Mother's Day

 So this year's Mother's Day was great! In huge contrast to last year's "Oh...happy mothers day" halfway through the day. Sophie and I took on the spa selfie challenge from the Young Women's organization from church to get all fresh looking for Sunday.

On Sunday, Sophie gave me a miniature tacos she made with a "You are tacos and rice and all things nice" and Rhys said she would write me story just for me.  After church we were off to the Farmersville IOOF Cemetery to document headstones because I love doing that and we do it on Sundays since we started having sacrament meeting at home due to COVID19. It was warm and they are troopers. We will have to stop soon because of Texas and summer not playing fair. Neal also made my favorite lemon poppy seed pancakes. We showed some love to Oma too! She is always so kind and generous to us.

Eisenhower State Park Hike

 Perfect weather for a late afternoon hike. Took in 8 miles and spotted an armadillo and some cute frogs. I have a very sweet and funny daughter who wanted to hold hands for sections of this trail that were more conducive to single file hiking. She kept me laughing.

Meet Donna

 Donna is our beekeeping mentor and she is so nice to us and the bees. So glad to have someone to show us the ropes and bounce things off of. Not literally. Bouncing things off people is rude. Generally, a "hey, catch!" is customary before lobbing something at someone. Just etiquette. Like Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

 

Blue Angels Fly Over

 Met up with Opa to view the Blue Angels fly over honoring health care workers on the front line. They went right over us! Only took video and I'm not posting it. It looks like planes going fast in the sky. If it helps you visualize a better picture, the sky was blue. This was especially neat because of Opa's love of and connection to military aircraft. But here is Opa and the kids!

Oh I'm Bring Home a Baby Bumble Bee...

 Today we were able to meet and pick up our bees from our instructors, the Talberts. It was exciting to get up close to them and the ride home went off well--a hive in the back of our minivan, a entrance blocker with screen and a sheet over it all kept us from veering off  the road.  We got them settled in during the evening so they could have a fresh start in the morning.  This was a fun day for my girl.

 

Easter

We are pretty good about social distancing except when it comes to esentials. These include the grocery store and Oma and Opa.

For Easter, we got together, and had dinner, played card games, and chatted and hung out. The one Uno game we played lasted 2 hours! It was fun though because Opa and the kids were really joking around with each other a lot and kept us all laughing. The kids showed off their interests like origami, drawing, Lego, and tree climbing. Oma and Opa kindly provided Easter goody bags to the kids.

On Easter Sunday, Neal made us breakfast, we had a great sacrament at home with Easter hymns and a great discussion about Christ's atoning sacrifice and how it is practical to our lives.  Then the weather as so nice, we took off to spend time in Blue Ridge cemetery to document headstones, take pictures with our kids 3rd great-grandparents' headstone, and enjoy fresh air. You can't catch COVID19 from dead and buried people--yay! Besides it was a beautiful reminder that not only do we believe in the resurrection, but that we will also see our loved ones after this life.

Lately

COVID19 activities: lots of online school work, bike riding, reading, and baking.

 Taught the kids how to make apple pie. They are wearing improvised chef hats which are just paper bags they grabbed.

I made the whole family and some friends masks to wear over several days.
We had General Conference and made cinnamon rolls at the kids request. Remind me to bike ride more with all this baking.

Enforced Family Time

So now we can't really go out and do anything or be with friends at all which is bad and good. Bad: Sophie doesn't get to have any tennis tournaments after all that practice, tensions over online learning, less opportunities to socialize, way too much screen time (school and some free choice), and kids' boredom. Good: lots of time with family, time to study and converse about what we value, time to practice parenting, trying new hobbies, kids trying to overcome their own boredom (my favorite), and focusing on what is important to us, church at home.

That last one is awesome. We get dressed in our Sunday clothes, we sing hymns, and take turns giving a talk and/or share testimony. Neal, because he worthily has the priesthood and approval from his bishop, is able to bless and administer the sacrament for our family. We've felt the spirit and we are careful to try and keep the spirit buy giving cool down time when things get stressful or using calm voices and being quick to forgive when we blow emotional fuses.

This past week, the Bluebonnet Festival in Ennis was cancelled like everything else that encourages gathering. However, we knew the flowers would still be there so we took a nice long drive down to Ennis and stopped at a vast field next to a lake that is blanketed with wildflowers. There was one other group of four people and they were far away from us so we really enjoyed having this place nearly to ourselves. During the festival their are families everywhere getting pictures with the bluebonnets as it is our state flower and this is something Texans do.  It was so nice to be out and walking and feeling the breeze, surrounded by beauty. We drove some country roads and enjoyed see the cows, donkeys, and goats before heading back home.

 

I love watching Neal get into his artistic groove.

Taken by Rhys

Taken by Rhys

Spring Break

Neal had the week of Spring break off so he worked on a lot of projects he wanted to get done, such as finishing up some butcher block and installing it on the island. Goodbye icky tile and grout!  We did, however, get out to do some hiking with friends.

At the end of the week, with changes happening due to Covid19, he spent much of his time preparing to work from home, and stepping up in a huge way to help CERT be ready to reach out to the community as needed.  He created a short training for community members who wanted to help before they could complete registration, to keep them safe. CERT moved their website to one that could accommodate more hits and help organize information better for the public.

Not only that but the children and I were adjusting to the fact that they would be staying home at least another week until the school district could figure out what they wanted to do. This is also the school district that I get my sub jobs from and may not be working for if everything moves online.  This is not good for our Yellowstone plans which may not happen either depending on how things go. So we are just seeing were it goes one step at a time and watching the public panic with toilet paper hoarding.  The shelves are MUCH more bare but many items we need like milk and such are still available. Also adjusting to Neal being home to work every day too. It is really hard to sneak sugary treats with this crowd around me!

With the kids home, we are still keeping them to a schedule because we are mean parents and so they don't sit in front of the TV or YouTube all day. I like that we have things planned, though not in depth, because it lets me have fun with the kids. I used to plan a lot of hands-on learning and exploring when they were little but have done so less as they have more school, more homework woes, and run off to be with friends or have their nose in a book or to a screen. So though I miss having more of my day to do what I want, when I want, and not have anyone around, I really am happy for this time together.

We have had them participate in meal planning, grocery shopping, and preparing than before and they are not complaining. We have yummy lunches like healthy 7-layer dip, meatball subs, and breakfasts like French toast and fried eggs as they try their hand in the kitchen more and more. Our dishwasher gave up its will to actually wash so we are doing that as a family too. Which I kind of like because we're working together.

Another benefit is that the kids are seeing what Mom and Dad do during their day and hopefully are increasing their appreciation for what happens while they are in school to make our home and family function.

Other fun things we are doing are online learning expediences, gospel study, family walks/scooter/bike rides, at-home laser tag, reading, chores, and hands-on learning. Yesterday Sophie taught Rhys sumanigashi and we studied why the oil based ink and water don't mix. We saw two snakes on our walk/ride (so cute!).  We took apart a small dam that nature had created and watched what happened. We learned why redwoods can grow as tall as they do and we measured out on the street 379.1 feet to get a visual of how tall the tallest redwood recorded actually was.  We learned how emojis came to be and tomorrow will create a mad lib filling in the blanks with only emoji available words. Tomorrow we are going to the bank to have a banker tell my kids where their money is going and how it works as they make their first deposit. It's been good and not everyday is going to be great but it's not half bad either.

Plain bellied snake seen about 10 ft away from a even smaller rough earth snake on an outing.

Rhys adding energy and movement to his soon to be sumanigashi ink print

Disrupting a small dam on a dam

Measuring the height of the tallest recorded redwood tree--379.1ft. The yellow dot behind her is Rhys in what would be the canopy.

I know the school district is likely to put something in place but I hope it doesn't take away too much of our awesome.  Another great thing is that Texas cancelled their standardized test this year and all I can say is Woohoo! We are having ice cream tonight to celebrate that as a family.

Anyway, a bit disconnected but that's how life is right now. 

Daddy/Son & Mommy/Daughter Time

The weekend before Spring Break, Neal took Rhys camping up at Lake Eisenhower for two nights. They took in a 8 mile hike which was an out and back with a muddy beginning and thus end. So proud of them! They went into town a couple times too. Neal learned that Rhys really likes to play catch which they have seldom done before.

Meanwhile, Keri and Sophie took in some Asian culture--taking in a Japanese Market, visiting a Samurai museum, and trying our hand at sumanigashi (Japanese ink art). Finishing the night with a nice bowl of ramen noodles and TV time.  Can you tell Sophie is into Japan? She and her friend, Cici, started the Asian Cultures Club at their middle school.  The next day we had our beekeeping class.

We Love Neal's Employer

We tell others our favorite sport is hockey. It is a very good pick but it's mostly because Neal's work sponsors the local minor league hockey team and we get occasional free tickets if Neal speaks up fast enough to snatch them. Fun together as a family and the kids didn't bicker this time. Hooray for them!