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!

A Day (or two) at the Beach

If there is one thing that Ine will come away knowing about me this year, it is that I LOVE the beach.  One of my favorite times we've had together was when we went to Tybee Island back in February on our way to Florida.  It was so great.  I wanted to go to Myrtle Beach at some point, as I haven't been in almost 2 years, but there just isn't time or resources to devote to that trip.  But also in my head, I've had in mind that I need to start working on my Bucket List 2.0.  And tops on that bucket list was parasailing, which obviously can only be done at the beach.  So in looking at our schedule and at what kinds of things I could do with Ine, it seemed we had Mother's Day weekend and that seemed a great opportunity for me to take the girls and do something I really wanted to do.  I booked us a hotel room for a night in Virginia Beach, which is not my most favorite beach, but is all that is available to us Virginians.  The plan was set.  In talking with Ine earlier in the year, I had also asked her about some other things and found out that she really loves animals and was interested in a dolphin cruise.  The place I found to go parasailing offered dolphin cruises, so I was able to book that for us as well.

We left Friday morning--Ine had no reason to be in school and I decided to pull Leah out for a day.  We stocked up on sunscreen and road snacks and headed out.  The traffic was perfect, which was important because we are coming up on summer traffic season, but no problem at all.  We steamed into Virginia Beach around 12:30 and were just in time for a 1:00 dolphin cruise.  The weather was definitely iffy, but they were sailing, so we bought tickets and headed out to the pier for pictures.  There was this hilarious shark head we climbed into and someone offered to take our picture, so that was fun.  Then we just messed around with the camera while waiting for the boat to set sail.

Our boat was the Flipper, and frankly, I was a bit concerned it should have been called the Minnow, because as soon as we left the dock, the water got REALLY choppy, a big wind picked up, and for added fun, it started to rain.

We got lunch on board the boat, and then went out to the front to see the dolphins.  Unfortunately, due to the weather, Leah spent the entire cruise wrapped in my sweater glaring, but Ine bravely stood on the deck and watched for dolphins.

And happily, the dolphins obliged and came out to see us.

I didn't get too many pictures, they were really, really fast and as soon as you'd see them, they would go back down again and swim off.  But it was fun.  I had done a dolphin cruise a couple of times in Myrtle Beach, but it was always scheduled around when the shrimp boats were out, as dolphins love to chase shrimp boats for an easy meal.  This was the first time I had seen them out and about just doing their dolphin thing.  They are pretty amazing creatures.  And Ine was grinning ear to ear!

On the way back, unfortunately, all 3 of us got a little seasick.  I had to sit with my head down and just focus on breathing, which helped.  People were falling all over the place, and I was so happy to get back to dry land!  They did have volunteers on the boat, and they gave a little presentation to Leah and another little girl, so we learned about dolphin anatomy and Leah got a souvenir picture of a baby dolphin.  Often now as we are driving along, we hear "You wanna see a baby dolphin?!" from the back seat and we have to oblige and look at the picture. It's very sweet.

Afterwards, we headed over to our hotel and discovered that in town that weekend were a huge cheerleading competition, the Special Olympics, AND a Monster Truck rally to name a few.  The beach was packed and noisy!  It was quite something.  Still, we had a nice room on the 4th floor and a great view of the beach.

We headed down to the beach for a little while before dinner.  Leah wanted to play in the sand.  Ine was concerned as she didn't really have the right shoes for the beach, and she was going to wait up on the boardwalk, but eventually she did come down and hang out with us.

Ine says she doesn't much like the beach--she and her family don't go because it is quite crowded and they would rather be 'doing something' than relaxing on the beach.  I do understand that, and in my younger days I was that way as well, but now I am happy to just sit in the sand and contemplate life.  Still, Ine was a good sport and as soon as my feet hit the sand, I could feel the stress of the day melt away--the drive was over, I felt better from the boat cruise, I was with the girls, and everything was fine.

This guy was hanging out over our table

After a while, our tummies got the better of us.  We had coupons for a buffet with free lobster, but it was closed.  We went to another restaurant, but after 3 or 4 minutes without them even acknowledging us, Ine said she had a bad feeling about that place, so we left.  We finally happened upon Planet Pizza, an alien themed pizza joint, where they happily sat us and fed us a LOT of food very promptly.  Leah and Ine had fun running around looking at the aliens.

After dinner, we did a little souvenir shopping. I thought Ine should get a Virginia Beach keychain for her collection, but she ultimately wanted a stuffed dog and Leah wanted a mermaid doll.  Then we decided to go check out a mini golf place we also had a coupon for.

When we checked into the hotel, they gave us a variety of booklets with ideas for entertainment and lots of discounts, not unusual for the beach.  I had looked through and found an ad for something called 3D blacklight mini golf and knew we just had to try it.  Years before, Leah and I went to glow in the dark mini golf with my dad and had a lot of fun, but that place is long gone, so this seemed like it would be super-fun. We found parking nearby and headed in.

To say the place was crazy would be an understatement.  Everything from the pencils and scorecards to the golf balls to the decor was done in neon colors.  Then they somehow made it 3D, so you golf wearing 3D glasses.  The insane thing is, it messes with your depth perception and there are times you have no idea where the hole is, how far away anything else.  It was CRAZY... And needless to say, it was So. Fun.  We have video of us tapping the floor with our feet trying to figure out where the floor is, finding fake holes, just hilarious.  We laughed so hard.

I proudly got a hole in one, which NEVER happens.  It was a pretty great activity.

On the way back, we discovered there was a fun house.  It was similar in that it was a 3D black light fun house, so we decided to do that as well.  All I can say is that a stellar amount of drugs must be consumed in Virginia Beach for people to invent this kind of thing.  It was crazy. Leah just wanted to whip through it, but I had to keep touching things to see what was there, what wasn't there... As fun houses go, it wasn't that spectacular, but it was fun to look at and see the artwork they had made. There really wasn't much to take pictures of due to the fact that you really needed the 3D glasses to get the full effect, but it was fun.

The sun through the fog

We slept sort of well that night.  The room had two temperatures: hellish and Frozen, so it was hard to sleep between the two.  Leah passed out though.  That child can sleep anywhere!!!  In the morning we had breakfast and checked out.  I called the parasailing place and they were going to fly that morning and invited us down for 11:00, so we went down to the beach for a little while.  After a point, I got everyone together and we headed back to Rudee's Inlet for our parasailing appointment.  Because this was my bucket list adventure, I went whole hog and booked us a 1000' flight (approximately 305 meters, for all my readers not in the USA) and paid for them to take tons of pictures of us as well.  Unfortunately, a huge fog bank rolled in overnight and there was no way we were going up at 11.  They pushed us back to 11:30, and then at noon they said they would just call us when we could go up, as they didn't want us to wait around.  We decided to go for lunch and then went down to the beach.  Just as we unpacked and settled ourselves in the sand, the phone rang and we were told to get on back to Rudee's and do our parasail!  Sigh! :)

They took us on board right away, and we were outfitted with everything we needed--harnesses and lifejackets.  Although it looks scary due to the height, parasailing is actually quite safe.  You are strapped in in such a way that you can't fall out of the harness, and you are very firmly attached to the parachute. The absolute worst case scenario is that the parachute would detach from the boat, but even so, you would simply float down to earth, land in the water, and they'd pick you up as you floated there in your life preserver.

So we got this as our safety speech, and then got attached to the chute, which they inflate before you set sail, so you even know that is working properly.  Once we were attached, they told us all to sit on the deck and just wait for it.  So we did.  Leah was starting to freak out a little bit, poor baby, and Ine and I were both nervous--I have to admit, as excited as I was, I am afraid of heights.  But I do believe these kinds of goals are about pushing yourself to do new things, and this was one of them.

We heard, "Are you ready, girls?" and then the captain sped up the boat.  All of a sudden, we were in the air.

They had us hang in the back just a little while, took some pictures and then we heard, "See ya, girls!" and the line was released and we went up in the air and soon could not see the boat any more.  It was not a super fast ascent, and it was very smooth and calm.  Not like a roller coaster, not scary at all.  Just a peaceful lifting off.

It was still so overcast, but I wasn't doing it for the view, and in fact, in some ways, it was better, as we had no concept of how high up we were.  We floated along and once we got to our cruising altitude, we broke through the fog and suddenly shot into a beautiful blue sky.  I looked behind me and you could see a wall of fog and clouds like a waterfall.  It was hard to imagine we had just shot through there.  And then we just hung in the air.  I cried.  It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life up there.  It was so serene and peaceful, you couldn't even hear the ocean.  My girls were at my side, and it was just perfect.  Once we were up, everyone relaxed.  Ine called it "amazing" and Leah asked if we could try skydiving!  HAHA!  Not likely, kid!  We knew we were tethered the whole time as the rope remained taut, and soon they started reeling us in, which was an interesting process in which they made a series of turns with the boat to release the tension and let the rope go slack, making it easier to reel in.  We landed right on the boat, never got wet at all.  It was so smooth, particularly in comparison to the dolphin cruise. They took a picture of us after we landed.

I would happily do it again! And again.  And again.  And both girls agreed.

It was perfect.  Life in that moment was perfect.

I can't even explain to you how I felt, what I thought.  Even now, when I've had a week to process it, I can't put into words what it meant, so I'm not even going to try.  But go out there and accomplish your goals with the people you love around you and you'll know what I mean.

We had to return to earth.  We headed back to our hotel from the previous night, armed with our parking pass, dropped off the car, and headed to the beach for the rest of the afternoon.  I hadn't put Leah in her bathing suit, and Ine and I weren't in our bathing suits, but I told her she could play near the water and advised her not to get 'too wet'.  Apparently we have very different definitions of 'too wet' because in no time flat, that child was soaked and covered in sand.  The waves were still pretty rough, and Ine and I got pretty soaked too!  But there was a lot of laughter and fun and we didn't mind one bit.

We briefly decided to try and stay one more night and have another day of fun at the beach for Mother's Day, but unfortunately due to all the competitions and whatnot, we weren't able to get a cheap hotel room.  Once Leah's school is out, I would definitely consider trying to go down during the week for one more night, but frankly, once her school is out, we only have 2 more weeks with Ine, one of which I hope to spend in Niagara Falls, so I don't think it's likely to happen.  And maybe it shouldn't.  It was such a great time, maybe we should just let it be.

We headed back to the car around 5:30 and the girls got changed from their wet clothes into dry, sand-free delights.  We were on the top deck of the parking garage and had a pretty great view, so we snapped a couple of pictures before heading out.

We left Virginia Beach around 6pm and had a quick dinner at McDonald's per Leah's choice... Ine and I are both sick of it, but she hasn't yet figured out it's not that great.  Fortunately Ine is a good sport where Leah is concerned in these matters. Then we headed west and north to get on home, and arrived back around 10pm.  I slept like a rock!!

What an amazing time we had.  It was fun, adventurous, interesting, and wonderful.