Almost Spring Break

Hello from Buc-ee's, Melissa TX, the happiest place on earth!  Especially when Buc-ee himself comes out to say hello!  Yes, we find ourselves in Dallas at the end of this week, visiting Michael and Oriah and getting ready to continue out travels into Arkansas for spring break!

Rewinding back a little, the dirt for the planter beds was delivered this week, so I got out and did some shoveling!  It was a lot of dirt to move, and I think each planter box ended up getting around 9ish wheelbarrows full.  We fortunately had a few extra 2x4's I could use as a makeshift ramp or else it would have taken forever to shovel all the dirt back out in the backyard.  Fortunately, I had Grayson there to coach and assist me through the process.  It took 3 evenings after work, working until sunset, but I got it all done.

Here's Grayson and Lincoln walking to the car after preschool, being best friends!

The hawk is back!  And it's definitely got something in it's talons here.

Winry went on a field trip to a farm this week.  She was over the moon!  While they were there, they got to meet a bunch of animals, and there was a pregnant goat.  They told the kids not to bother the pregnant goats, but that if it came to them it was okay.  The pregnant goat loved Winry and come and let her pet it, and when Winry sat down it came and curled up next to her!

Winry also had the chance to learn some lasso basics.

And all that excitement was about as much as she could handle, and she completely zonked out on the bus ride home.  Super thanks to the parent that took these great pictures for us!

Winry had a spirit week at school as well, so one day she got to dress like a storybook character.  The book she picked was Little House in the Big Woods.  She's looking good.

They also had a field day and the Valor games, where the school is divided into 4 teams that all compete against each other.  Monica volunteered to eat the kids snacks, I mean, hand out snacks, and so got to enjoy watching the festivities as well.

On Saturday we drove up to Dallas and stopped at the temple on our way to Michael and Oriah's house.  While Monica was in, we were busy looking for bugs and exploring the grounds.  We took a roly poly with us for a walk.

And here we are out in front of the temple.

After a loop around, the kids wanted to go sit in the car. A short while later Monica came out.  We swapped and I headed in, and everyone else went back up to the front for another picture!

We of course had to stop at Buc-ees since it was so close by, and Grayson really wanted to go over and see the statue.  I guess he also wanted to get bit.

Biskit was being extra friendly and wanted nothing more than to keep my hand close by.  If I moved my arm from this position, he'd wind his head around my arm until we got back to this position again.

Grayson brought Narly with us, and found more members of his pod!  The Albrights had won some whales at Lagoon last year, and they welcomed Narly to their pod with open fins.  Narly was happy to not be alone.

On Sunday morning, Grayson enjoyed leaping into the loving embrace of a luv sac.  He did this over and over and was having the time of his life.

We joined the Albrights at church where Jonathan did an amazing job playing the organ in sacrament meeting. After church we jumped in our cars and headed off for Hot Springs AK, our spring break destination!
 

Gone Camping

Well hello from sunny some guys property!  We had a ward camp out Friday night, and we even managed to dodge the thunderstorms!  Yay!  It really was supposed to be thunderstorms all night, but the closer we got to Friday, the later the storms got, until they weren't till Saturday morning.  The camping was great, though it was pretty windy at times.  I was in the advanced company, meaning Monica dropped Grayson and I off to set up the tent while she went to pick Winry up from dance.  I later went back to get Brooke, and in the end we all enjoyed a night together in nature with no ear infections!

Monica hosted co-op preschool this week, and the kids learned about the fire department.  Lots of fun.

Here's Grayson (and probably Lincoln) playing a fun game of kicking rocks down the slide.  Every kids favorite game.

As mentioned, Monica and Brooke are getting into birds.  I don't know what this one was, but maybe Monica will say when she proof reads this.  Also, it flies up and knocks on Grayson's windows in his closet sometimes.  I heard it once from in his room and went to take a look.

The weather has been warm, so of course the kids had to go to the pool.  My understanding is that the water was chilly, but manageable.  The things I miss at work!

Um... duck, I think you misplaced your egg!  Please go get it.

And check out this hawk!  I actually don't know which tree this is, but I think they kids said they saw a hawk carrying an animal around.  I'm guessing that's not this picture though.

Winry has been taking part in MCO in the kids choir and has been loving it.  Brooke went for a week or two, but it conflicts with dance so she wasn't able to participate in choir with Winry.  Winry really loves singing those songs and can often be heard around the house singing about George Washington.

I don't know where everyone is going, but Narly is secured and ready for the drive!

While we were out camping Grayson though it was really funny to see how big his head was in his shadow when we held the light just right.

We enjoyed spending some time sitting next to the fire and chatting.  Brooke and I were the last ones out there from our family, and I think we headed to the tent for bed around 9:30. (....10:15)

Here's Monica and Winry hanging out in the tent.

This is the picture that shows the most of the tent, and so I wanted to use it. But it's also Grayson, and he's the only one in camping pictures, so I just had to include some others.  But here's Grayson all snuggled up.

And Brooke snoozing away in the morning.  We got this tent quite a while ago, but it's got "dark" technology, so it doesn't get as light inside when the sun is up.  It does make it a bit easier to sleep in a little later.  Also, I don't think it was the light that got me up in the morning, but the wind all night long.  It was pretty windy, and I definitely woke up time and time again.  All in, it was a super fun night and I'm so glad we were able to go.

Brooke had a dance competition on Saturday!  It was about 20 minutes away.  She had two dances with her company team.

Here is the second one.  She's been doing so great working so hard all year, and it's fun to see all that work pay off.

She also performed her DUET!!  Grayson, Winry and I were all able to make it out and watch too.  We were only there for around 3 dances and Grayson was already at his limit, but we both got to watch and see the awards presentations!

And good thing we did stick around, because Brooke and Oliva took first place!  Yeah!  Winry stayed with Brooke and Monica to watch the older kids solos and duets, and Grayson and I headed for home.

I found this Zelda board game and printed out a copy and Grayson has been dying to play it.  We've been able to play it here and there, but now we finally had enough time to get all the way through.  It was a lot of fun, and Grayson loves to talk about it the adventure we went on.  I think we're definitely going to have to try out playing the NES game together some time.

At dinner Jelly was REALLY interested in carrots, and I thought she was going to try a bite.  I think she licked it once or twice, so it was definitely hers, but she didn't bite it.  We thought maybe a carrot sliver would be better, but she didn't go for that one either.

Brooke saw the most amazing sign for Thin Mint Frosties, and so we went out for a treat Saturday night.  There was a crazy rain storm that we braved, and we picked them up and headed to a park.  We ate them in the back of the van, which is a fun tradition we have going back to getting Kids Meals during COVID.  We even opened the back hatch and watched the rain, and fortunately the wind was calm enough we didn't get soaked.

And after all that weekend fun, it was time for Sunday afternoon naps, courtesy of Jelly!

And that's a warp!  Have a wonderful week.  Oh wait! I forgot.  We maybe have cardinal(s) living in our tree out front!  We can tell one is male and one is female because we're bird people now (thanks Toadstools). One of them lands next to Grayson's closet windows and taps it's beak on the window.  I'm sure it's just saying hello, but hopefully Jelly doesn't find out or she'll never hang out in the office with me!
 

Let the Dancing Begin!

This week kicked off dance competition season for real!  Brooke got to perform her dances at whatever this expo is that we went to last year as well.  Her company only did one of their dances, but they did a fantastic job.  It's also nice that it's local and only 10-ish minutes away.

Here are the planter boxes all ready to go in the backyard.  Now we just need to fill them.  Monica is looking for branches and leaves, etc. to start filling the bottom so we don't have to get quite so much dirt.

Here's Brooke at Toadstools.  I believe they made birds nests, though I believe the nests are actually meant to provide easy materials for birds to make their own nests.  Also, there's been lots of talk about different birds that live in the area and the calls we're hearing etc.  It seems like we're starting to become bird watchers here.

At activity days they did Olympics, and the kids won Oreo medals.  Yum!

The kids really needed to go to Bahama Bucks to get snow cones one night.  I think the reason why was because there had been a potty emergency on the way home one evening and they stopped there to use the bathroom there. Then the kids just couldn't get Bahama Bucks out of their minds and had to go back one day after dinner. So I took them.  We played a lot of connect 4 and enjoyed our snow cones.

Grayson got invited to a birthday party on Saturday, and I took him.  It was pretty apparent to me that most kids at his preschool go to the church it's associated with, and ALL the parents seemed to know each other and were having great conversations.  That said, the party wasn't about me knowing everyone, and Grayson had a great time playing with his friends and enjoying the festivities like the pinata.  We only stayed for about 2 hours, and the party didn't seem to be winding down.  I just thought maybe they planned too much, but when I got home I found out there wasn't actually an end time.

Sunday morning the kids were reading blog books while waiting to go to church, and I figured it was worth taking a picture.  It's nice to see my hard work writing this is being enjoyed, and they really do love looking back over the last year as soon as it's available.  They also really love looking through their birth years, or the year after as well and seeing themselves as babies.  It's definitely been worth the effort.

And that's all I've got for this week.  Here's to another great one ahead.
 

Livin' for the Weekend

Hello, and welcome to our weekend!  We had a little bit of an extended weekend, as Nicole came to visit starting Friday.  She came out to help Monica make planter boxes to overhaul the garden in the backyard.

They used an ancient technique to prepare the wood.  It involves a propane tank, a blow torch, and burning the week.  I'm sure there was more going on here, but that's all that's obvious from the video.

On Saturday I took Grayson to Parker's birthday party.  It was under the sea themed, but then they also had a nerf gun war.  Connor was obviously there, but Isaac also came and we had a pretty great nerf war.  I think kids only cried three times in the cross fire.  Grayson even got a chance to try out the gatling gun.  It's pretty sweet.

There was a fishing pond, and I was able to double hook these absolute beauties.  I'm just lucky my line didn't break reeling them in.

While renovating the garden, Monica dug up a whole heap of strawberries and we put them out for free if anyone wanted them.  There was so much demand we ran out.

Winry was doing a spa in our bathroom and had put some water in the bathtub.  I don't know if Jelly ever worries about what might be in the tub, but it looks like she jumped straight in.  I did hear the panicking cat clamber sounds but she came running out before I could investigate.

I wrapped her up a in towel and helped her dry off for a bit.

Brooke had a dance intensive.  Monica picked her up and got to see the dance she learned as well.

Meanwhile, I was asked to move a sprinkler for the garden beds.  In process, I found out that we have a parallel pipe to our sprinkler line that DID have water in it, even with the sprinklers off.  I expertly punctured it with the pick axe, and got to make an emergency run to Lowes to buy some pipe and glue to fix it.  I was able to get the water back on before we went to bed that night, but I did have to replace this pipe twice as the first time one of the sides didn't glue properly...

Sunday was more relaxed after my water line fiasco the day before.  Grayson, Narly and I all played a rousing game of Sorry.  Grayson managed to pull of the victory in part thanks to Narly deciding one of his pieces needed to go around the board twice, and I sill managed to lose to both of them...

Grayson found a great game, which was burying Nicole in blankets on the couch.  That one was a keeper in his book.

Nicole flew back home Sunday afternoon, and things are essentially back to normal now.  We need to fill the garden beds, and put in some trellises too, but all in all a successful weekend project, thanks Nicole!