Calendar series: 9 months

New Year's Hike

Since New Year's Day was a Sunday, we decided to do our annual New Year's hike on New Year's Eve. We tried out a new trail on the Eno River. The kids got to wear their new CamelBaks from Santa. They are awesome! I no longer have to carry all the water and snacks and stop every few minutes for thirsty kids! The kids loved climbing all the rocks as usual. We need to return in the summer when we can play in the water.

We headed home and had our traditional New Year's Eve meal of appetizers. I had fun with my first attempt making a tarte soleil. I made a savory version with roasted red peppers and feta and a sweet version with nutella. We played some games and laughed pretty hard playing the "Lipless" game we got from Steph. The boys tried hard to stay up but finally passed out on the floor around 11.

On the last day of winter break I took the girls to see Moana. They usually see movies in the cheap theater so they were pretty excited about the awesome reclining seats. It was so great to have Ben home for a few weeks after a few months of LOTS of travel. The break went by way too quickly.

Ice Skating

I took the girls downtown one day to go ice skating with some friends from school. It was so cold that day but they had fun skating. They hadn't been in years and picked it up pretty quickly. We warmed up with hot chocolate at Starbucks across the street.

Tests for Ruby.

After we got back from Virginia Beach, Ruby had to have an ultrasound and a VCUG to check for VUR (a condition where the urine flows from the bladder up to the kidneys) since she had a UTI. She was fine for the ultrasound but did not like the VCUG (I don't blame her...getting a catheter is never fun). But she charmed everyone in the office with her sweet smile. The radiologist did see VUR in the x-ray so we had to meet with a urologist a few weeks later to confirm the diagnosis. He said she has Level 4 VUR and will have to take antibiotics daily for at least a year (to prevent more UTIs and kidney damage). She'll be retested in a year. It will often fix itself over time so we just have to keep checking. If not, she'll have to have surgery to fix it. In the meantime, she HATES the antibiotic and it's torture to get her to drink it every night.

Virginia Beach Day 2

We started off our second day in Virginia Beach with a pretty sunrise and continental breakfast (the kids LOVE hotel breakfast). We spotted tons of dolphins from our balcony. Oliver brought the light box Steph gave him for Christmas and spent lots of time drawing with it. Ben took all the kids swimming in the hotel pool and I stayed in the room and read a book while Ruby had her morning nap. We bundled up and went mini golfing after lunch and spent lots of time in the arcade. We found a bike rental place on the boardwalk and had fun riding the big family bike down the boardwalk to the Neptune statue. We picked up dinner at Five Guys and ate in our hotel room. We drove home the next day.

Virginia Beach Day 1

Shortly after checking into our hotel, we hit the beach. It was in the 60s and we knew the next day was going to be much colder. It wasn't the warm beach of Florida that we had originally planned, but we still loved playing in the sand, running away from waves, walking to the pier (sadly they removed the photo booth we always took our picture in) and watching the sunset. We saw tons of huge jellyfish washed up on shore. We drove through the light display on the boardwalk that night. We used to go to Virginia Beach every year after Thanksgiving to see the lights so it was fun to go back after a few years and reminisce. Most of the light displays are still the same. The kids especially loved being able to stick their heads out the sun roof to see the lights and Simon loved sitting on Ben's lap to "drive" the car. We ordered pizza when we got back to our room.