March Highlights

Spring is here!   We joyfully celebrated the return of warm, sunny weather with a visit to Dewberry Farm this week.  Over 50,000 colorful tulips were in full bloom at the farm, and we loved our afternoon at the pick-your-own tulip festival:

The baby animals are another favorite part of this annual event.  There were adorable goats, bunnies, ducklings, and fluffy chicks for us to pet:

The kids played on the playground, greeted the horses, and posed for a picture by the barn.  No matter the season, Dewberry Farm always seems to perfectly capture "cute country", and is such an idyllic setting: 

Even though we have spring fever now, we kicked off March with a much chillier activity.  We hadn't been ice skating in a couple of years, and the children were excited to visit the Greensboro Ice House earlier this month.  Peanut started off using one of the skate helpers, but by the end of the afternoon, she was completely independent!  (Luke didn't stay still enough to take a photo, but he was there, too!)

We had lots of visitors this month, which has been fun for us.  Kiwi stayed with us again for the first weekend in March, and she's becoming a regular guest at our house.  It's really a perfect solution for us right now:  Borrow a pet for the weekend and return it to school on Monday morning!  😉

We also served as a host family for 4 teen aged boys who were a part of a visiting Lutheran high school band & chorus.  These students performed a concert at our church and stayed with families overnight as a part of their tour around the country.  L&L were very excited to have "the teenagers" sleep over at our house on a school night(!) and thought it was absolutely the BEST thing in the world when we ordered pizza for these hungry boys (after 9:00 p.m.!)   They have been talking about it ever since, and it made us remember that sometimes, the little things create the best memories! 

We had more fun guests over St. Patrick's Day weekend, when BB Emily and her family came to visit.  We visited campus and went to a WFU baseball game with them, and it always makes our hearts happy to see BB children play together at Wake Forest, where their mommies met 20+ years ago:

Never too old to pose with the Deacon!

Luke and Liam even made it onto ESPN!  See them behind the batter?!

S'mores by the fire pit.  Life is GOOD!

We also had COUSINS come visit us, which was so much fun!  The Richmond Winterhoffs made a pit stop at our house on their way to Spring Break, and L&L took Lauren and Gabe on a hike in our neighborhood.  We had beautiful weather and these active/imaginative kids did their own parkour course (or "park war" as Leah calls it) on the rocks and through the creek:

March also means all-things basketball, and we've been filling out our brackets and participating in some March madness of our own.  We went to a WFU basketball game a few weeks ago, and each kid invited a friend to come.  It just so happens that both L&L have a special Aidan/Aiden, so we assigned them nicknames to keep everyone straight!

Leah and (Little) Aidan.

(Big) Aiden and Luke.

As part of the Junior Deacon Club, the kiddos were allowed to go into the tunnel at halftime and greet/high-five the players.  So cool to be behind the scenes!

Team Huddle

We love our Demon Deacons (even if they didn't make the NCAA tournament this year), and continue to be loyal fans!  

Continuing our basketball theme, Mark and Leah had a very special date to see the Harlem Globetrotters last week:

Peanut loved this day with her Daddy, and we can't get enough basketball in March!

Speaking of interests, it's worthy to note that Luke is completely obsessed with paper airplanes right now.  Over the past few months, he's made hundreds of them, and he's constantly engineering different designs and models.  There are baskets and bins of paper airplanes all over our house, and Luke asked for "reams of paper and scotch tape" for this birthday next month, so that he can make even more! 

Love this expression re: his new paper airplane book!

Our budding engineer recently had a field trip to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, which incorporated hands-on stations of STEM learning into the context of race cars.  It was such a neat field trip, and the 5th graders were so excited about their NASCAR day:   

Sitting in the VIP box at the dragway!

Learning about friction.  

The field trip culminated with a driving experience around the 1.5 mile track.  We rode in vans that exceeded 90 mph around the 24 degree embankments, and although this was never on my bucket list (and the mom chaperones held on to each other for dear life), the boys in our van thought it was the coolest thing ever!  Here's our NASCAR crew: 

Such great highlights this month, filled with friends, family, and fun!