February

My word!  How is it April and I haven't blogged since January!?  The other night I logged on to see what I needed to catch up on and I was shocked to see it had been 2+ months since I've blogged.  I thought I would sit down and just take a few minutes to get my pictures in order, but that wound up taking nearly 2 hours, so blogging is a real labor of love!  We are drawing to the end of our year together.  Astrid has been here 234 days and has only 84 days left.  Those numbers are surprising to me.  It feels like she's been part of our family for years and years, and I can't quite bring myself to believe that the time which has flown by so quickly has added up to that number.  Nor do I want to contemplate how quickly everything is going to go now with so few days left!  But enough about that...

So much has happened, and so much to talk about :)  For this entry, I'll cover the end of January and all of February with the exception of our trip to Georgia and Florida.

When I left off, we'd spent an exciting day in Richmond at Lobbying Day.  Astrid continued playing basketball through the end of February.  Her team was in a rebuilding year, so they only had 8 players and they played so hard and with such heart, it was a joy to watch.  Bigger teams with noisier coaches and more aggressive players came and went, but the girls never gave up.  The blur in the center of this picture is Astrid, who got some good playing time.  She learned a lot about the American sport, but also got to continue being part of a team and making friends, which was important to her.  I so enjoyed the games myself, as I think I mentioned in previous entries  Leah learned a lot and has enjoyed learning about basketball, and we had a great time at each game, getting dinner at the Wawa down the street from the school, eating, cheering, then watching the boys team play after the girls.  Leah was a big fan of one player she dubbed "Mr. Muscles", so we had fun keeping an eye out for him as well.  I started to get to know the kids and faces and some of the parents got to know our faces as well, which was cool.  I recently helped out at Astrid's school's Foreign Language Week luncheon and one of the moms I met said, "My sister and I were very impressed by the patience you had at the basketball games!" referring to wrangling Leah, The Bup, and the occasional extra teenager. It was nice to hear such a compliment!

Astrid is #14, right in the middle, above the ref

Leah and Dipthi enjoy Wawa victuals

We were also super lucky in early February to have Dipthi come and stay the night with us before the AFS mid-stay orientation.  She also came to watch Astrid in one of the home games, and we had a blast with her.  Even if Leah's face says otherwise.  Dipthi is an important part of the family!

So, in addition to basketball, Astrid had a couple of big events at the end of January.  First, she was invited to go with friends to the St. Jude's Hospital Teen Gala.  St. Jude's is a hospital that treats critically ill children, and several of her friends raised some serious money for them as volunteer work.  Her friend Mackie, with whom Astrid carpools every morning, offered Astrid a complimentary ticket to attend the gala with her.  We did some quick Goodwill shopping and found a gorgeous gown from there for a mere $8.  What a steal!  Astrid looked amazing, and we put in two quick darts and the dress fit like a dream.  She really enjoyed the evening with her peeps, good food, dancing, awards to the highest fundraisers, etc.  There was a photo booth, all kinds of good stuff.

Glamour Girl

Additionally, we had tickets to go to see Lukas Graham in concert at the end of the month.  This meant skipping basketball practice one night, but sacrifices had to be made.  Lukas Graham, for those who don't know, is a Danish pop star who has made it pretty big in the US with his hit Seven Years.  When I found out he was coming to the DC area, I got us tickets to go see him.  The girls didn't seem all that excited, but happily they were.  We drove up to Silver Spring, and got SO lucky with parking--on a meter around the corner from the theater and the meter turned off only 10 minutes after we arrived, so we didn't need to worry about paying more than 25 cents for parking, which was awesome!  We got on line after the girls said they weren't hungry for dinner, but then Leah needed a bathroom break, so we went to the shopping mall across the street.  We hit a beauty supply store and had fun looking at wigs and hair appliances, then departed, only to find a little sushi place across the street the other direction, so we grabbed a quick dinner there!  Everyone was very satisfied--Astrid loves sushi, Leah loves soup, and they even had bao, which I love!  Yum!

Pre-concert Selfie

Afterwards, we got back in line, a lot farther back than we had been, but we all agreed that we wouldn't get into the mosh pit area.  We went through security and went up to the balcony level.  I paid for Leah to have a seat to sit in and Astrid and I just stood behind her.  There was an opening act, although I can't tell you who they were, some little Australian guy, and then Lukas came out and played for quite a while, maybe even 2 hours.  He talked a lot about growing up in Denmark and there were Danish flags flying everywhere.  The ladies in front of us were speaking Danish, so Astrid was able to speak with them a little bit.  The music was great, I was a big fan!  Bright, fun pop music, Lukas was adorable, and he even did the traditional American encore, which if I recall correctly Astrid said doesn't happen in Denmark.  For my Danish readers, this involves the concert being over and the audience screaming and cheering until the performer has to come back on stage.  Lukas also talked about the great language divide of swearing between American and Danish society, and Astrid was like "See?!"  Fair enough!

So that took us into February.  We did some more political activities by way of sending postcards to our representatives and we also joined the WAFA Fredericksburg group to hold signs out in town. WAFA stands for We Are For America.  It was a fun thing to do--we had a lot of honks of support and of course we had our share of detractors, but for the most part it was respectful and we had a good time.  Astrid was later maybe slightly embarrassed because a couple of kids from school saw us out there and remarked about it.  We haven't been back. LOL

I also took some time to take Astrid up to DC for an improv show my cousin Cara was competing in.  Cara is my dad's brother's daughter, and as far as I can remember, I haven't seen her in about 12 years.  She and her husband moved to DC a couple of years ago and she posted that she was on an improv team that was competing and would anyone like to come support them?  I thought it was a great opportunity to see her again, and comedy is always good, so Astrid and I headed up there on a VERY cold night after basketball practice.  Leah hung out with The Bup and had a fine time without us, and we had a fine time ourselves.  Astrid had homework so she brought her books with her, which turned out well since the theater locked everyone out for the improv show.  We had to go in through the backstage area, which was kind of fun, actually, and I got to see Cara for a bit and meet her husband!  It was a  great evening full of laughs.

My nephew William also celebrated his 7th birthday, and wanted a pet turtle as a gift.  Other family members bought the tank and all, and I offered to buy the turtle when it was all set up.  Thus did they come down one February Saturday, and Astrid and I took William to Petsmart to get Sheldon, the African turtle.  Astrid immediately determined we should have a turtle, but no thank you!  She can live vicariously through William.  She sacrificed a dollar store toothbrush to Sheldon for turtle massages, and had fun playing with him while he lived in our kitchen sink for a while. Fun times!


We also took advantage of some really beautiful spring-like weather to go up and hike Government Island.  GI is a local park that used to be a stone quarry--the stone for the White House came from Gov't Island.  There is a VERY easy walking path/boardwalk type thing over the marshland, and then a hike up some easy hills and cliffs and quarried rock faces to climb on.  Astrid and Leah had a blast chasing each other around, climbing rocks with other kids, petting dogs, etc.  It was VERY busy there--we luckily got the last parking spot--since the weather was so nice, but it was a real lift to the spirits.

As I said above, Dipthi stayed with us for one night and then she and Astrid attended the AFS mid-stay orientation.  The orientation occurs at roughly the halfway point of the exchange year, and the point is to give the kids a chance to reflect on what they've accomplished and learned and what they want to accomplish and learn before departure day.  The mid-stay orientation here always takes place in Virginia Beach and the kids do a polar bear plunge into the cooooooold Atlantic Ocean!!  They had an absolute blast, as they always do, and the pictures and videos are so fun.  There was dancing, lots of food, beach time, and of course the orientation itself.

They're a great group of kids this year.  Astrid came home really energized and had a great time!

Astrid also got a paid babysitting gig, watching my BFF Amber's little guy so we could go out to celebrate Amber's birthday.  Leah doesn't pay any of the little boys we take care of a whole lot of mind until they quit doing her bidding, then she entertains them just enough to get them going again.  But Michael was thrilled to have Astrid around to pay attention to him and let Leah know he has other options :-)

We also celebrated Valentine's Day a tiny bit.  Each day I would put a heart on each girl's door with something I loved about them.  Astrid enjoyed getting a new message every day with some silly little thing and it was nice for me to reflect upon the things that make her special and important in my life!  On Valentine's Day itself, I gave the girls candy and flowers and cards.  It was fun to give them tangible reminders of why they're special, which I probably don't do enough of.

So that's most, much, or all of our February.  I can't think of too much else that we did.  I think we might have seen the movie Hidden Figures at some point, but I can't swear to it!  The days were a blur of play practices, basketball, kids, and all that good stuff.  We had a great month!