Blacksburg, for children

Our town frequently receives recognition for being one of the best places to raise children. I totally concur. Even in the wintertime, there are free events for kids that bring texture and art and enrichment to our lives.

The Chocolate Festival, which was free to attend but which had games, crafts, and some activities that allowed you to donate to a local private school, took place just before Valentine's Day.

There were carnival games (with great prizes!) and beautiful hand crafts, crafting tables for kids and, of course, chocolate to sample and buy.

But my favorite activity had to be the childrens' yoga!
Behold Miles, front and center:

He excels at downward facing dog

He's not bad at upward dog either.

Tree pose.

He did SUCH a great job following the poses and responding to both the verbal instructions and the physical example of the leader. He was the youngest participant, and I was, of course, beside myself with pride. At the end each kid did their favorite pose for the group, then did a little "Namaste." It was cuter than words.

Adele was mostly a free-range rambler. She did a lot of climbing, practicing stairs, and did try a couple of the carnival games.

Oh,and I've added a fringe. Yay me.

Her vocabulary is getting huge, and is growing almost daily. Recent additions are ball, diaper, up, down, clock, duck, and bear (and that's just this weekend) (and that doesn't include signs). I love this age!

Miles played carnival games. Fishing was definitely his favorite:

Though the playdough table was pretty rad.

At the end, he got a balloon animal. He asked for a cow. Balloon Man did his very best, bless him. It was somewhat cow-like; Miles was happy.

As I'll discuss further later, we don't know how long we'll be living in Blacksburg, but most likely it will not be our permanent home. I am trying very hard to consciously soak up as much as possible, though, because I have a feeling we'll look back on these years, as lean and stressful as they could be in some ways, as some of our best.

I am not kidding: I wake up each morning and thank God that we're living here.