches before calling it quits and created an account for Ine so if she ever wants to go again, she has her first 4 finds logged already.  Afterwards, the girls played on the playground for a while before we returned home.  It was a really lovely weekend.

Our second find of the day!

My little roos

This past weekend, we found ourselves with an unscheduled Saturday, which just would not do, so I decided we would go out to Natural Bridge, VA where I had been really interested to go but had never made it.  They have a drive through safari in addition to the bridge itself.  I was very excited about it, and we wound up having a great time.  It's an almost 3 hour ride out there through the mountains and horse country, and we had easy traffic, a beautiful experience getting out there, great scenery, just heavenly.  The safari was SO fun--we did the drive through part twice, and we had buckets of feed to give to the animals, who know what is in those buckets and are quite aggressive about it.  There was also a walk through village, where Ine and Leah bravely touched a HUGE boa constrictor, we fed budgies and carried them around on sticks, Ine got near (but not too near) a peacock, which she does not like, and we saw all kinds of cute goats and pigs.  It was a really fun day, although unfortunately very hot and we had trouble with the heat!  We were very thankful for the ability to drive around in air conditioned comfort and I treated everyone to ice cream and cold water.

After the zoo, there was still time to go to Natural Bridge itself.  The Natural Bridge is considered one of the top natural attractions in Virginia, and was once owned by Thomas Jefferson.  I had seen pictures of it, but wasn't totally sure what the big deal was.  Still, I thought it was worth a try, so we went.

After getting tickets, we headed down the 139 steps to the bridge, which are followed by a lovely little waterfall and stream.  The girls were much faster at it than I was, but it was a beautiful little walk.  Once we came around the corner to the bridge itself, I almost literally lost my breath.  It was absolutely spectacular.  I couldn't stop taking pictures of it.  First of all, it's huge, far bigger than anything you imagine when you look at pictures of it.  In this picture to the left, the little specks in the middle of the picture are Leah and Ine standing under the bridge.  They are just totally dwarfed by the thing.  It reminded me of a place Leah and I went in Colombia in 2013 when visiting my former AFS brother, where you walk down this massive hill and suddenly there is an amazing cathedral and waterfalls and all kinds of things.  This was a very similar feel.  There were guides if you had questions and there was a lovely walking trail. We decided to follow the walking trail to the end, as it was only about a mile.  Because we were there a bit late, the Monacan Indian Village was closed, but everything else would remain open till dusk, and we got to see the Lost River (so named because no one has yet found the source), the Saltpeter Cave, and the Lace Falls.

If I'm being honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the waterfall, as I was expecting something huge and glorious, and it was nice enough in its way, but quite far back from the path and quite small.

On the way back, the girls climbed some rocks and looked around in the river.  Leah found tadpoles and crawfish and it was cool down there, far cooler than up above.  It was just a beautiful spot.  I can see it becoming a fun place to take future exchange students!

Once we walked back, we waited for the shuttle to take us back up to the top of the parking area, as Ine's knees were hurting and we were all hot, sweaty, and exhausted.  A friend recommended a nearby restaurant, the Pink Cadillac Diner, where we had dinner, but after it arrived, Ine and I discovered we were too tired to eat.  We could have split a plate as neither of us ate even half what we had.  But the diner was a fun place to go and as it was pink, Leah was in heaven!

We drove home and got back around 9:30.  We had to keep each other awake on the drive, so we took turns talking about random things, and one of the things we talked about was name meanings.  I asked Ine what the name "Ine" meant, and she didn't know.  It came around to us talking about "The Meaning of Ine" and her finding herself this year, and we decided it would be a good name for the blog, so you will see an updated blog title here! :-D  I was too tired to shower, so I bid Ine good night and went to bed, knowing when I woke up, we would have a 19 year old in the house!!!!!!!!!

For Ine's actual birthday on May 31, she spent some time Skyping with her parents and sister and then we went over to the UU for the children's service, which was fun.  Then we had a party at our house where we invited my family and a few friends over.  Jana was able to come, as she had been out of town for Ine's other party, as well as Amber and Andy and Judy and her family.  Ine says when she is back in Belgium on her birthday, she always picks Chinese food for dinner, so we ordered a pile of Chinese food and everyone ate like crazy.  it was so good!!!  She got a nice assortment of presents--Judy and family gave her a bunch of American snacks to try, she got a few gift cards, and Leah and I gave her a charm bracelet with charms to remember her year by. Amber also gave her some charms to put on the bracelet--a cow and an American flag.  Ine left the room for a moment to compose herself, she was really moved by it and says she won't wear it because it's too nice and she's afraid to break it. Haha!

And thus is May over and done.  Ine has started consolidating her belongings for the inevitable packing to go home and I have started trying to prepare myself for the idea that she is leaving.  We have smaller adventures now, every time we leave the house seems pregnant with meaning, and most evenings when we were just sitting around there is an added air of urgency surrounding our togetherness.  Leah, Ine, and I have all shed tears about Ine's impending departure, and my mom and sister have both expressed their sorrow over her departure.  I feel very fortunate that I am matched with a student for next year which will offer some distraction, and that I am still in touch with Penny from 5 years ago (WOW!), and I know that this is just the closing of this chapter, not of the book.  Still, it is really hard knowing that our daily lives will be very, very separate from here on out, until Ine marries one of the boys from FA and moves back to the US permanently.  (Sorry, Hilde and Johan, I have plans for this girl!)

See you soon with the news from June!