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!