Spring Break

Lance spent his Spring Break having a great time with Abbey and Scott. Scott still had to work, but Abbey took Lance around town with her every day. They went swimming, ate out at night and went to Jump, the trampoline park here in Charlottesville. They invited us to join them one day so I took the kids and we all had a fun time together.

Lance was so cute jumping with Lily and making her bounce. She was laughing the whole time.

These kids spent about 80% of their time in the foam pit, which meant most of my time was spent hauling them out.

Showing off his tricks. :)

It was a blast!

Afterward we all went to Chick Fil A together to get lunch. It was fun! So kind of Abbey to invite us to hang out.

Lily is enthralled with bugs, mostly stink bugs. Probably because we have a never-ending supply of them in our house. She loves to point at them and touch them. Stink bugs are great for that--they're slow, they don't bite and their fairly robust so she doesn't kill them with her little finger. I finally found something stink bugs are good for!

Our neighbors recently got a dog named Raven. She's about 8 months old and super sweet. She is a digger, though, and managed in about a week to make a hole under the fence that we share big enough for her to squeeze under. She comes over almost every day to play with Bender. It's been nice for him to have a playmate and makes me feel better when he doesn't get a walk every day. They wear each other out. Some days I come down to let Bender out in the morning and she's already sitting in our yard waiting to play.

Many days she spends more time at and in our house than she does at her own. While I'm not a huge fan of the exponential increase in dog hair or the occasional "accident" that I have to clean up (still not sure who's doing it as I have yet to catch one in the act), I'm glad Bender has a friend.

Lance and I also got to tour a well-known chocolate factory here in town called Gearhart's Chocolates. It was fun to be there with just him. We got to see how they made the gourmet chocolates, boxed them and even got to sample the different chocolate they use to make them. I took a couple pictures on my phone, so when I learn how to download them, I'll post them here.

Baseball is well underway for Lance. He has the same coach he's had for the last two seasons which is wonderful. I'll be sad next season when he moves up to the Minors and gets a different coach.

He made some good plays this game and was an asset to the team.

I now understand why parents get so riled up at games. You just want your child to be happy. It is exhilarating to see them succeed and devastating when they fall short. The whole time Lance is up at bat, I'm probably more nervous than he is.

Lily was enjoying her view of the game. Thanks, Scott!

Jude and Cole ran around during the game with a couple girls, siblings of Lance's teammates. 

It was all fun and games until one the little girls hit Jude in the head with a stick. I found Jude curled up on the ground holding his head with a bloody hand. I didn't see it happen, I only had Jude's explanation of what happened and another mother who mentioned that this little girl was the last one with the stick, so I didn't say anything to the girl's mother, but I was pretty upset. Jude was upset, too, although the part that bothered him the most was that she "didn't say she was sorry!"

Poor guy. It didn't look too bad once the bleeding stopped, so we played a bit on the park after the game and then went and got Chick Fil A again with Scott and Abbey before heading home. I planned on having George take a look at it when we got home (he was finishing up a shift and would be home about the same time we were).


Lily is lucky to have such a great big brother!