Visiting Oriah and Fam.

Howdy Y'all!  What a week.  The kids started off the week by not having any school.  Lucky them!  I reached out and we were able to find a friend for everyone, so they were all very excited for Monday and to play with their friends.  I did catch them in unity playing red light green light on the driveway.  As parent involvement does, my observation of so many kids having fun together caused the game to immediately end and everyone go in different directions for a new game.  But for a little they were playing together.

I dug out more space in the lawn for gardening, I don't remember if I put a picture of that in, but all that exposed dirt made the kids hunger to play in mud.  I went out with them and ran the hose for a bit, muddying up the garden, and then I started spraying them with the hose.  Now mind you, this started inadvertently as they got too close to where I was spraying the dirt and a strong breeze would blow the water into them, but eventually I was just spraying them with the hose.  These are the same kids that will break down crying if it rains on them, but pressurized water from a hose? Hit me in the face with that...

It doesn't matter if I don't understand, because we had a great time.  I picked Winry up from dance, and when we got home we just went straight back into the backyard and I started spraying everyone again.

Monica found this sling carrier that could help us getting Grayson around.  I'll note that this isn't intended for daily use, but instead for our trip to Australia in June.  And if I haven't mentioned that yet, surprise, we're going to Australia to visit my parents in June!  Very exciting.

Here's little mud boy, with mud all over his eye!  He wasn't aware that he had mud on his face!

Down by Grayson's preschool there are some longhorn cows, and this week while driving home they were up by the fence and there were some people feeding them grass, so Monica and Grayson stopped by the say hello and feed them too.  That's pretty exciting stuff.

On Thursday evening, Monica's friends flew in for the weekend, so Friday morning I loaded the kids up in the car and we headed for Dallas to Michael and Oriah's house.  We got there during school, so we had some time without cousins.  The kids enjoyed saying hello to Biskit again, and jumping on the trampolines.

Monica and her friends had a super good time.  She can write more about her girls weekend here if she'd like.

Grayson warmed up to Biskit pretty quick and really liked playing with him.  He was nervous to try to take a toy from Biskit if he had it in his mouth, but if he'd drop them or someone would hand them to Grayson he loved to throw them, including down the stairs.  And Biskit was always willing to play.

On Friday night my kids joined Cameron and William at run club.  The kids had a good warm up, and then got to work at three different things.  Sprints and staying in your lane, passing the baton which Brooke and Winry teamed up on.  This one really took me back to running track in high school.  I told the girls that I should try to find some of my old batons from when I was a kid.

And they got to do long jump, which of course was my main event.  I really wanted to go give it a try with them, but I didn't.  One, because I didn't want to be the only adult jumping in.  And two, because my knee wasn't feeling great (I think it was the driving), so I thought it probably was better not to.  Also, it was really hot, and I was sweaty...

On Friday night Oriah and were enjoying a good conversation when we overheard what sounded like arguing or fighting, but it was muffled.  We thought it might be kids, but seemed like it was coming from outside, so we stopped worrying about it.  Right before we were going to head off for bed there was a loud bang on the door and someone yelled "Police!"  We thought it was some kids playing a prank, and when Oriah looked through the peep hole she didn't see anyone, but then she looked out the front window and, yup, it was the police.  We went out with our hands up, and it turns out the yelling we heard turned into a 911 call, and the GPS location happened to land at Oriah's house, so that's where they came.

On Saturday we spent all day playing with cousins.  I apparently didn't get any pictures of us at Cameron's baseball practice in the morning, but we had a snack while we watched him play, and then played on the playgrounds at the park.  It was a pretty big park, and we walked over to a second playground for a little before coming back to watch the end of practice.  It was pretty awesome and Cameron did an amazing job.  He plays first base, which is a really important position, and his dream is to have to reach so far to catch a ball that he does the splits to stay on base, and get someone out.  He can do the splits part, just needs that perfect throw!

The kids did so many fun things.  Trampolines are a new things for my kids, so I guess that's why I've got so many pictures of that, but here they are playing crack the egg!

We even pulled out the bounce house.  I guess the kids really like bouncing. :)

Here's Grayson's sleeping arrangements.  He wanted to sleep on the couch instead of a bed and wedged himself in between all kinds of pillows and stuffed animals and stuff.  Pretty cute all cozied in there.

Michael and Oriah's kids all have hover boards, and ride them all around the house.  I wish I had been able to catch a video of that.  However, they have these little car attachment things and were riding them around and giving Grayson a ride.  They had a whole lot of fun until the batteries die.

Good news about the battery dying though, it gave us time to make some Buc-ees for Nailed it on our family call.

We went to church when we finished, and then after church drove back home.  We made it back in time to have dinner and head to bed.  We had a really fun weekend in Dallas, and I'm pretty sure Monica had a great weekend here in Austin.

Hoppy Easter!

So... I'm pretty sure I use that same pun name on the post every year, but I couldn't immediately think of something else, so we're keeping it!  Happy happy Easter!  Here's the family after church while we were still in our Easter best!

Winry decided to take the leap and got bangs this past week.  She's looking adorable!  This is the first time one of our girls has had bangs since Winry was young enough her hair was only this long.  She's loving it so far.

On Friday we were invited over to the Reichner's house for a Good Friday dinner.  We ate foods more like what might have been available at the Last Supper, and we also ate on the floor.  After dinner the kids blitzed for the back yard and had a ton of fun playing together.  I eventually got sucked in by the allure of a trampoline and found out I can still do a front flip!  We had a ton of fun, and are very grateful for the invitation.

On Saturday Winry and Grayson were playing together, and they were playing king and queen.  Winry drew a portrait of them holding their babies, which is the obvious way you'd play kings and queens, ya know.

Winry got invited to a party at a trampoline park, Urban Air.  They had some other obstacle course type stuff to play in too.  I followed Winry around for the first bit until she got connected with her friends, and then they ran off and had a blast.

When we got back from the party we dyed Easter eggs.  Monica tried making her own dyes this year from various foods, and some worked pretty well, and others won't return next year if we try it again.

Here are the eggs.  Some of them we left soaking for quite a while, and most of them have a good color.  I think the eggs that didn't work we ended up moving to a second color.

Our family was asked to sing a musical number at church, and I very much enjoyed it from our bench!  Everyone did a great job.

And then all the kids got to go back up again to sing with the Primary!

On Sunday morning the kids were excited to find their baskets, and searched the house for Easter eggs.  It was raining and wet, so the Easter bunny left a basket of eggs for us to hide outside later if things dried up, and I just ended up scattering them around the house after church.  There was even a Lego set scattered throughout a bunch of eggs, and when we went to build it, we found out we missed an egg!  Don't worry, we eventually found it.

In this Easter season, I also want to bear my Testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  I know He lives!  I am so grateful for His atonement, that he suffered for our sins, and that through His blood we can become clean again!  I am so grateful for His mercy, and that I can continue to improve and progress through his grace.  In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Brooke's Final Dance Competition of the Season

What a weekend in Bastrop!  Brooke had her final dance competition of the year on Saturday, and this time the whole family went.  It was a lot of fun to watch her dance, and it was the best they did the dance yet!!  Amazing.  They even took first in both of their dances in their categories.  Here she is on stage.  We weren't supposed to take videos (or pictures...) so we didn't.  We had a lot of other fun in Bastrop on Saturday, but we'll come back to that at the end of the week.

I'm not exactly sure where the interest started, but Grayson has seen some cemeteries out the window as we've driven around and has been very interested in going.  He specifically noticed the crosses in them.  He really likes crosses because they remind him of Jesus!  Yay!  So after preschool Monica took him to one he'd seen to walk around.  He really liked this blue cross with flowers.

In honor of the Masters tournament this week, I invited over the EQ presidency for a little golf on the simulator.  We made the unfortunate choice to actually golf the masters course, with scores as high as the sky!  In honesty, it was a lot of fun, and I do have a picture of our scores, but have chosen to not include it here!

Monica took Grayson to the local duck pond, and they even brought a little snack for the ducks!  I don't remember Grayson non-stop hopping while he told me about it, but he looks pretty excited to have so many ducks nearby!  I wanna go there... maybe I'll have some time next weekend to go with him.

The kids were out looking for worms, I believe, in the garden when they ran inside to tell us excitedly that they found a snake.  It was just a little snake, looks like the garden variety, and it had dug a little nest under a rock in our garden.  The kids were turning over the rocks in their worm hunt, and there was a "really big worm" that "turned into a snake."

On Saturday morning our ward had their Easter activity.  We had breakfast tacos, there was a display of pictures of Christ, and an Easter egg hunt.

Everyone was asked to bring some eggs with them for the hunt, and we somehow came home with WAY more than we took, so I guess some extra eggs were provided.  They kids were very excited to get some candy.

After the activity I had about an hour until we had to leave for Brooke's dance competition, and so it was off to the side of the house to put down rocks.  I got the rest of the rocks moved over there, so I'm done for now.  I'll let things settle for a while, see how things go with weeds and critters, and maybe get more if we need it.  I was able to cover everything, but I definitely think there's room for a lot more if we need it.

Then we all hopped into the car and drove to Bastrop.  While Brooke was getting ready for her first dance, the other kids and I had a snack, and then found some prime seats.  Grayson liked to get swallowed up in his seat, and had fun playing with the folding chairs while waiting.  We also got to watch other dances, which kept Winry and I entertained. But Grayson was great the whole time waiting for Brooke's dances.

After Brooke's dances, we were all reunited again.  I had a pretty neat moment when Brooke came out from the changing area after her second dance.  I just had this really great feeling of pride in how well she did, as well as a great happiness of us all being together.  We headed over to Buc-ees, because you always have to stop by if you're in the neighborhood, and this is our closest Buc-ees (traffic pending).  Everyone got to pick one treat, and as I'm writing this I'm realizing I never ate my candied nuts, so... I'll be right back!

After Buc-ee's, we had time to get some dinner, and we went to Roadhouse!  This is an old favorite of mine from radiation test trips.  Whenever we went to Texas A&M we always flew to Austin and drove to College Station, and you happen to drive right through Bastrop, past the Buc-ees, and past Roadhouse.  I don't know who found it, but stopping here was the SEAKR radiation test trip tradition even back when I was in college and went on a test with them.  It's been a few years since I've been on account of my new job, and oh my gosh I forgot how amazing their burgers are!  EVERYTHING about it was perfection.  Oh my gosh, and our waitress was even so awesome!  I love a waiter/waitress who is actually able to connect with kids, and she did great with Grayson!

Ok, so long and short, I LOVE Roadhouse.  I am SO glad I was able to go back and share it with my family.  Monica said it was the best burger she's had since moving to Texas, and as I'm writing this I'm honestly considering figuring out an excuse to head down again...  Please pass any good ideas along.

After our wonderful burgers, we headed back to the awards ceremony and found out that Brooke and her team crushed it!!  They got 1st place for both of their dances! I'm so proud of her!  After the ceremony, Monica got a picture of a bunch of the girls together on stage.

On Sunday, I helped Grayson get dressed for church, and we were running a little late, so I grabbed the first appropriate looking pants I found.  They were in his clean laundry and washed last week.  Turns out they're too small... so maybe I should have taken a little more care what socks I picked for him.  His Boo-Yah's were on full display.

After church, Grayson was working on a marble run, and when I came up and saw it my first thought was just how Dr. Seuss it looked!  I guess it's just not fun if you don't build it up on huge stilts.

We had an Easter music fireside Sunday evening, and Grayson needed a little more to do than sit and listen, so we had to take a few breaks to go walk around the building.  We went out and saw the water tower, and I also noticed a normally locked door wide open, and we got the rare experience of going up the stair case!  There were access doors to the ventilation systems, as well as a door with a sign that said "DO NOT LOCK THIS DOOR" that I told Grayson we couldn't open, because who knows what all trouble we could have gotten into.

And that's all the excitement for this week.  Getting surrounded by ducks, a dance competition, amazing burger, and a secret passage way, what more could you ask for in a week?
 

Brooke's Dance Competition

Oh snap, Brooke had another dance competition this weekend!  She had to be there really early in the morning and it was an hour away, so just Monica took her, and I watched the stream with the other kids when she was on stage.  It was incredible, and I'm so glad I was able to catch it.  We can get to more of Brooke's weekend when we get to the end of the week.

The garden is growing nicely.  Monica planted some winter crops, and it was a pretty nice harvest this week of kale, parsley, cilantro, purple brussel sprouts and even a couple strawberries.

When Grayson was heading into school, he noticed a spider next to the path.  Turns out, it was a pretty big spider.  I think Monica said he wanted it for a pet.  He went and sat by it for a picture.  Glad he left a little space.  I think there's a chance it was dead, as they took a picture on their way into school, and then again on the way out, and it was in the same spot.

I took the kids to volleyball on Thursday because Monica had a bad headache.  Brooke really likes coming, so Monica even got to have some time to herself to recover.  I even remembered to head over and get a video of Winry.

Here's Grayson throwing a ball into the bag.  They also practiced serves.  Sometimes Grayson threw the ball, but he also had some good serves in there too.

Brooke made a claw machine at school.  It was pretty cool, but a little hard to see here.  On the top there's candy and toys, and then you use some sticks to control the claw, and when you drop the thing out... well... Jelly grabs them!  She can't help but play in there.

On Saturday morning, I made a smoothie to go with breakfast, and it was pretty thick, so I thought Grayson might need a spoon.  He stuck it out with a bigger straw though, straight from a bowl.

Meanwhile in Bastrop, Brooke and her teammates were... eating candy?  Pre-dance of champions!  I guess I don't know if this was before or after their dance, but it seems like a good time.

After the dances, Brooke and Monica needed something for lunch, and found a little crepe place nearby.

And Bastrop just so happens to be where the closest Buc-ees is, so of course they had to stop by.

Saturday morning, we had a pile of rocks and mulch delivered.  We are going to put rocks all over the side of the house around the shed.  Stuff (weeds) grows crazy there, and we really don't want any of the plants, and we're having random pest and rodent problems over there, so trying to take care of it all at once.

I moved a little bit of the rocks with a 5 gallon bucket in the morning.  The kids were willing to go to Lowe's with me, however, the wheelbarrows are all assembled, so definitely wouldn't fit in the Corolla.  So when Monica and Brooke got back from dance, I ran over to Lowe's with the van to get a wheelbarrow, which sped things up greatly.

The rock shoveling was pretty intense, and I ended up working through dinner to get the last little bit of the area I was trying to cover done.  When I came in I found the following still out on the counter... unopened pumpkin.  Yeah, Monica had actually cleaned up the leftovers, but it was worth the joke!

Monica made cinnamon rolls as it is our general conference tradition.  Grayson wanted to help her, and did a great job, especially spreading the filling.

I went out to play with the kids between conference sessions, and they were all sitting on the little playground together.  I thought they all looked cute up there together.

And that's everything for this week.  I've been enjoying General Conference, and I feel like I've been learning a lot.  I hope everyone is having a great week and weekend!