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For the past year, Molly and Leah have been asking to visit the American Girl store. So, I surprised them and we followed our inner stars into the northern Virginia DC suburbs, along with Matilda and Ellie.

The store is two levels of dolls, doll cloths, girl clothes, and lots of accessories. Molly found a cute hat to model.

I never thought I'd be taking my child’s picture in a bathroom, but I had to show how well thought out the store is. The bathrooms all included doll holders, in the stalls and by the sinks.

There are doll displays all over the store. Leah found a perfect place for Rose to have a chat with a new friend, Grace.

Apparently Grace is a friendly girl because Molly McIntire needed to meet the new Girl of the Year too.

While there, we also had lunch at the Bistro, complete with seats for the dolls at the table.

Each doll was presented with a tea cup and saucer, because dolls get thirsty at lunchtime too.

Molly did a nice job of documenting that Stacie, Julie, and I enjoyed the day as well.

After lunch, Molly McIntire and Rose were treated to an afternoon at the doll salon. I was happy that someone else was brushing the dolls’ hair.

The dolls also had a nice spa treatment, including a cleaning, massage, and nice smelling powder.

Leah chose a fishtail braid for Rose, who sat very patiently to have her hair braided.

New hairstyles, a spa cleaning, and new clothes. I’d say Rose and Molly McIntire had a great day. Oh, Molly and Leah loved the day too!

While Jen was out of town, the girls and I headed to the local bowling alley for some cosmic bowling fun. Molly’s pretty good now. With a bit more practice, she won’t even need the bumpers.

Leah started out bowling granny style, but had trouble getting much speed on the ball. Twice we had to get someone to retrieve her ball that had stopped midway down. Shortly thereafter, I had two independent strangers come up and suggest she try a bowling ramp. So, an employee brought one out for her to try. She loved it. I thought it felt like cheating, but if she loves it then I’m not going to take it away.

She got quite a few strikes once she had the help of the ramp.

The girls had lots of fun. We bowled 3 complete games each over the course of 2 hours, and they might have gone for even longer if I had let them.

For our final day of visitors, we decided to go ice skating at our local rink. This was Emmie’s first time ice skating (and Leah’s first successful time).

Here’s Leah skating with a walker for the first time. She did great, both holding hands and using the walker.

Molly and Emmie flew around the ice as fast as their walkers would let them.

Leah was hilarious. She’d skate around with us, then say she wanted a break. But as soon as she stepped off the ice, she’d say she changed her mind and wanted to keep skating. So, back onto the ice she’d go.

Every time we go ice skating, we leave the rink wondering why we don’t do it more often. It’s so much fun, close by, and included in our gym/tennis/etc. membership so we only have to pay skate rental fees.

The day after the big family party, the out-of-towners wanted to see some of the sights. So, many of them headed out to D.C. to see them. We, however, headed to church. In addition to the family fun, I was also leading music that day.

After church and some lunch, we joined up with the rest of the crew at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Rick is friends with the brother of the Associate Director of Rowing there, and he arranged a special tour for us. So, we headed to Hubbard Hall to see some boats.

I had assumed we’d just see some boats and water, and learn a little. But the tour was much cooler than just that. We even got to do some rowing ourselves in their tank - a practice facility for indoor rowing.

After the Naval Academy, we all headed to Buddy’s Crabs & Ribs for dinner. Thanks to Mike and Mary for finding a place that could seat 27 of us.

That was the end of our time with most of the extended family, but we still had a bit more fun in store with a few of them. More on that to come.

Again this year we headed to Greenway Farms to cut down our Christmas tree. They have lots of trees to choose from and cut down yourself. This year we also tried out the pit beef, which was quite good. Sadly, the hay ride was not running since the ground was so wet from the rain the day before.

Before picking our tree, we had a photo shoot. For our Christmas card picture this year, Jen decided she wanted something among the Christmas trees. So, we set up a makeshift photo studio amongst the rows of trees. Between camera, tripod, Wi-Fi remote, external flash, wireless flash trigger, flash stand, and my hat as a make-shift lens hood, we got the shot.

Then we packed up the photo gear and walked the rows of trees to find the perfect one. Here are the girls with our chosen White Pine before cutting it down.

On Saturday, we headed to Auburn for the first time in 8 years. Our first stop was the Auburn Wesley Foundation, where Jen and I spent much of our time during college. Here we are with David, the director there that also happened to marry us.

The church next to the Wesley Foundation, Auburn United Methodist Church, is where Jen and I got married. We wanted to show the girls inside, but it was locked up. So, we got a picture on the front steps.

We’ve debated taking the girls to a full-size amusement park (as opposed to one for little kids) for some time. We’re also debating a trip to Orlando, and thought this might be a good low-cost experiment to see how they handle a full-size park with full-size rides. So, we spontaneously (yes, shocking for us, I know) decided to go to Hershey Park, then headed up a couple days later. The girls are very excited to be in the Sweetest Place on Earth.

Leah was very excited about a boat ride, so our first stop was the Coal Cracker - a flume boat ride with a big plunge at the end. Molly sat with Jen in the front of the boat.

And Leah sat with me in the back of the boat.

Jen took two Dramamine in order to be able to ride rides, but she still wasn’t going to get on the tea cups. So, it was me and the girls. And Molly got sunscreen in her eye, which meant she had trouble with the sun. So, she stole my hat and covered her left eye.

Molly and I went to the bathroom to wash out her eye while Jen and Leah stood in line for the Skyview. We got back in time to watch them soar above everyone.

Eventually, I convinced the girls to try out a roller coaster. We went for the little Cocoa Cruiser. It’s so small that they let you go around three times before you get out. Leah handled it well and did not freak out or get scared, but afterward calmly said she did not like it and did not want to do another roller coaster. Molly, on the other hand, was excited to do a bigger roller coaster.

As a reward for trying the roller coaster, we got ice cream. Molly went for a Pepsi float, and Leah got a cup. Both were comically large.

This is the Sweet Swing, and it is just a giant swing. It is a very simple, but the girls loved it. They did it twice, and would have kept going all day if we’d let them.

Second time, still fun.

Next, Molly and I went to try out her first big roller coaster - the Comet. It’s a wooden roller coaster (which I love) that seemed like a good first coaster. Molly was very excited.

What we didn’t realize was that the Comet began with a 96 foot drop. As you can see, Molly got scared. But she recovered quickly and had a great time on the rest of the ride, smiling and yelling along the way.

Here’s proof that Molly was smiling at the end of the ride. She said it was great, and wanted to ride on another roller coaster.

While Molly and I waited for the Comet, Jen and Leah went back to the Skyview. Here’s the two of them high up above the ground. They actually saw us on the roller coaster from their high-up vantage point.

Jen and Leah then headed to the Carousel while Molly and I sought out another roller coaster.

Molly and I next rode the Trailblazer, a steel roller coaster with no big drops (though some pretty tight turns and good speed). She loved it.

After being separate for a bit, the girls were excited to ride something together again.

We then ate some dinner and left the park, but not to head home. We headed over to Chocolate World. We took the Great American Chocolate Tour, which the girls claimed was their favorite part of the whole trip. Then we bought a big pack of Twizzlers, a giant Hershey's Kiss, and stuffed toy versions of those same candies.

Finally at 8:40, we were on the tram ready to head back to our car. It was a very long day.

The girls had a lot of fun and were immediately asking when they could go back. I'm not sure when that'll be, but I give Hershey Park a thumbs up as well.

Figure 53 (the company I work for part-time) had a picnic at a Baltimore park. We don’t go into Baltimore as a family very much, so this was a bit of a change of pace. Molly was really happy that there was a girl a year older than her to hang out with in a tree. They spent a good amount of time up there.

After the picnic, we checked out the playground nearby. These ropes were fun to climb on.

Ropes are fun, but swings are these girls favorite. Especially now that they’ve figured out how to double up on them.

As we did last year, and the year before, we went to the Children’s Museum of Memphis. The kids do love some toy fishing.

Leah found the Lego room and didn’t want to ever leave. Which was fine by me.

While Leah was building with Legos, Molly and Emmie were having some green screen fun. Not sure what they see behind themselves, but they’re enjoying it.

Leah and I are still building. JJ even joined us for a short while.

JJ liked the Legos, though he had a little trouble snapping them together.

After a half hour at the Legos, we were finally done. Not because Leah wanted to stop, but because Mommy texted us saying it was time to leave to head to lunch.

After the museum, we headed straight to lunch. We couldn’t go on a trip to Memphis without some barbeque. Lunch at Corky’s was definitely worth suspending healthy eating habits. Yum.

We went to the Pink Palace, a museum that, despite its name, is not pink. Inside it, we found this large animatronic T-rex. Jen is standing with the girls because they were all too scared to stand close to it for a picture without her.

Less than a second later, Leah was running away.

JJ was way too scared of T-rex to get close to him. This dinosaur didn't move or roar though, so it wasn't quite as scary.

This Mastodon skeleton was big.

In addition to dinosaurs, the museum had a big bug exhibit. This included large animatronic insects that the girls were not fans of, but also this little scientific station which was much less scary.

This was a giant animatronic mosquito head. When you pushed the button, it would stick its needle-like mouth into the giant skin below it to suck out the blood.

It was a fun museum, if a bit scary at times. Maybe next time we'll get to check out the planetarium there as well.