Wrapping up February

Dear Loved Ones,

As February comes to a close, I thought I'd send everyone a note and fill you in on the latest news.  I figure if I write a little more frequently, it will be a little less cumbersome.

On Monday, February 15, we braved the slush and ice storm and headed out to a restaurant in Arlington, where our friend Sabrina Campbell was hosting a viewing party for her appearance on Food Network's Cake Wars.  We were on the edge of seats and were thrilled to learn that SHE WON.  It was very exciting, her cake was gorgeous, and she treated everyone to a slice of the prize-winning flavor.  Yum!

John enjoyed drinking root beer and making new friends. 
Lyn was there, too, but we didn't end up with a picture of her!

On Thursday, February 18, Margie's friend Alison came for a visit from Luray.  Alison runs the hostel there, Open Arms at the Edge of Town, so she doesn't get much time away, and this was the first time she was able to see the new house.  Margie had fun showing her around and telling her all about the remodel.  Afterwards, Margie took Alison to her favorite grocery store, Fresh World, to help Alison find some specialty ingredients for a Mongolian Hot Pot party Alison was hosting the next day. 

That night, John and Margie attended a portion of the Fairfax County School Board meeting.  As part of his Communications merit badge, John had a requirement to attend some sort of a public meeting where an issue would be debated, so he could listen to and record both sides.  It just so happened that the School Board was debating that night whether or not to close school for the Primary election on March 1.  John thought the meeting was pretty boring, but Margie was grateful he had the opportunity to see our community in action.  And by the way, the motion passed in the affirmative.  No school!

On Friday, February 19, the family helped put on the annual Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet.  John is no longer in Cub Scouts, so let's just say that we were helping a friend who was out of town.  It was a bit chaotic, but everyone seemed to have a great time.

The next day, Lyn and John attended the annual "mini-MTC" (Missionary Training Center), which allowed them to get a feel for what it would be like to serve a mission for our church.  They had a great time and learned a lot.

Last week, Margie had an interesting experience--her first paid acting job, serving as a "victim" for a disaster training drill for the National Guard.  On Monday, she went to training.  On Tuesday, she went on her first assignment.  You can see her instructions in the picture below.  It was a LOT to remember, and she was so nervous!!  Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that they had to alter the drill to only include the hospital visit, and cut a few of us who were categorized as "Non-Ambulatory" (NA), as well.  So, she ended up spending 8 hours wet and freezing in a drizzling tent.  It was a rough, but exciting day!

The next day went much better.  This time, the drill was held at RFK Stadium (the day before we were on a fire department training campus), and instead of waiting in a tent, we actually got to hang out INDOORS, where there was HEAT.  Margie's acting instructions were also much shorter and easier to remember.  Whew!  Unfortunately, there was a thunderstorm (and tornado warning) coming that afternoon, so they had to pull out sooner than they had planned, and Margie only got to participate in one drill.  Still, it was a great experience, and unexpectedly emotional, as it seemed so real that Margie began feeling genuinely worried about her family and what would happen to them in such a horrible disaster (the drill was an IED in the stadium).

That night, Dan, Margie, and John attended a meeting to go over plans for John's first High Adventure Camp Out for the Boy Scouts.  This summer they will be heading to the Finger Lakes Region of New York, and it sounds like they are going to have a great time!

Thursday morning, Margie attended the Honor Roll Assembly for John's school.  Technically, she is the Honor Roll Assembly Chair (her fourth year in the position), so she is supposed to be in charge of it, but she thought she wasn't going to be able to be there due to the National Guard Training, so she had turned it over to the person she has been training to take over next year.  It turned out Margie could make it after all, and while it was great to come and support John, it was a little weird to see someone else doing her job without her!

Friday morning, Dan and Margie headed to Lyn's school early in the morning to continue the clean out of the scene shop.  We were able to organize and label all of the small parts, so hopefully as parents and students begin building in a few weeks, it will be much easier for them to work. 

That night, Lyn and Margie had a little girls night as we went to see some friends perform in a local high school production of The Little Mermaid.  It was a cute show, and they did a great job!

The next night, Margie went on a "big girls" night out for dinner with some theatre friends.  They had great food and conversation!  Meanwhile, Lyn went to a church dance.  She almost got John to join her, but he opted out at the last minute.  Maybe next time!
 In other news, Dan continues with work and sets--he attended the first read-thru of To Kill a Mockingbird, and it looks like it's going to be a great show.  This past week he also attended a meeting for West Side Story, where he got asked to design A Winter's Tale, this time at TAP (the Arlington Players), which has a HUGE stage.  That will be a challenge! 

In addition to her acting adventures, Margie continues working steadily as a professional organizer.  Lyn has had a little bit of a break since the One Acts closed, but is gearing up to costume Once on this Island, which is coming up soon, and John continues to practice the piano and work on Odyssey of the Mind--both of which have big competitions coming up in a couple weeks.

And that wraps up February.  A big shot out to Margie's Uncle John, who has a birthday tomorrow--one he only gets to celebrate every four years.  It's how he stays so young!

Catching up on 2016

Dear Loved Ones,

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day.  Things were quiet around here, though there was definitely chocolate involved!

This morning we are greeted by another winter storm, which has derailed our plans for the President's Day holiday, so I thought I would use my newfound time to send an update with what's been going on in our family so far this year.  It's been a rough one!

Over the Christmas break, Margie got sick with bronchitis, and she still wasn't recovered by New Year's Eve, so she and Dan spent the holiday apart.  Dan took John to our friends' New Year's Eve party, while Lyn attended a church dance.

Then, on New Year's Day, Margie hurt her back and couldn't move.  This lasted several weeks, exacerbated by the lingering cough from her bronchitis.


On January 4, the kids went back to school, and, with the exception of Margie being flat on her back, everything seemed to be roughly back to normal for awhile.

On January 16, the family gathered to celebrate John's 14th birthday, as well as exchange some post-Christmas presents, since we had spent the holiday apart.  It was fun to see everyone and gather in our new family room.

John is growing like a weed.  His 14th birthday, and he's almost as tall as Opa!

On January 17, we attended a Youth fireside introducing the 2016 Theme for the church teens, "Press Forward with a Steadfastness in Christ."  You can find out more here.

Around this time, Lyn got sick as well.  She missed school on Wednesday, January 20, which turned out to be the only day of school for two weeks!  On Monday, January 18, Dan and the kids had the day off due to Martin Luther King Day, and on Tuesday, there was a pre-scheduled teacher work day.  On Thursday, the storm hit, which would leave everyone home bound for quite awhile--school was canceled for an entire week!

In all, we got about 30 inches.  We were grateful to have our new windows and doors, which allowed us to stay comfy and cozy. We were also grateful for the snow blower that Dan's mom gave us before she moved to Florida many years ago.  Dan used it to shovel our driveway over and over and over!!

This snow drift outside our sliding glass door is much more impressive when you realize the ground is about 2 feet below the bottom of the door.

Poor Dan.  He kept shoveling and shoveling that walkway, and the storm kept right on covering it up!

It turned out that the snow storm was a huge blessing in many ways, however.

First, Lyn was scheduled to perform in the One Act Festival, but she since she was so sick, she would not have been able to attend rehearsals, and perhaps even the performance.  As it was, however, the performances were rescheduled for a week later and all went well.  She played "The Innocent" in a student-written play called "Another Stereotype," and she was in the ensemble of a kabuki-style performance of  "Urashima, the Fisherman."  She did a great job in both!

Second, Margie and the kids made great use of being at home by cleaning out and organizing the pantry.  It had been bugging Margie for awhile, and it looks so good now!  Not to mention things are easy to find, store, and keep track of.

Margie later added some labels and some better containers for a few items.

 John also used the time to knock out some merit badge requirements for Boy Scouts.  One of them was to work on a project that would benefit the family.  To Margie's delight, he chose to clean up and reorganize the family recipe book, dividing it into individual binders for each type of recipe, and reprinting and hole-punching those recipes that were well-used and falling out.

Also during this time, Margie picked up a new client.  A family she went to church with years ago moved from Woodbridge to Arlington and needed to some help unpacking, decluttering, and organizing.  Since school was out due to the snow, she was able to bring John along to help.  He earned a nice chunk of change (his first real "job"), and we were able to get unpacked much quicker with his help.


Since we can't seem to get enough of cleaning and organizing around here, Dan and Margie volunteered to help clean out the scene shop at the high school.  Dan had worked on the set for the fall production and had offered recommendations on how the parent boosters could help improve this area.  In the meantime, the drama department received and failed a safety inspection in there, so the drama teacher was eager to accept our help.  So on February 6, Dan and Margie spent the day with a few other parents and students cleaning out the shop (Lyn was in rehearsal all day, while John was home sick (his turn!)).  It was a LOT of work, but we really made a dramatic improvement.  I wish I had remembered to take before and after pictures!

Since then, things have calmed down and continue to roll along. Everyone is now well, and the kids are back in school.  Dan is back at work and continues working on a couple sets for LTA.  To Kill a Mockingbird is up next--he designed the set, but doesn't have to build it, which is nice.  His sister is going to be doing set decoration for the first time.  It will be an adventure!  John's English class will be reading the book this quarter, and we're hoping it works out that we can host a group to come see it and perhaps have a talk back with the actors and/or production staff afterward.

While the inside still has a handful of things that are not quite finished, on February 11, we met with the landscape designer we hired to come up with a plan for outside.  It's going to be expensive, and we're now out of money, but now that Margie's business has picked up, and we're getting fairly steady income from our listing on AirBnB, we plan to start working on it piece by piece.

The first step will be the driveway and car pad.

Next, we'll start working on the patio, fire pit, and, of course, pool.

Margie also continues to be busy with her volunteer job as treasurer for the high school drama boosters.  At the end of January, she was finally released from her calling as secretary of the children's organization at church.  After about a week of break, she was assigned a new calling.  Since she hasn't yet been sustained by the congregation, she can't reveal what it is, but it is HUGE--far more work than she was doing in Primary.  It is also overwhelming and scary, but we believe that church assignments like these are designed to push us past our comfort zone so that we can learn and grow.  It also teaches us humility and provides opportunities to rely on a strength beyond our own.  She will be spending lots of time on her knees, and that's the point.

In other news, John is preparing for Piano Festival, which coming up March 11.  He is also getting ready for the Odyssey of the Mind tournament that same weekend.  This past week, he met with his counselor and registered for HIGH SCHOOL.  Ack!!!  Not sure Dan and Margie are prepared to have two kids in high school.  How did we get so old????

On February 1, Lyn qualified to take the test for her driver's permit.  She is doesn't seem to be in a hurry to take it, however.  Margie spent every day for a week asking her about it and finally told her that she would just wait for Lyn to tell her when she is ready.  Who knows when that will be, though Dan is very anxious to get started with the driving lessons!

Well, that's all our news.  The snow is falling now, but the temperature is expected to be the 50s tomorrow.  Crazy!