Who's Cute?

Yeah, and they know it too!

A Countryfied Easter (Part 2)

Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Buchinsky's
Looking at the new baby goats.
Clarissa and Cailin are ready for the hay ride.

So are the younger kids.

Off they go!

Amber hunting,

Krystal hunting,

Even Jared's not too old for the fun (yet).
Precious! Who knew that pure joy could be found in a plastic egg.

A Countryfied Easter

This year some new friends, the Pohligs, invited us out to their farm for some Easter fun. We started the day off with a hayride with the Easter Bunny.


Next came hunting for Easter Eggs followed by a delicious cookout.
While the adults talked, the kids enjoyed sack races,
playing on the playset,
and some good old-fashioned tug-of-war. The girls had a great time. Jared and Chris were busy at a service project in downtown Pulaski clearing wood and debris from the tornado.

Isn't Hiking in the Rain as Good as Singing in the Rain?

Chris had Friday off of work for Good Friday so we decided to go for a little hike, never mind that it was raining. We went to the New River Trail and started at the Shot Tower. The Shot Tower was built in the 1800's and was used during the Civil War to make bullets for muskets. The tower is 75 feet tall and has a shaft that goes another 75 feet below the ground. The lead was poured from the top and would fall 150 ft. to be formed and then land in a pot of water to be retrieved for use.
A little ways down the trail is this bridge which replaced the Jackson Ferry that was in operation in the late 1700s and 1800s to ferry people across the New River.
Part of the New River Trail crosses on top of this old Trestle.
The kids enjoyed stopping to climb on slippery rocks along the path.
The girls kept calling these umbrella flowers, which was pretty appropriate for the rainy weather. In fact, they are May flowers, not yet in bloom (they bloom in May, go figure). There were plenty of other wildflowers along the path that were in bloom.
We came to the area called Foster Falls, and yes, those are the falls. I guess when the rest of the river in this area is like glass, a little white water is considered a waterfall. The kids enjoyed throwing rocks into the river, looking at the geese and finding their tracks, collecting horse chestnuts and finding the horse chestnut trees as well as petting some real horses.
Clarissa is ever the adventurer, we couldn't keep her from climbing the rocks. We really enjoyed ourselves, even though it never got warmer than 51 degrees and our fingers were a little cold, it was still nice to get out and see a little history.

Everybody Wants to Be a Cat!

After two months of rehersals, the opening night for Disney's Aristocats, presented by Pulaski County High School and performed by community children of the New River Valley was on Thursday, April 7, 2011. The actors and actresses were full of energy and the show was a huge success! Here are the kids with their friends Cailin Hale, Delaney Hale and Janet Brame.
After some costume alterations and a day of learning what not to do with Rit dye (I had complications with changing Clarissa's costume from white to calico, but in the end it worked out great!), the kids returned on Friday night looking fabulous and ready for their speaking parts.
Jared was Berlioz, one of the Aristokittens. Here he is singing with some of the Aristocat family.

Clarissa was Slickcat, the Alleycat. Crazy man, Crazy! Her part had a lot of singing and dancing and she loved it!

Amber was Agnes Gabble, one of the gabbling country geese. Yeah, she's the adorable little one.

Krystal was a mouse named Brie, she's the fancy one in the pink skirt.

This is a photo of the director, Jeff McCoy giving a donation from the proceeds of the show to the Red Cross to help aid the tornado victims from the town of Pulaski which was hit by a tornado during Friday night's performance. It was touching how everyone in the show came together to help the community during this time of need. We are so proud of each of the kids and all the hard work they put into doing this show. Each of them grew so much as they had to get out of their comfort zones and work together with new people to memorize lines, songs, and choreography and to make memories that will last forever.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...

Where do they come up with these amazing creations? I mean, don't miss the cowboy boots paired with the Minnie Mouse dress or the fairy wings paired with the leather jacket!

Unfortunately this picture does not show that she's wearing one of Dad's old t-shirts, has bare legs and kitty galoshes on.

Dressing up in some of Miss Hannah's old costumes at dance class.

All dudded up for church, complete with panda backpack.

What do a cheerleader fairy, an East Indian woman, and a tourist all have in common? Their mother adores them and doesn't ever want them to grow out of this stage in life.

Congaree National Park

We decided to get away from the cold Virginia weather for a day and headed south to S. Carolina for a family trip to the temple in Columbia, to visit some friends, and for a field trip to the Congaree National Park.
Clarissa and Krystal can't contain their excitement about our boardwalk adventure.
Congaree is most known for being one of the largest old-growth flood plain forests in the U.S. It is full of trees like the tupelo and cypress that are flood tolerant. The cypress trees are among the largest in deciduous forests and their bases can be as wide as 6 feet. This tree shows the cypress "knees" that are part of the root system, but stick up out of the forest floor. It is not known if they are only acting as anchors or if they also function as snorkels for the tree.
This pictures shows how silly Chris can be, as well as how high the flooding can get, see the line of dark coloring on the trees in the background? That is how high the flood waters rise, about 6 feet or so from the ground.
The trees in the Congaree are deciduous, losing their leaves in the winter. Although the trees look mostly dead near the base, they are teeming with the life of spanish moss growing in the tops of the trees.
This part of the forest reminded us of all the movies with swamps in them that we've seen like The Princess and the Frog or The Rescuers. We were glad that we chose to visit this swamp in the winter when the Skeeter Meter was at it's lowest. We enjoyed our visit so much that it prompted a unit study at home on the different types of forests and the life that lives in them.