Ryleigh is 6! Can you believe it? She was all of 2 months old when we started this little blog. I've not done a good job of having traditional scrapbooks for the kids, but with starting this little diatribe shortly after Ryleigh was born, it is an e-scrapbook of sorts. And, now it is time to document birthday number 6 for RyJo.
Ryleigh celebrated her birthday three times on her actual birthday. The first time was at school--Ryleigh took Lofthouse cookies with white frosting for all of her classmates. The second time was at gymnastics--Ryleigh took Lofthouse cookies with orange frosting for all of her teammates. And, finally, we did our family celebration at Red Robin then at home. Ryleigh chose Red Robin so they would sing to her. But, after watching another girl being sung to, Ryleigh opted for dessert with no fanfare.
On Saturday, Ryleigh hosted 6 of her friends at The Klumsy Moose for a Fairy Princess party.
After the girls had their nails painted, faces painted, and hair done, the girls danced, played games, and put on a fashion show.
The girls then received their fairy certificates, sang Happy Birthday, and ate cupcakes. I think everyone had a really good time. Ryleigh was the hostess with the mostest. It was fun to watch her interact with all of the girls in different but special ways.
We had a pretty normal week. The kids went to see a movie with Aless and her family on Saturday while Jip and I did some Ryleigh-birthday preps at home. And, today we had our fall mini photo session with Dyan. We were all in fall gear, but it was in the 80s. We spent the whole way there and the whole way home with the a/c on full blast. But, I think our near overheating was worth it. Dyan snapped some cute photos, as she always does.
That's the old Norfolk Public Library behind RJ. Nifty building, huh? It housed the first free public library in Norfolk, and it is now an office on the bottom and two apartments on the top.
This week is the Big 6 for Ryleigh Jo. We'll be taking cookies for her classmates and for her gymnastics teammates on Thursday. Her fairy princess party in on Saturday. Jip and RJ get to skip the party, and I think the boys are just fine with that.
We headed to Pennsylvania on Friday evening for a weekend of what my brother Brad refers to as PBS fun. The Waze app helped us avoid a major traffic jam in Maryland, but otherwise it was a fine drive up there. We checked into our hotel just after midnight and everyone slept well, despite kids sleeping in the car for part of the drive.
On Saturday we headed to Hershey's Chocolate World. We drove through town before getting to the "factory tour" and delighted in the Hershey's Kisses street lamps.
Once we got to the factory, we rode the factory tour ride. The cars riding through the mock factory was very Disney-esque. After we got off the ride and got our free mini Hershey's bar, we walked around and around the gift shop so the kids could look and think about what they wanted to get at the end of the day.
The next activity was a 4D experience with a little animated movie. The theater also had rumbling seats, misting water (for chocolate splashes), and the smells of chocolate and Jolly Ranchers pumped in at the appropriate times.
The second activity was a chocolate tasting class. Even the kids got something out of it. And, RJ learned that he likes Hershey's Special Dark more than the traditional Hershey's milk chocolate. Whoa! The super fancy dark chocolate was not for any of us. We had a taste wheel to help us describe the chocolates as they melted (not chewed) in our mouths. I chose tobacco. Jip chose leather. Needless to say, we didn't buy any of that chocolate in the gift shop. :)
After a little lunch in the cafe, we headed out on a trolley tour that took us around the town of Hershey. We learned all about Milton, his competitors, and the school he started for orphan boys that is now a tuition-free private boarding school for boys and girls who wouldn't normally have the opportunity for a private school education.
When we returned to Chocolate World, we bought our souvenirs and then donned our hairnets and aprons for a fun experience of making our own chocolate bars. We scanned the bar codes of our tickets and using a touch screen, we picked our chocolate base, the fun stuff for the inside, and whether or not we wanted sprinkles. Then we went into the manufacturing facility, scanned our tickets again, and approved our bar to be produced. We watched it travel down the conveyor belt to get filled, robed, and sprinkled (or not). As it was cooling, we then scanned our tickets again to custom design our labels. We then watched our bars get demoulded, packaged in a paper box, laser labeled, and then packed by hand in a tin with our custom labels. It was awesome!
After our Hershey's fun, we traveled a little farther north to check into our next hotel. We were able to walk to a diner and then enjoy the pool for an hour. The next morning, we loaded up and headed into downtown Easton to go to the Crayola Experience.
Crayola Experience is sort of a factory tour in that there is a 20 minute demonstration about how they make crayons. But, the rest of the experience is just getting to play with Crayola. The kids got to name their own crayons and wrap them, have digital paint poured on them, color fairies and unicorns and dragons for a digital mural, make dancing birds, paint with melted wax, make a shape with melted wax, and more.
We enjoyed taking a route home that hugged the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia shorelines. The kids were exhausted and took turns sleeping.
Today was a day of recovery. The kids actually slept in. So did their parents. But now it is time to gear up for another week of school and activities. As always, pics to come. Until next time, cheers!
The week was pretty ordinary for the kids--until the end of the week. Ryleigh complained Friday night of her head itching. Her school had warned that someone in her classroom had head lice the previous week, so we thought it was best to inspect. And, yep. Sure enough--lice. Ugh. Then we checked RJ. Yep again. It was late and with the weekend coming up, we thought it was best to just tackle everything first thing Saturday morning. I ran to the drug store after they went to bed so I'd be prepared to get them both treated before Ryleigh had to be at ballet.
Hopefully one treatment will be all we need. I did enough laundry throughout the weekend that the washer and dryer were practically begging for a break by Sunday evening. We're crossing our fingers that the kids didn't have enough head-to-head contact or share hats with any friends and that we're done with this whole mess. And, I'm crossing my fingers that my head passes each daily inspection by Jip. I really hope this is a once-in-a-childhood occurrence.
In other news, RJ showed up on BrickHeadZ's Facebook page.
And, we received RJ's school pictures. I'll be glad when the "I refuse to show my teeth" phase is over.
This week should be another pretty normal week. Next weekend, we are taking a little road trip north for some PBS-kind of fun. We are all looking forward to getting out of Dodge and playing tourist. As always, pics to come.
