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!

 

Race Winner!

Wahoo!  I signed up for a 5k a few months ago, and when I signed up I figured they just put the wrong date.  Nope, I signed up for a race on a Monday at 11 am.  I slipped out for an extended lunch to run it, and thank goodness I did!  still being on the mend from whatever sickness I had, I figured I wasn't going to be able to run as fast as I might hope and even offered to run with my buddy.  About 45 seconds into the race I could see the race leader out in front of us and I said "I think I could win this," and he told me to go for it, so I did!  I will say, I was NOT fully recovered, and making a call 45 seconds into a run is not really the time to decide how good you're feeling.  I definitely slowed down through the race, and my heartrate was chilling at a cool 200 bpm, but I was able to make it to the end without getting passed and won the race!! Yay!  Here I am with the winners of some of the age groups.

Grayson was finally healthy again for a school week, and got to go back to school.  Between spring break and being sick I think he missed out on the last 3 weeks, 2 for sure.  He always has a good time at school, so I'm glad he was able to go back.

Brooke hurt her toe playing Twister with the Packers when they were here, and it was still hurting this week so we took her to the doctor.  She got an x-ray, but it wasn't broken, just sprained.  She got a note so she can skip out on things in gym at school, but she's still been dancing as her competitions are all coming up in the next few weeks!  Hopefully she'll have a speedy recovery.  It doesn't seem to be bothering her much anymore, so that's good.

Winry and Grayson started volleyball this week, and they both loved it.  The first week was mostly fundamentals with shagging balls and bumping.  They both really enjoyed it.  Winry's group was, unfortunately, on the other side of the gym from us, so it was harder to see her.  Grayson was very excited, and I don't think he stopped jumping the entire class.

Monica went in to have lunch with the girls on Friday, and Vivian stopped by.  She helped make Brooke a beautiful butterfly, who was, in turn, weightless on her back.

Grayson had a hard time when he started his second round of antibiotics, and Monica offered him a trip to Chick-fil-a if he would take his medicine.  If you don't know, Grayson can really struggle with eating things if he doesn't like them, but after the first few doses of Augmentin he turned it around and was great for medicine the rest of the time.

On Saturday there was a big stake primary activity in the morning.  It was pioneer themed, or I guess mid 1800's themed.  There were several activities, such as square dancing.

And a hand cart race.

And that stick pull game.  Brooke also came home with a tin can lantern and some butter that she made.  She seemed like she had a really fun time.

Flash back to last week, the kids pottery came back from the kiln!  Winry made an octopus, Brooke made a Narwhal mug, and Grayson made a turtle.  Grayson's been especially exited about his turtle, taking it all over the place.  I'm really worried he's going to drop it an it's going to break on our impossibly hard floors, but so far they've all been okay.

Not to be forgotten, when I went to that 5k on Monday I dropped Jelly off at the groomer, and picked her up on my way home.  She was getting matted fur again, so it was shave time.  She's been so cuddly ever since, and I think it's because she's feeling a little cold.  I'm really glad I waited for the weather outside to warm up a little before taking her in, I would have felt really bad if there were any highs of 60's since she was shaved.

I was out working in the yard Saturday and specifically I was spraying weeds when I realized I sprayed this hornet.  I then I REALLY sprayed it so it wouldn't fly away and ran to get wasp killer, and now it's dead.  Also, I had to get wasp killer because the last time we went to grill I found a wasp nest on the side of our propane tank!  It was still really small, and I think was just being built by the first wasp so, glad I found it when I did.  Anyway, something about this being red just makes it seem really menacing.

Last night Grayson ran to the back door to show me there was an animal out there.  It took me a while to find the lizard because I was looking for something big out on the lawn.  Great news, the lizards are back!  I've seen one or two already, and I even saw one in our window sill again like last year.  Same size and color, maybe even the same guy?  He came back for his tail.

And that's it for our week.  I hope we've got a good one ahead!
 

Spring Breaking!

Hello from sunny Texas!  Spring break has sprung, and as alluded to before, we had friends out to visit!  The Packers were down staying with us, and on Monday it was warm enough that the kids all went swimming in the pool.  I had work through the first half of the week, so I wasn't able to join, but I heard the water was pretty cold, but everyone had fun.

I spent the front half of the week getting sicker and sicker.  That's always a fun place to be after starting to feel better over the weekend.  To jump ahead in the week a little, on Wednesday I ended up going to the doctor and got antibiotics, and they've been helping a lot since.  I'm still clearing things out, but through this sickness I'd have a roll of toilet paper at my desk while working (there's just not enough tissues in a box) and I've gone through 2 rolls... yikes!  I'm glad that currently things are greatly calmed down, and I mostly just need a good nose blow first thing in the morning.  I kinda hijacked this picture to talk about my week of health, but this picture is actually of my new AR glasses I ordered.  Essentially there's just a screen in these glasses, and then you plug a usb c cable into the back of one of the stems and my phone/steam deck can run it like a monitor.  I like them.  If you try you can see through the image to still see and interact with the world around you, but it's also been easy to see the image too.  As an example, I used them to watch an F1 race while folding laundry over the weekend.  Pretty slick!

Grayson's been having a lot of fun playing outside, and we put water back into the water table this week too.  He really loves playing out there.  I went out and sat on a chair next to him and we made "chocolate" together.  It was pretty fun, and fortunately, low effort for me.

Jelly's really been loving going into the backyard.  She'll wander a little, and then she plops down as flat as she can into the grass.  I honestly think she's probably trying to hide from us so we don't take her back inside.

I was working during this tree climb, so I don't have context, but I liked the picture.

Lincoln and Winry both really enjoyed the piano and metronome.  They even worked on playing duets together.

Here are the Packers at the home they're putting an offer on.  I thought to take a picture while I was sitting in the car with the kids who were early leavers.  Didn't think to take one any sooner.

After seeing their house, we went for a hike!  Oh, this was Thursday, and I took Thursday/Friday off for spring break.  We were actually supposed to go meet up with Oriah's family in Dallas, and then head to OK and AR and go camping, but on Wednesday I was feeling too sick and figured there was no way I could do it.  Fortunately, we weren't the only party poopers and William and Michael had COVID.  Not good that they were sick, but my understanding is everyone is still doing alright.

Anyway, back to that hike.  We just went on a short hike next to a bridge.  The name is something like 360 bridge hike... That's not the name of the bridge, but close enough for Google I guess.  Anyway, it was short, like maybe a tenth of a mile, and up a hill.

And the hike ends up on top of a cliff overlooking a bridge and the Colorado river.  It's almost like being home there.

On Friday morning we took the kids to Pinballz.  It was Grayson's first time, and great news, it was the first time giant hungry hippos was working!

Grayson and Winry and Monica also played mini bowling while Brooke and I went and rode the virtual rollercoaster.  When Brooke and I got back we were able to throw a few balls ourselves and the mini bowling is pretty awesome!  I think it's one of the best value games in the whole arcade.

After that we had a snack and went and played some actual video games, and then we wrapped things up and headed out.  We all had a super time at the arcade, and if you're around Austin, I highly recommend giving it a try.

In the afternoon we went to a pottery painting place, and all of the kids picked something to paint.  We left them there to head to a kiln, so when we get them back I'll try to get a picture of them all together.

Friday night we had a campfire on the driveway and roasted hotdogs over the fire.

And then we toasted marshmallows and ate smores!

And finally did some camping in the backyard.  This was in lieu of our camping trip that got cancelled.  Grayson was having a hard time going to sleep, and in the end Monica took him inside to sleep in the house.  He was up at least half the night with his ear hurting, so that was likely why he wasn't able to get comfy.

Here's the tent in the backyard.  The night mode really brightened this up, but we did have a lantern on inside and we left the back porch light on as well.  I really enjoyed sleeping in the backyard, and it was also nice that it's not hot yet, so it cools off over night.  I also busted out those new AR glasses and watched a show while the girls were going to sleep and I was waiting for my own bedtime.

Grayson's ear hurting?  His ear drum ruptured in the morning... back to the doctor.  While the morning was rough, you can see here that he was still able to be his happy self.  We're onto the third round of antibiotics and second dose of ear drops.  It's been quite a month for this little guy, and I hope he's better after this round.

Later on Saturday, we went to a nearby river for a short hike.  The river bed is rock all the way across, and there's a pretty cool surprise along the way.  Here's a potential sneak peak as to why, but here's all the kids laying in a big depression in the river bed.

And further along at the bend in the river there are a bunch of awesome dinosaur tracks!  There are like, 8 or 9 of these three toed tracks. When I was looking for info on the hike someone had a drone shot, and a paleontologist who worked in the Texas area commented that he thought he saw several other tracks around these ones.  They were not as easy to see, but cool to know there was a lot going on there.

In the river we saw a turtle, and little snake, and this little frog!

From what I read it sounds like if you go after rain the river will go all the way across and you have to hike through some water, so we were all in water-safe shoes.  On the way back we did some rock jumping to get across some of the water for fun!

And on the way back home, we stopped at Jeremiah's for a water-ice!  Yum!!  I love going to that place, and I really like their frog mascot.

And when we got home... Grayson crashed on the couch.  To be honest, he didn't want to stop and get ice cream on the way home because he was really tired.  The thing that got him through was sitting on my lap, and in the end he had a great time the whole time we were there.  However, he really was tired, ya know, cause he was sick, and was awake most of the night before.

On Sunday, Grayson stayed home from church, and the last few days he's been really enjoying building magna-tile houses around different plastic animals that we have.  He calls it freezing the animals, and we built a bunch of different shaped "ice blocks."  In the end it was a giant tower.

And that's our week.  While we missed out on our trip, we had a really great extended weekend at home.  We had a lot of fun while the Packers where here, and found a lot of fun stuff to do around town once they had to go.  I hope Grayson gets better soon, but even he was doing super through it all.  Hopefully he'll be back to full health next week, and hopefully my antibiotics work effectively as well.