5 Miles

At Easter we all got to play with the Hill’s new Wii. The boys LOVED playing the bowling and tennis. Then, we got an email about free bowling for kids (go to www.kidsbowlfree.com for details). So we signed up and took our first adventure on Tuesday. Grandma Lo came along for the laughs.   We told the boys what we were going to do, Alex wanted to know if there would be three remotes (what we used for the Wii). So we had to explain how REAL bowling is different from the computer game.

So how do the balls get to us?

Grandma Lo stuck to knitting–hard to get hurt that way!

The end of the first game. Sadly we didn’t do much better the second game.

Alex was so cute trying to carry that big ball–almost as big as he is! But he did it himself

About half way through the 2nd game Alex decided he was done. He enjoyed snuggling Grandma Lo instead.

Wednesday they were asking me when we’d go bowling again. So I’d say they enjoyed it.

Wow, did that last week disappear fast! After flying the kites last Saturday, we had 4 days of cold and rain.  We spent the days inside and doing various things around the house.  By Wednesday we were ready for the rains to be done, but it had gotten pretty chilly out! Thursday we enjoyed some time outside and by Friday it was in the 80s! We joined several friends at the park after preschool (here are pictures of that for those not on Facebook) . Saturday we spent the day doing yard work. Sunday we recovered from all the work, relaxed, and got ready for James’ mom to visit. We’ve had a nice time hanging out with her the last few days, but tomorrow she leaves to go back home.  I’ll update the adventures we’ve had with her tomorrow.

Here’s are some highlights of the week/weekend of yard work:

This is one of two shrubs we got last summer for the fall colors–but I’ve been LOVING the fun flowers they have this spring! Fun surprise…it’s called a fothergilla shrub if you’re interested.

The boys played/raced down the drive way while I weeded and weeded and weeded. (And after 4 days in the 80s and more rain, I have MORE saplings to weed. We’ve had SO many of tiny maple trees sprouting up, last year must have been a bumper crop of helicopter seeds!)

This Flowering Almond is a start I got from my dad, who started his from my Great Grandmother (and that start went from Indiana down to Texas with us, and then he brought another start back to Indiana when we moved up here 15 years ago). I’m VERY excited it’s doing well, for the family heritage as well as the  beautiful pink flowers it produces.

This tulip with the pink rim was a surprise–I thought it’d be just white.

Saturday, one of the baby bunnies we have living in our yard (or the neighbor’s, we’re not quite sure) appeared. Alex is feeding it some grass.

James picked it up and the boys got to pet it. It was shaking so bad! He let it go, it hopped over a bit and then made an odd noise. We checked a bit later and it had died. When Alex asked me later “Mommy, why did the baby bunny die?” I told him it was because they have tiny hearts and if they get too scared it can cause their hearts to stop working. Alex then said “The bunny died because Daddy picked it up?”  Well, yeah, but I wasn’t going to say that!  The neighbor killed another, but the boys have seen another one hopping around. They were eating my plants so I wasn’t TOO upset to lose the two we’ve already lost, we’ll see how this third one does.

James also borrowed a device to make getting dandelions out of the grass easier. He’d pick them up and the boys had a great time picking them up and throwing them on the driveway (that was to make getting rid of them easier).  That roped off area is where we have grass seed growing.

My parents gave Will and Alex some kites last month. The day we were there it wasn’t windy enough to take the boys out. Since then we’ve either been busy, out of town or had rain and we’ve not been able to fly the kites–until today! James promised we’d go out once he got done mowing the yard (first time this season). So we went to our local park that has lots of wide open spaces.

First, James helped Will get his kite together and up in the air.

Once he got it up, Will got to fly it and did quite a good job.

Then it was Alex’s turn!

He also had fun running with the kite, and kept it up for a few minutes. Then he was done and wanted to go play on the playground.

So I got to fly his kite!

After awhile Will crashed his kite as well.

James had to untangle a lot of string while the two boys played on the playground. Then he joined them.

Today was our first 70s day, the first day we pulled out shorts. The boys played outside most of the day (even during their normal quiet time) and went to sleep quite quickly tonight.

I’ve been busy all week working on our MOPS Consignment Sale (sorting through items that we didn’t want, pricing them, then going to the church and helping set up for the sale yesterday and working the sale this morning). After being inside the church all morning, it was nice to get out this afternoon–even if I was REALLY tired!

Today was a sunny, warmer day. I went to open the front door and hear a fire truck coming down our road. I looked out and a police car blocking the road. I was puzzled–we’d had the road closed all last week because of utility work and I thought they were done. Why was the road closed? And why was the police car blocking the fire truck? Then the fire truck turned right in front of the police car, on the side/dead-end road that’s right next to us. I suddenly was worried that one of our neighbors (an older couple) was hurt or ill.  I went to look out the back window and saw this:

I was so puzzled–why was there a pile of trash on the road? Then the fire men started poking through the trash with pitch forks (who knew they carried those on their trucks?!?).  My first thought was “Could they be looking for a body?” Um, could be someone is watching too many crime shows! I realized the police would be doing that, not the fire department. I then wondered if there was something on fire in the pile–but didn’t see anything smoking.  Later when I looked out, I saw a smoldering object off to the side. Next the we knew, the fire truck was leaving and the two garbage men were walking around the pile…looking like they weren’t quite sure what to do with it. At least I was wondering what they would do with it! Finally we saw–THIS is how you clean up a pile of trash:

After all the trash was scooped up and put in dumpsters and hauled away, they even had a guy spraying cleaning solution on the road.

I did think how glad I was that the kids are still at the age where they find this interesting.

 Karl and Cori drove out to visit Friday night and then again Saturday. Doesn’t sound like the bumpy road helped trigger labor for Cori like it did for her Sister-in-Law (sorry Cori!).  We all had a great time hanging out and talking in between all the game playing I showed below.   Here are a few more pictures from that family time.

First, the required belly picture!

Spending time outside.

Mandatory picture before church (They were watching Uncle Tom move the van out of the garage–before this they were being too silly and I couldn’t get a good picture.)

Sunday was another beautiful sunny day. It was lots of fun to watch the boys do their egg hunt. We didn’t have quite the number the Eastern side of the family did, but they did a great job finding their eggs–each found exactly half of the number Jake had hidden.

We had a great time spending the weekend visiting the headquarters of the Mid-west side of the family (in Northern IL). James’ aunt and grandparents live in the same town, so it’s a natural gathering place for those of us who can’t make it back to PA for Easter weekend. Aunt Nancy has been hosting various members of the family since Tessa went to college. 

The year Easter fell just after Jake’s birthday, and he was nice and shared his birthday present with all of us–a Wii. We had fun playing (or watching) bowling, baseball, tennis, and golf.
    

We also did things that DID’T involve a TV or game…Will remembered this marble game from last year and couldn’t wait to play with it again. Maybe next year he’ll actually be able to put the tubes together himself!

We also enjoyed the beautiful weather (rare this time of year on the cold plains)–Alex had fun playing with Maggie.

Will played real bowling (hard to do with the plastic ball bounces or the wind blows over the pins).

Both boys went on the swings.

Played with cool toys Aunt Nancy still had.

And played baseball!

This past week was Will’s spring break…I had some fun ideas, but spent the first few days fighting a cold and not up to doing much. That didn’t stop us from dyeing our Easter Eggs on Tuesday!

The boys did a great job!

But it was messy work!

to see this pull up in front of our house?

And to see this just down the street, in front of our neighbor’s house?

On the other hand, I could see this from the neighbors across the street:

(Guys just standing there and laughing)

So I went over to ask. Utility crews have been working on putting up new  poles on our street this week and this evening they hit a gas line. Since the wind was going the other direction they figured we were ok. The boys were excited to see all the activity right in front of the house!  I felt better once the Haz Mat truck had left.

Saturday was another beautiful day, and we spent most of it working or playing outside (I had looked at the long range forecast and was prepared for the rain, cold and snow that would follow so I made sure we were out for most of the day).

Here’s our garden–we’re trying the Square Foot Gardening method, but we’re not doing the TRUE method because we don’t have 4×4 grids.  But we’re making it work and it’s an interesting method…we’ll be sure to let you know how it turns out!

We planted some squares of peas, lettuce and spinach. We’ll plant more lettuce and spinach in a few weeks to space out the crop.  (Wow, doesn’t it sound like I know what I’m talking about?)

James put a fence around the garden.

Fence, with gate!

After a beautiful day, we came in for the boys to have showers and noticed Alex not only had a runny nose again, he was getting eye gunk. Not a good sign. Sunday morning he wasn’t acting too well and it was worse, so he and I stayed home. Mid-morning the rain moved in and it rained and rained and rained.  We ended up with about 2 inches of rain.  Since then cold weather has moved in and we had snow flurries/sleet (or hail?) today. We’re getting a hard freeze tonight and tomorrow, so I cut the flowers and brought them in. We spent today inside making muffins, putting together puzzles, and other various things to pass the time indoors.