Anna Grows

Anna got to spend her spring break at a fun-filled location with endless activities, daily presents, numerous shopping opportunities, and someone to wait on her hand and foot. No, it wasn't a resort.....it was Grandma and Grandpa's house, which is one of Anna's favorite vacation destinations. For the first time, Anna got to spend an entire week with her grandparents. The trip started Easter weekend, when Anna and her Mom flew into Ohio. Since it was a quick trip, Joe headed to New York to catch up with his family. The first night, Anna stayed at Uncle Rod's house where she got to hang out with cousin Aidyn. They had a great time playing with Aidyn's race tracks, train tracks, and playing with monster trucks in the sandbox. They also had an inflatable punching bag, which only resulted in minor injuries to Anna. They colored easter eggs with Grandma, and hunted easter eggs with Grandpa. Grandma made a big easter dinne r on Saturday night. On Sunday morning a...

We took advantage of a beautiful spring day and headed out to Shenandoah National Park to do a little hiking at White Oak Canyon. We had hopes that we would make it a bit farther this time as the last trip we only got as far as the trail head before Anna got tired. Today we made a full 3-mile hike along the bottom of the canyon until we reached a beautiful waterfall. Anna decided she would be the trail leader for the day, which involved a lot of telling her parents to "be careful" and "watch your step"and pointing out the trail blazes. She also needed to find a hiking stick - a critical element of a good hike. Her Dad kept asking her when we would see some unicorns, to which she replied "Dad-dy - those are only in magical forests. We are in a REAL forest." There were lots of rocks to climb on and water to play in. Anna declared herself "a really good hiker" which hopefully means there are many more hikes in the future. The flowering trees w...