Spring Break

We had a fun and lazy spring break this year.  We didn't travel anywhere, but we did get to spend some time enjoying the PNW!  Weather was beautiful early in the week especially.  Dan took Evelyn out for a hike around Hoyt Arboretum.  Weather was great and they had a fun hike and a fun time together.  Evelyn has been struggling with her band section leader and it was good for her to be able to get out and vent some and enjoy nature.  

We also got to eat outside a bunch this week with the nice weather - and had some fun meals this week including hamburgers one night and sushi one night.  

David and Paxton wanted to have a sleepover and decided to try sleeping out in a tent that night.  It was a little drizzly and cool - but they slept there all night.  Paxton came in around the time I got back from swimming, and he was pretty cold, so he curled up with some blankets on a couch and fell back asleep.  David was happy as a clam outside and slept in! 

Friday afternoon, after I got off work, I took Eileen and David to the Gem Faire up in Hillsboro.  We had fun wandering around and looking at stuff and David found a new little stuffed friend.  

Saturday, Aaron and I went to Parkrose to play polo, then after, I met up with Dan at Hoyt Arboretum and Aaron took the extra car home while Dan and I wandered around looking at the Magnolia trees and the Vietnam Vetrans memorial and just enjoyed being outside on a beautiful day! 

On Saturday, Evelyn planned and prepared a meal for a bunch of her friends as part of a school project.  She made a bunch of her favorite food and all her friends said it was amazing!  We also had fun getting to eat the extras!  

Saturday evening, I went to Open Polo - but Aaron and Evelyn were too tired to go.  

Church was wonderful - it was Fast Sunday since next week is General Conference.  I also had a Messiah choir practice in the evening.  It's exciting to see and hear it all coming together!  

Jump! Jump!

Monday morning - my mom, Sandi and James and I went over to Grandpa's.  We worked on helping him organize some stuff and scanning the letters from my Grandmother.  We enjoyed a nice lunch with him and then in the evening got together with some of the family for pizza.  After - the siblings met with Grandpa to figure out some things to help him out going forward while the rest of us watched the documentary that Grandpa was in about the Batan Death March.  It was a great program and a great evening.  After we let Grandpa rest while we went home and packed up for departure.  

Tuesday morning, my parents left early - my mom to drive home, my dad to work and then Frank drove the rest of us to the airport.  I had a good, easy flight home.  Dan picked me up and it was wonderful to see the whole family again!  

Wednesday Evelyn had her band concert.  She did an amazing job!  The band sounded awesome!  We had fun watching her and sitting with a bunch of our friends who also had kids in the band!  Before the band concert, Evelyn also had her first track meet of the season.  She did so well!  She cleared her personal best from last year and is already making a good start to the season!  

This was the last week of swim lessons and water polo lessons, it has been fun.  James and Caleb did awesome.  David did awesome too - but he didn't move up a level and that is really frustrating him.  He really wants to move up to level 3.  So we are hopefully going to take him to the pool next week to work on his moves! 

Saturday, after his run, Dan took David and Paxton to David's favorite play ground.  The boys had a blast.  While there, David goes "wait, I'm going to do something really dumb" then he jumped down a big jump and hit the ground pretty hard - then he said "yeah, that was dumb."  The boys had a blast together, then went to Costco and got samples before heading home.  

Mom and Aaron went to Parkrose to play polo and had a lot of fun.  Aaron played well - and mom was on fire.  After, we grabbed some lunch with some of the other players, then headed home.  Mom had a work inservice in the evening, then at night, Mom, Aaron and Evelyn went to open polo.  There were a ton of people there - including a bunch of people that don't usually come - it was great to see friends - including some I haven't seen in awhile and play some great polo.  My body was really tired by the end of the night though....  

Church was wonderful - the choir sang and did an amazing job, and the talks and lessons were wonderful.  We had the Bristow's over for dinner and games and had a great time!  We love their family and their kids had a lot of fun playing with Evie!  She is so good with kids and they loved playing games with her. 

Family is Forever

We've had a busy week.  Mom and Dad have had work.  I'm still swimming in the mornings and Dan is still running regularly.  Evelyn is full on into track season now and loving pole vaulting.  Aaron is full into water polo again and we are glad he is able to drive himself to practices in the evening.  

I've had choir practices and I'm loving singing the music of Handle's Messiah and directing the choir.  It is slowly coming together.  

I've also enjoyed working with the kids at the Score program.  Hanging out with James has been wonderful and the other kids are great too!  Caleb has been coming and doing a great job and told me this week that he wants to learn to be a goalie and come play for the high school team!  

Friday after swimming, Dan drove me to the airport and I headed to Colorado.  My mom picked me up from DIA and we went to go see grandpa.  We spend the evening with him before heading back to the hotel for the night.  

Saturday was busy for the kids - they went to the temple in the morning and there way a big sports themed youth dance that evening.  

I spent the day with Mom and Grandpa.  We helped with cleaning out his old file cabinets and found some old letters of Grandma's from before they were married.  Reading them was so wonderful!  So wonderful to see that side of her and to see the love she had for Grandpa.  It was also fun to get a picture of her as a young woman and her fun spunky side.  :)  We got In N Out burger for dinner  (since Grandpa has developed a liking for it) and Frank and Frankie joined us and we had a nice evening eating and chatting together.  

Sunday morning I got up and walked to the nearby church building for church - then after we went to Grandpa's for lunch.  Sandi and James and Dad all flew in and got to Grandpa's in the afternoon, then we went out to dinner with the family in the evening.  We had a great time with everyone and then in the evening we headed back to the hotel.  

Dan and the kids had a usual day at church - then after had a fun time playing together and snuggling together and napping together.  David had fun playing with Popcorn since Dan and the kids are dog sitting while Sandi and James were in CO.  

Running and Swimming and More Running

Evelyn is officially fully into her track season - she has practices after school and has been working hard on her pole vaulting and loving hanging out with her friends.  

Aaron's club water polo season is starting and he's been enjoying that - it's alwasy a bit crazy the difference between club sports and high school sports in terms of difficulty....  He's been working hard and tiring himself out!  

My dad flew out for the weeked to do a half marathon with Dan.  So he and Dan got up early Saturday to go down to Salem for their race.  My dad placed second in his age group and Dan placed 7th in his.  They both came home tired and a bit stiff, but otherwise feeling good!  

The pool I work at hosted a Synconized Swimming meet this weekend.  It was interesting to watch and the skills it takes are pretty amazing!  It was crazy the height they were getting on some of their jumps and their strength and control.  But when I swam Saturday morning - I pulled nearly 20 hair pins out of my lane alone.  And the bottom of the pool was covered with sparkles from their costumes.  

David has been enjoying swim lessons with Paxton and we get to see a bunch of other friends from school there too!  While David is there, I've been with James at the water polo class.  It's been a lot of fun!  This week James told Caleb about it and Caleb wanted to join, so this week we took Caleb with us to play water polo.  I think James is torn between liking to have Caleb there and getting annoyed with him.  And while I'm always glad to have more people wanting to play water polo - I miss the time with just the two of us!  

I was missing our time together, so on Satuday, I asked him to come out with me to run a couple errands and get a Jamba Juice.  We had a fun afternoon together!  

I've also had choir practices this week - I was heading there late from water polo and Dan and I would do a trade off of the kids.  

With all the crazy amount of stuff happening, Dan and I decided we really couldn't make do any longer with just 2 cars, so after talking to Paul, Dan got us a little electric car.  It's strange in some ways and in others it's a joy to think that we don't have to fill it up with gas.  :)  

Monday, Dan planned out a fun meal - we made dino chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes and broccoli and had a "Jurassic Meal" it was fun and tasty and the kids loved it! 

Evelyn has also gotten into band competition season - so the band has had a couple competitions - they are amazing and have performed well!  She loves these trips, and loves the time making music with friends, but she also alwasy comes home tired!    

Where has February Gone....

Life has been fun, but busy!  James and I have water polo together on Tuesday and Thursday.  It's been super fun getting to do this with him and he even admitted to enjoying it!  It's been a fun group of kids and they are learning together and having fun!  

Monday and Friday, we had our first Messiah choir practices.  We got some great work done and it was so much fun working with this group of singers and working on such amazing music.  

David is still doing swim lessons on Tuesday and Thursday with Paxton, and the boys are loving it!  They are getting better every time!  

James and one of the boys from water polo have been getting along well and his mom invited James to join him at his Parkour class.  James has wanted to try it for awhile and the boys had a blast together!  They ran around and tired themselves out good!  

A little while ago, David checked out a game from the library called Uncooked (I think) and the whole family has gotten into it - They play together and it gets kinda crazy, but they have been having lots of fun together!  "GET THE RICE!!!"  

Friday after school, David went to his friend Anna's house along with Paxton.  They had a blast playing together and eating yummy food and then got to go swimming.  

Saturday was the usual busy crazy.  David hung out with Paxton.  I went to play water polo at a scrimmage at the MAC.  It was a ton of fun - lots of people as usual and for once I actually played pretty well - usually I play poorly at that pool, so it was nice to not feel like I was messing everything up!  Part was through the game though, I took a kick to the ribs, so I was not upset when Joey wanted a turn in the cage.  That didn't stop me from taking Aaron and Evelyn to Open Polo though.  At first Open Polo was looking like just a lot of teenagers - thankfully Luke, Chris, Alex and Addison showed up late and we had a decent game going.  I mostly played on Evelyn so I wouldn't push myself too hard since my ribs were still hurting a lot.  But I still managed to score twice! 

Sunday was wonderful - fast and testimony meeting - then primary.  We had a couple visitors and we had a fun group, but a little full of energy!  In the evening, Sandi and James came over to play games - Sandi trounced us in Space Base, and we had a great time trying out the new game table!  Dan funded a kickstarter a few years back, so this week we got a cool new game table!