Yeah for the sun!!!

Well, it's been a long time posting. Since my last post, we had Dale's birthday and Easter both on the same weekend. It was, of course, a good weekend. Unfortunately, the weather for the weekend wasn't good, so there weren't any outdoor egg hunts, but the kids had fun dying eggs and then finding ones filled with candy and their baskets and gifts on Easter morning before going to church to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. He is risen indeed. After church, we went to Grandpa Mike's and Grandma Carol's for dinner. Of course the kids had an egg hunt there and got yet more candy, but the highlight of the day was seeing Grandpa and Grandma's new baby chicks. Grandpa Mike is building a chicken coop apparently and raising chickens. The kids also inform me he is going to get cows and a pony for the kids to ride. That should be fun. Hannah declared she really wanted some baby chicks, but my response was that those cute baby chicks grow into not so cute chickens that we have nowhere to keep.

The kids with their dyed eggs.

In their Easter best after church

The baby chicks

Fast forward a week and the weather has greatly improved. This weekend was sunny and warm and today was absolutely gorgeous and very warm. I actually took the boys to the zoo after picking up Justin from school. They had a great time, especially Owen, who had a great time right up until we left. The whole way home, he was very angry that we weren't still at the zoo. While a lot of animals were very lazy in the sun, we did have great fun watching the polars bears splashing around with a ball right on the other side of the glass, the sea lions which are always entertaining, the river otter, the sun bears and the cheetah. Later in the day, the kids had their first fling in the sprinkler. That is another thing that Owen was very upset when it ended. We also had our first cookout of the year. I hope this is just the first of many such days to come for the spring and summer.

One last thing I want to share with you. I've actually been doing an online crop over at the My Sketch World forum and one of the challenges is to make a card using word art that you can do on http://www.wordle.net/. This site is so awesome. You can go to it and create your own wordart by typing in any text or series of words you want and it will create a piece of wordart using those words. You can even choose different color combos, layouts and fonts. Here is one I made using the text from my last blog post on our Spring Break trip to the coast.







You need to click on it to see it larger. Anyway, just something cool.

Adieu Spring Break and Hello Spring!

Well, today was the first day back to school after Spring Break. The kids were not happy to have to get up and go back to school, although it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Usually Hannah gives me more grief about going back after any kind of time off. Of course, the spring weather came upon us just as the kids had to head back to school. It was downright warm today with more to come tomorrow. If we're not careful, we just might come down with Spring Fever. The cherry trees have finally bloomed full on, and they are gorgeous right now.

Our Spring Break this year wasn't typical. For the entire week, we were actually in the process of having our hardwood floors refinished. We actually avoided the process altogether at the beginning of the week by getting away for a few days. We went to Cannon Beach along the Oregon coast. I was worried that we were going to have horrible weather because the forecast just showed rain the whole time we were going to be there, but we were pleasantly surprised with gorgeous weather the two main days we were there. There was lots of sun and no rain until the morning when we were packing to check out. It was windy and cold, but at least we were able to be outside, walking along the beach, playing in the sand and if you're Hannah and Justin, even playing in the water despite the freezing cold temperatures. I don't know how they do that but they had fun. It was a nice relaxing getaway. Here are just a few of the many photos I took.

Picture perfect in front of Haystack Rock

Okay, so Justin insisted on bringing the goggles thinking he was going to need them in the water.

Owen decided that he needed to wear them at the tidepools. We got a lot of looks and comments. Of course everyone thought he was great.

Discovering the tidepools around Haystack Rock at low tide.

Hannah working on her sandcastle compound.

Justin got buried up to his waist.

And our crazy kids running in the FREEEEZING cold waves.

We got home Tuesday and hoped that our floor would be almost done, but due to a few delays, there were still 3 days before it was completely done. When we first walked in the house, the stain was on, and I was not very happy with it and almost freaked out. It was not what I had envisioned. It was just so different and took a little getting used to. He assured me that it would look a lot different once the two finish coats were on. I trusted him. For the two days that the finish was being applied, we had to be out of the house for most of the day. We did a lot of visiting of family and friends, which was fun, but after you're there for 5 hours or so, it gets to be a little much, and I just wanted to see the floor. Now, that it is done, I can tell you that the floor looks amazing. All the wear and tear from the 18+ years on the old nasty floor and the damage we added when we remodeled the kitchen have been erased, and the now all there is is a smooth gorgeous finish. All we have to do now is put up the tile backsplash and our kitchen remodel that started 2 years ago will be totally complete. Our next major project will be getting all that mauve tile out of our master bath---Ugh!!!