April 2017

April began with spring break! Bethany headed to Chicago with the orchestra and had an awesome time! The little girls and I had a few days at home and Ed also took a day off for a trip to the zoo and the mall! We had a great time, but it did feel really weird going places with only two offspring!

My dad & Ed installed my new laundry room floor, which I LOVE! We needed it because my old washing machine leaked a few too many times and the floor was all soft and ripped in places. It took a long time to find the floor I wanted at a price I could manage and also have it be in stock. But now it's awesome!! In this process, we discovered that the *new* washing  machine is SO good that it produces excess suds that come up the drain and was also leaking onto my old floor, but we didn't know it. It took QUITE some time to solve that problem, and even now, we simply have an Ed/Dad-inspired-fix so that the water doesn't go on the floor...but we tried *everything* that there is to try, and our current fix is all there is to be done, other than paying a washing machine repairman $200 to come out and tell us there's nothing to be done...

During the month of April I bought my first pair of reading glasses...

And during a week of a lot of stress and emotional turmoil, I took an afternoon that was beautiful (though not too warm) to walk and sit and pray at one of my favorite places in the world. It was definitely a needed boost for me.

We celebrated Easter! 

And Becca ran Junior High Track!! She ran hurdles, a relay, and the 400m, and also did the long jump. She had a ton of fun and did great! We endured a lot of cold track meets, but this one was sunny!

Bethany ran track as well and also had a great time! It's great to see her as a leader to the younger girls on the team.

Next up! Junior Senior Banquet!!

End of February & March

Wow! It's true! I'm blogging...again! Twice in one month! Amazing! I'm actually just attempting to get caught up before Sarah, Bethany, & I leave for Zambia because we really want to blog that "as we go"...and "as wifi allows."

So, what follows is a very short summary of the end of February and most of March:

Becca played volleyball for the first time ever! It was a good experience overall, though with 52 girls and 4 teams the organization for the coaches was difficult, to say the least. This meant that we often didn't know which team/where Becca would play until the night before a game. That is REALLY frustrating for a planner like me. Honestly, I think it was frustrating for every mom of every girl on the team.

Volleyball has changed A LOT since I played in Junior High. This whole hand-holding and switching positions thing is new. The scoring system is different. The subbing system is different. It was quite a learning curve for me!

Becca and her teammates improved a lot over the season and it was fun to watch them work hard together and actually be able to get a good volley going. The best part was the friendships they built. I LOVED watching them support each other.

On Valentine's Day...

Bethany was voted Mrs. Servant Heart of the student body. I could not be more proud of her.

And Ed took me for a Valentine lunch at Boomer's Drive In because they had $2.99 burgers. He's extravagant like that. 

Actually, it was my idea, so don't feel sorry for me. He also got my wedding ring fixed for Valentine's Day, which was pretty awesome. And I loved my burger date.

Elise finished a puzzle we got her for Christmas. It's now framed (Thanks, Dad!) and hung in our bonus room.

For some reason I said yes to babysitting the 5th grade class rats again. It's actually not too bad. I hide them upstairs and then pretty much stay downstairs for the weekend. I even got Bethany to bring them back to school this year on Monday morning!

The drama kids were missing each other, so they made up a 24-hour-play gathering so they could hang out again like during the musical. Basically, kids could sign up to write, direct, or act in a play and everything (including writing the script) is done in a 24-hour period. Bethany was in "Soccer Mom" - they were pretty silly, but so fun for them.

We *finally* finished watching all the original episodes of "Gilmore Girls", so we could watch the new ones that came out back in November. The first one we watched with Chinese food and Red Vines. We had some form of Gilmoresque food for each episode. It was fun and now I miss watching TV with Bethany.

We couldn't do our traditional chocolate fondue on Valentine's Day (again) so we did it near the end of March. We got to Skype with Sarah and she wished she were here. 

Both Becca AND Elise auditioned for AND made it into the All-State Youth Choir. This year it was in Bellevue, which was really so much nicer than driving over the mountains in February!

Above are the 5 girls from our school who participated.

In March we celebrated Wacky Wednesday in Kindergarten. It's basically my favorite.

We also *finally* had our Dessert Social to celebrated the end of Cross Country...which ended in November. It was fun as always, listening to Coach congratulate and talk about each runner.

During mid-winter break, Bethany went to visit Sarah! So...the little girls & I had a fun shopping day in Seattle, which included some yummy frapps at Starbucks.

I love that these two are such good friends!

And then, there was the proposal...

Actually, it was a Junior-Senior Banquet (JSB) ask...a sweet boy from our church that Bethany is sweet on decorated a gazebo along our local trail and, with the help of Bethany's BFF, got her there to invite her to JSB with him. Don't worry, pictures of that event WILL get posted on the blog before June 11 when we leave for Zambia! It's my new goal!!

#sorrynotsorry

Somehow or another, I have gotten even farther behind on my blogging. I didn't really know anyone could be as far behind as I am, but here I am. Way behind. To my faithful reader(s), I'm sorry. And I'm not. Things have been busy and I fully intend to continue to blog, but it just has to be at my own pace. So here it is the beginning of the second week of May and I am about to blog about some more stuff that happened in February. But it's pretty great stuff, so even if it's "old news", I'm sure my reader(s) will want to keep reading.

In February, Ed & I got to visit SARAH!!!! We made the plans initially so we could watch her compete in the MIAA Indoor Track Championships, which were held at Calvin. Unfortunately, she was still recovering from her stress fracture, so we cheered on all the other maroon and gold runners, but we LOVED every minute at the meet and with her, AND with my brother & his family, including the sweet new baby!

Ed & I flew out of Seattle and before we caught our flight, we went to get some food in the food court and "just happened" to run into my cousin from Alaska who was passing through on her way to a ski weekend with her daughters. We had a great lunch together catching up! So fun!

THEN, while we were in a layover in Denver, we *just happened* to run into Ed's cousin's wife from Arizona! She was on her way to Michigan also to see her new grandson that was about to be born! The trip was off to quite a start!

We arrived quite late at night, picked up our car rental and headed to the Prince Conference Center (like a hotel on campus) where we were staying for our long weekend. We didn't get to see Sarah until the next morning. It was SO good to see her. Oh, my heart. Then we took her for another x-ray to check for another stress fracture (thankfully - this one was negative!) and then out for lunch. It's quite an experience to sit in Russ' with your college daughter and talk about classes and beliefs and the ups and downs of life. So blessed.

Then we headed to see my brother & his family and the new baby!!

Over the weekend we had lots of fun with them...looking at fossils, reading books, playing toys, taking pictures, eating food, and enjoying being together. Oh, did I mention my parents were in Michigan at the same time?! That was fun, too! Elise & Becca especially thought so because that meant they got to spend FOUR nights at their best friends' house!

 

My newest nephew is SUCH a happy guy! We had so much fun holding him and getting a baby fix!

We spent a fair bit of time with Sarah, of course...took her & a friend for dinner, saw her room and her hang-out spots, watched part of track practice, hung out at the meet, helped her with her taxes, went for ice cream at Culver's, walked around campus, did dishes in her dorm kitchen...so good to do life with her for a few days!

Sarah's "little bro" from Lynden was there on a college visit the same weekend.

And yeah, Ed & I had fun walking around our Alma Mater.

Calvin Men & Women were both MIAA Indoor Track & Field Champions!

Oh, I miss that girl. It makes me miss her to look at these pictures, but now she comes home in THIRTEEN DAYS!!

#sorrynotsorry for not blogging regularly...