Awana Celebration

 On Monday nights since September, Nathan's been attending AWANA at Grace Covenant Church.  And on April 30th, we were able to celebrate all of the kids accomplishments!  Nathan worked really hard this year and finished the 1st book, the book review and the extra credit book.  I don't know how many bible verses he learned, but it was A LOT and they were not just short simple verses.  We are so proud of his hard work and dedication and pray that the truth in the verses will stick and make more and more sense to him as he matures. 

Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum

Dan was away for the weekend for work and I was looking for something to do on Sunday after church with the boys.  I was toying with heading to the Zoo after church, but decided to shorten the trek and go to the Udvar-Hazy museum, which is probably no more than 3 miles away from church.  I wasn't sure if it would capture their interest for long, but I figured I just needed to engage them for about an hour and then we could eat lunch.  But it turned out to be a great choice and we stayed far longer than I had expected.  Our favorite part was watching the planes land from the Observation Tower.  But the boys also really enjoyed seeing the space shuttle Discovery and watching a movie about helicopters. 

Fa la la la.. Fa la la la... Ethan's World

Back in April, we travelled to Ethan's World (aka Charlottesville) to celebrate our nephew's 2nd birthday!As always, Nathan and Andrew had a blast playing with their cousins.  "Happy Day", Ethan!

SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!

Dan and I left the opening day festivities for T-Ball and headed to Washington, DC to Taberna Del Alabardero for a surprise birthday event for our friend, Erin.  Although this picture says it all, Erin was beyond SHOCKED when she arrived as she had been expecting to spend the day with some friends at the National Zoo.

So the event was a 4 hour cooking demonstration/class/tasting with Head Chef, Javier, at the best Spanish restaurant in town.  So once we all put on our aprons, we go to work making 3 types of Paella - Vegetable, Chicken and Chorizo, and Seafood. 

Dan was stressed to be adding the Saffron, which we learned is very expensive as the bottle he is holding cost over $700.  : )

In addition to the Paella, the Chef prepared another rice dish... with Squid Ink (I did not try it, but other's enjoyed it) and Mushroom Risotto.  The food was INCREDIBLE and Chef Javier was an amazing host! I ate so much that I swear I was not hungry again until the following Monday.  Thank you to Eric for hosting such a fun and memorable celebration for his beautiful wife and all of us!!  It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Little League Opening Day

This spring we signed Nathan up for T-ball.  His team is the Timber-Rattlers and on April 14th, the league held the opening day parade and festivities.  As this is our first experience with Loudoun South Little League, we did not know what to expect.  Well.... it turned out to be a much, much bigger event than we anticipated!

Dan and I had to leave early to head to another event, so thanks to Grammy and PopPop who braved the masses and stayed for the festivities.  The kids had a blast!

Easter Afternoon

In the afternoon we headed to my Aunt Carol's for an Easter lunch.  After a delicious lunch the boys had a mini egg hunt and discovered this treasure left by the Easter bunny, also known as Uncle Matt, in my aunt's garage.


If you know my brother, you know that he is a kid at heart and LOVES Jeeps.  So when he found this Jeep on sale at Costco (or "Price Club" as some of my family members still refer to it), he just could not resist buying it for the boys.  So the boys spent much of the afternoon driving around in their new Jeep.  Well to clarify, Nathan did most of the driving, but Andrew was just as happy to be the passenger.

And when the battery ran out, the boys returned to playing with their other toys and swiping more jelly beans!

Easter Morning

We decided to get up bright and early Easter morning and head to church for the 7:45 service.  After a wonderful service celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, we headed home and took a few family photos.

After the photos, we headed to the basement for a little Easter Egg hunt. Our "bunny" is a little overwhelmed with the amount of candy in our house, so this year the "bunny" filled the eggs with coins. 

Happy Easter from the Vaughans!