What we’ve been up to…

It’s been brought to my attention that I haven’t blogged much lately…which I like because then at least I know that somebody is reading my blog.

After most of the snow & ice was gone, we had a few days of nice weather. The girls thought it was summer.

T-shirts & popsicles with the neighbors, on what’s left of the snow, and it was barely 50 degrees!

My very first crocus to bloom! I now have many purple, white, and yellow flowers under that willow tree that was so bent over in the ice. I love these early signs of spring!

After a couple days of nice weather, it started raining again, and it hasn’t stopped. The news is filled the last few days with the sad stories of the landslide in Oso, which is about 90 minutes away from us. Please join us in continuing to pray for the families and rescue workers involved in this tragic event.

Back on March 14, we had the opportunity to attend the Broadway show of The Lion King in Seattle, because of a family Christmas gift from my siblings and their families to us! My parents came along and it was an awesome show!! We were in the very last row of the auditorium…literally…ROW Z of the third mezzanine! However, the seats were great and the girls (& my mom!) could even stand up for a better view without bothering anyone behind them! We had binoculars so we could take a peek at the faces close up occasionally, but the show, sets, music, costumes…WOW!

Becca also recently got her hair cut!

Before

AND….

After

It is SO much easier to brush and style now! 3 weeks of swimming at school had really done a  number on her already damaged & split ends.

Elise & I had a little shopping date one afternoon. We found fun masks at JoAnn’s.

It’s fun to just be silly in a store sometimes.

Which leads me nicely into my girls-day-out to Ikea, The Cheesecake Factory, and Hobby Lobby!! I’ve been wanting a day out with my friends and a trip to Ikea. We tend to do this about once a year or sometimes every two years together. I had some things on my Ikea list and so did a few friends…okay, so all Dee had on her list was “straws”, but she was game for a girls-day-out anyway. And yes, we found her LOTS of straws.

We had a ton of fun at Ikea, and Lea bought enough to be on an Ikea commercial…

Yes, that was all planned. It’s a kitchen cabinet. Plus some perfectly awesome kitchen barstools.

Then we had a leisurely and delicious lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and that’s the dessert I chose to take home. Know why? Because Ed wouldn’t want any of it. Hee hee! This day was about me and my friends, so the dessert was all mine. It took me FOUR days to eat it all – that’s how incredibly rich & delicious it was!

Well, then we went to Hobby Lobby. Lea had never been to a Hobby Lobby. She was our Hobby Lobby Virgin. Now documented for all the world for all eternity on the internet.

We spent some time wandering at Hobby Lobby…some time together and some time alone. Towards the end we were all together, and being kind of obnoxious and goofy. This gal, maybe about 10 years younger than us (how old are we that I can say that and still be talking about an adult? Ugh!!) was shopping near us and laughed and said, “You guys are so fun! I just want to follow you around and be your friend, too!” We had to laugh. We do have a good friendship going on. And we do have a lot of fun together. They’re my sisters.

While I was having my girls-day-out, Bethany was on a two day class trip to Seattle! She had a great time!

She won a prize from her teacher – a drink at the Starbucks on the waterfront – and took this selfie there. She has a million more pictures (okay, 298) from her trip and it looks like so much fun! They had a tour at the Boeing Museum of Flight, Underground Seattle, Safeco Field, watched an Imax movie at the Pacific Science Center, and spent time down at the waterfront…mostly feeding french fries to seagulls, apparently. Great memories. I am especially thankful for her great teachers & other chaperones who accompanied this trip and made it a great one!

That pretty much catches up the blog on the big happenings here. There are of course the little things…like trying to pick out a paint color for our master bedroom (still unsuccessful with that) and spending lots of time at school both working and checking on the kids. Becca went to the Young Author’s Festival yesterday with a few kids from each grade. Sarah has been busy running and singing and playing the flute and studying. She ran her PR in the 3200m last week Friday! No more meets until after spring break, but that’s OK because she’s headed to CA with the choir on tour! We’re pretty excited about this opportunity for her to travel, visit Disneyland with friends, and ESPECIALLY see her aunt, uncle, and cousins!! We are VERY jealous.

Spring break begins in just a few hours…I wonder what will happen over break that will become “blog-worthy”?

Ice, ice baby

I just took some pictures off my camera and found more I sent Sarah out to take the morning of the ice storm.

My poor willow tree. Good thing it’s a hardy one! This tree comes from a branch from my friend’s mom’s yard…she rooted it in water and I planted it in a pot about 3 years ago. It stayed in the pot because I didn’t want to plant it at our old house if we were going to move someday. It never really got very big (gee, I wonder why!?) but when we moved we put it in the corner of our front yard, and it has grown! The ice storm just about snapped the thing in two.

But it didn’t, and it is now happily standing up straight (as straight as a curly willow can be) and there are even tight little buds!

Ice on our “street tree” – the one that is in the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road.

And some fun icicles on the fence. Surprisingly, we did not have a snow day OR a late start that day…everyone drove to school on sheets of ice. Thankfully by noon it had all melted and while the snow took quite a while to completely disappear, we finally had some spring-like days this past week and now EVERYONE is ready! I even have some daffodils on my mantel!

Our snowstorms!

We had two snowstorms the last weekend of February and the first weekend of March. The first one was windy and drifty and on Sunday church was cancelled and school was cancelled on Monday & Tuesday. We had lots of hot cocoa, coffee & snow time with neighbors & friends, snow cones, and movies! I enjoyed watching where the drifts formed.

Ice on the window during the 2nd snow storm, which ended with an ice storm.

You do know Elise is the VIB, right, Mom?

So while Ed, Bethany, & I were over at the all-state concert, I get this text from Sarah:  “Grandpa wants to know what time on Friday and how many kids are in Elise’s class?”

Um…what?

Finally, several texts later, after trying to figure out what on earth is going on, I get this: “You do know Elise is the VIB, right, Mom?”

Um….NOOOOOOOOOO!

The VIB, or Very Important Bear, is a very special week in the life of a second grader. It’s the week that you take home the class bear for the weekend, take pictures, and write in a journal all about what the bear did over the weekend. Then on Friday you get to bring a special guest to class! The two oldest girls chose their grandpa as their special guest and he built frames for some art work and taught them about sanding wood and cutting glass, etc. We had pretty much planned that Elise would do that as well, since she had the same teacher. But finding out that your 2nd grader is the VIB on the weekend that you’re FIVE HOURS AWAY was a little stressful.

Thankfully, I got this text next from Sarah: “Don’t worry, Mom, we’ve got it covered.”

Well, thank goodness.

And I came home to find out that they, they being Sarah and my parents and Becca, did indeed have it covered. The bear attended ball games, watched Olympics, and did all manner of other fun activities and it was all recorded both in the class journal and in pictures for us to print and include in the journal. The special guest activities were all figured out by the time I got home, and I ended up having to simply print the pictures and help Elise include them in the journal and THAT WAS IT! Seriously, I should go away more often!

So not this past Friday, but the Friday before, my dad was the special guest. This time I went to go watch (I didn’t with the other girls because I had small, napping children at home) and it was great. Elise had a great time and my dad did an awesome job.

Sanding the frames Grandpa built!

Cutting glass with Grandpa! Each kid got to sand their own frame and cut their own glass. Very cool! Elise is SO proud of her VIB guest and the frames she & her classmates made!

That same night, we attended our long-awaited, much-awaited Toby Mac concert!!!!!

We were SO excited! Unfortunately the wait at the border almost killed all our enthusiasm. I gave us an hour. Plenty of time for the crossing we were going to. But…between the concert-goers and the Canadians returning from a day of shopping…ONE HOUR AND 45 MINUTES later, we finally entered Abbotsford! Ugh. We had packed dinner in the van, so we ate. And we listened to Toby Mac music. And we read and played games. And then finally we got there…just a few minutes after the concert started. We really didn’t miss much at all! And what a concert it was!

The little girls had never experienced anything like it and were amazed at how they could feel the music beating in their chests! They soon got into it and I sat next to four girls who sang and danced and worshipped happily the whole evening. My heart swelled and was full.

Excuse the horrible pictures…an iPhone camera in a dark auditorium just doesn’t perform well.