Margaret's First Eyes on Greystone

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Oh, my precious baby girl.  Where did you go, love?!?

And took said baby girl to Greystone for the first time, stopping by Elk River to break up the trip.  I thought she would be bored without her brothers, but we had an amazing few days together.  One on one time with them is incredible...and oh so very rare.

Wait, what?!?!  Don't remember the last time ANY of the kids slept in the car, and she did on every single leg!

 Oh, how the mountains NEVER disappoint.

While the girls were away, the boys went camping...and did what boys do.

Anticipation

 Anticipating Greystone Take 2....Take 1 (without phone ready) was all squeals of delight ("hers or yours??", my Mom wisely asked!).

"Here we are at camp again, where every camper wears a grin.  

Greystone, you're the best.  You belong to me!" 

Mary played the piano for what seemed like 100 years, never ONCE even glancing at the keyboard!  Truly an amazing human being, pianist and Christian.

So much is new...

 ...and yet so very much has not changed one bit.  She would have see-sawed with me for HOURS if we'd had the time.  It's in her DNA, so I get it.

New in recent years, the benches around the tree are all of Psalm 23, which she learned this year in AWANA.  She's starting to piece all of this together!

 Margaret's unsolicited Greystone promo.  She asked to me turn on the video.  

I had no idea what was coming:-)

Memorial Day, appropriately honored.

Jim Daddy will ALWAYS have a place in EVERY Greystone girl's heart.

Her counselors are going to have to drag her off the swings to class.

I had to drag her away from there after 4 hours...needless to say, she was in Heaven and my heart was smiling while a variety of tears streamed down my face.

Laura Hollowell, always prepared, had my replacement G ready for me.  The perfect line in my very imperfect story is losing my G sometime during my college moves when I should have just been moving back and forth to Greystone and, therefore, wearing it daily.  I hope to keep this one forever close to my heart.

Graduation

 Graduation weekend - always a flood of emotions. It means saying goodbye to very special people that are moving on and up. It's never easy being the one that's left behind, but best of luck to our favorite Darden, UVA, and AHS grads. And great last game to the boys in between the festivities!

Annalise!  This daughter of a WandM and Duke is off to JMU and cannot wait.  What a fine young lady Lee and Kris have raised.   

I hired Bekah Leary to be our nursery attendant at church about a year and a half ago.  Little did I know the relationship that was starting.  Had to have a church party at Adventure Farm to celebrate. 

...complete with Costco cake for this crowd.

 Bekah has been our go-to sitter quite some time and we will all miss her more than we realize.   She's been a part of our lives in many different, incredible ways.  She grew up the youngest of 5 in a missionary family.  Being raised in Russia is certainly not Charlottesville.  Thankful for her impact on our family and know she will continue changing lives at camp this summer and in Birmingham next year before jetting off into the world somewhere!

 

 

The Fox was in town!  With Dr. Fox graduating from Darden, we got to have our Kathy back, too.  What a fun breakfast with the crew, minus Jenn (who was in Miami? or New Orleans? or Dallas? I lost track of her spring travels!) 

Many of these guys are graduating to 5-6 next year.

 

 

Performance Week!

Once again, Andrew thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to be on stage, and Margaret did great---her first experience and duet with Mrs. Anderson.

Corsages, courtesy Susan. 

Margaret's "Chance to Dance" performance at school....what an amazing program for so many young girls that would never otherwise be able to participate.

A neighbor is on the BOD of the Center of Christian Studies at UVA.  I'm not sure exactly what services they provide students, but it's very well respected.  This neighbor (CEO of Roy Wheeler and too many ties for me to count) and Tom have both been on the board for years.  Our nursery attendant that I hired and favorite sitter the last year and a half has been an intern there.  Apparently they provide 3 meals a day to students to exams and ask folks to come bless the meals.  Our neighbor asked if our family would come pray for them.  So Andrew wrote a blessing that he offered them.  They line up down the street (there are 150 kids that show up per meal), so he prayed it 3 times, walking down the street to catch everyone.  What a cool experience.  Apparently W and M and CNU were in town last week to see what their ministry entails, how they function, etc.  Can't believe they don't already have something, but hopefully this will be commonplace by the time our kids go to college.

I gave up trying to figure this one out...

Not to be left out, Matthew had his own little performances at school with the sweetest class I've ever seen.  Oh, how our family will miss Ms. Bush and Ms. Balcell's!

"Pre-K next year, Pre-K next year, we're moving up!  We're moving up!

Learn to read our letters, write our names much better, 

Pre-K here we come!  We'll have so much fun!"

 

Merrily we start the day...

Poem:  We know our sights, we know our sounds.  What goes up, must come down!

 Can you spot the ball boy under the Friday night lights???  

Pretty neat opportunity for Andrew.

Great season for these guys!  Michael was a trooper to do so much driving back from Arlington for practice.  Thankful for an assistant this year, too!

AWANA Awards Night - Andrew completed his first year of TNT (Truth in Training) and nailed ALL of his passages despite missing 3 weeks for travel.

Margaret surprised us all by winning the "Clubber of the Year" award in her SPARKS (k-2) group of 4 classes!  Apparently she is a delight, always kind, considerate, and helpful to those that did not arrive with their verses already memorized.  

And Matthew....well, Matthew did was Matthew does...and learned some verses and songs, too!

The kiddos are singing about every other month now.  This time, is was with the big choir!

"Oh, sing to the Lord"

And after this week, we collapsed!

Happy 43rd, AGAIN!

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Daddy swooped in from Arlington for 30 minutes to celebrate before the family had to divide and conquer at lax practice and a Board meeting.  So we made the best of it and zipped through presents (complete with Margaret's own scavenger hunt for them) and cake just as fast as we could!

With Matthew's help, testing the scooter after quite a battery journey.

Why can't boys use anything the way they're supposed to!

 The kids think I've been a terrible wife for 12 years, each birthday only replacing his motorcycle from his previous life with yet another toy motorcylce of some sort.  But this year, Mommy finally came through....sort of. 

 The kids told me earlier this week, "Mom, PLEASE don't put 44 on Daddy's cake!".  No one has ever been happier to see someone reach 43 than I was.  Fully distracted, I put 43 on his cake last year, to which he giggled, "Awe, this video is gonna be bittersweet if I don't make it to next year!".  Phew.  Bullet dodged, praise God!

K-1st Musical, FieldTrip, Fun Fair

Ms. Gary always does an AMAZING job with these musicals considering the volume and range of kids with which she works.

Dress Rehearsal - Hummingbird

Strike a Pose!

Margaret's Lines - She had them memorized for weeks, but read off of the teacher's cheat sheet when she saw that that's what everyone else was doing:-(  At least her delivery was loud and proud! 

Open Gate Farm---nothing like Farmer Bob's schpeal to confirm for little Violet why she's a vegetarian!

I went out on a limb and suggested that the PTO spring for a Dunk Tank for this year's Fun Fair and I'm so thankful to have been able to pull it off!  It was absolutely crazy, but the kids LOVED it and the teachers were such good sports, especially Lisa, who was in there 45 minutes!