The first week of March might just turn out to be my favorite week of the whole year. It started off strong with APO's Art and Music concert, where I finally got to play what I have been dreaming of playing for 20 years, ever since I played a simplified version in Albuquerque Youth Symphony: Star Wars!
Our Friday night concert was at Albuquerque High School. It was "established in 1892," and while I'm sure the concert hall has been renovated since then, some of the older orchestra members that attended Albuquerque High as students remembered the stage to be exactly as we found it. Drew, Vivien, and Rafe, McKenzie and Axel Richardson, and Marianne and Josh Beutler all came to support and enjoy. An old friend of Marianne's was there and while they were catching up at intermission the friend pointed me out and said she'd like to meet me because she thought I played very well. Marianne was pleased to be able to say she knew me and brought her over to make the introduction. It turns out that we already knew each other--we both took violin from Shauna Davies growing up! She was in the older group class, so I only knew her by sight, but it was fun to make a connection and I was highly gratified by her praise, especially since she was in town to do Suzuki training with Susan Kempter.
The next day we had special, special visitors. We took them to the Kissing Turtles for a wee hike.
This one is definitely the best turtle head. The rock, not Haley or Rett.
Squeeeeeeezin'.
Do you like Haley's Hades hair? Because I do.
Vivien tried to keep the turtles from kissing.
She brought her scarf and her purse, for fun. She likes to have things.
We drove by the old house for Haley to see, then Nana treated us to Dion's pizza on the way home. That night we went to Erica Bass's house and watched Logan Lucky on their sweet movie-viewing setup. Weston played us the clip from Finding Nemo where Darla is banging on the tank to give his subwoofer a chance to shine. The next day was Sunday and Mom and Haley were both kind enough to help me out as subs in nursery with Bo. Here are all the kids after church pushing little Austin Hess in his wheelchair as fast as they can down the sidewalk. Super safe.
After church we had ward choir at our house and it was fun to show off my mom and sister to all my friends. It was Fast Sunday, so Haley was not really in the mood for singing, but the altos convinced Mom to come sing with them. When choir was over we got ready to go to my concert. Drew watched all the kids. Rett looks like he could fit right in, no?
This concert was at V. Sue Cleveland High School. The school sits right in the middle of its enormous boundaries, but most of the developments that attend the school are at the edges of the boundaries, so it is equally far away from everyone who attends and completely surrounded by desert and landfills (shaded in blue below). The students in our Rio Rancho ward (circled in yellow) went there, and it was about a ten minute drive.
It may be out in the boonies, but it has the best high school concert hall I've ever seen. Wood paneling, balcony seats that wrap around the entire hall. It was a joy to play in! The art displayed was submitted by students around the valley to go with the music. Some pieces matched better than others.
Mom and Haley came, and Krista, Patrick and Michelle, Holly Yorgason and her kids, Bo, Hillary and Miles, the Petersons, and Drew's coworker Emily and her husband. It was so fun! Our concerts are free but many people donate at the door and we also make brownies to sell at intermission (I made a sheet of Margo Mint Brownies). This round of concerts we raised $925 on the bake sale and $2,469 at the door. Our fundraising people were very, very happy! I'm sure our program had something to do with our good turn out. I would be more than happy to play some Star Wars at every concert.
Drew had delicious tacos ready for us when we came home, because he's the best. I think we whiled away the evening on YouTube, wishing Colette were there to show us all the funny things. Here are mom's pretty hands:
Monday morning Haley came to my Masters swim workout with me. She did awesome! Thia was crestfallen when I showed up to the next practice without her. Haley was relieved to hear it, because that morning whenever she had stopped at the wall, all Thia would say to her was, "you should watch your sister swim butterfly" or something not terribly motivating like that. Thia knows how hard I have been working on my strokes (because she is the one who has been making me do it), so I think she wanted to show me off to someone who might care. Here is my butterfly:
"You're improving. Let's put it like that."
Monday was Mr. Merrick's birthday. Nana made a cake for him while I was lazy. Nothing makes me lazier than having a mother and sister in-home to sit and talk to! After countless changes of mind over the preceding weeks, Merrick had finally decided on a Yoda cake, so when the cake was cool we looked up someone's sketch of The Child and did our best to recreate it with frosting and chocolate.
It was a good match for the boy who spent his entire birthday wearing his Daddy's sweatshirt. We didn't even wash his face for his birthday pictures! I think the Mandalorian might be a better mother than me.
Blowing out those candles.
This was probably the nicest present opening we have ever had in our family. All the children were excited to give, no one was jealous or cried about not being the receiver, and Merrick was thrilled with everything.
It made for a pleasant change.
We love this big baby!
Vivien made a sweet card for him out of paint sample cards she stole from Lowe's.
She also made him a cute and tragically fragile monster out of foam, staples, and facial tissues. It was admirable effort on the part of our Vivs, who has improved leaps and bounds at handling other people's birthdays with grace.
Please also enjoy a picture of this piece of cake.
On Tuesday we said goodbye to Nana and Haley and Rett after a most pleasant visit. The kids had parent teacher conferences that afternoon. They are both doing very well. Mrs. Lovato was elated to show me that she had been able to "grow Rafe" as evidenced by his improved test scores, even though he is already one of her best readers. We also learned the sad news that Ms. Descalzo and Ms. Laura's visas were not renewed for next year so they will not be returning to Puesta. It made me a bit nervous for the future of the Bilingual program and start to consider options for next year if they're not able to find good teachers to take their places. I mused about it while I watched the kids show me their favorite things to do on the playground.
Vivien's favorite are these bars.
When we got home I started working on the shoe shelf I had been hoping to have done before Haley and Mom got here. I forgot to check the settings on the Kreg jig before I drilled ALL the holes the first time...
...so I got to do that again. And I thought I had done a very careful job of measuring all the pieces so they would fit perfectly in the closet, but apparently I am not as great an architect as I thought because none of my ends matched up as they ought.
Oh well. It does its job and it lives in a closed closet most of the time, so no one cares about the mistakes. And it's in the shape of the state of Utah, so that makes up for many flaws, surely.
I spent the rest of the week trying to do all the garden chores I should have done last fall and getting ready for this year's garden. There was much to be done.
The first step was to break down the dog kennel. We had posted the panels on classifieds but had no bites, so I wasn't sure what to do with them. Then Rafe's classroom rabbit became too big for the classroom and needed to find a new place to live. He first went to one of Rafe's Spanish-speaking classmates, but they already had 4 dogs and 2 cats and it became too much, so she came to us instead, and we got to re-use all the dog things that had been sitting there making me feel guilty all winter!
Her name is Bella (Spanish for beautiful).
She has been a much handled rabbit, so she is quite tame. It is Annie's special job to make sure she has food and water (Vivien and Rafe trade off emptying the dishwasher and taking out the trash).
I shrunk the kennel by two 6 foot panels to give us a bit more garden space (we'll use the extra panels for plants to climb up this summer), took out all the woodchips that had been the dog poop place, slid all the kennel decking back to the wall, then cleared out all the gravel to get down to the dirt for the garden. The next step was to clear out all the old bales. Drew built me some compost piles up on the retaining wall to hold all the old stuff.
Here is a potato I found that spent all winter moldering in its bale.
Here is a forgotten onion that did much better than molder.
Here is the glorious compost that was inside and underneath all the bales.
It was so beautiful it was almost impossible to resist getting one's hands in it. Dirt like this always reminds me of the feast for the trees when Aslan comes in Prince Caspian. "They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate, in fact, that Edmund tried a piece of it, but he did not find it at all nice."
We had planned to do a straw bale garden again this year, because it went very well last year. But I had just visited Lindsey Bangerter's house where she had a winter garden going in her cool raised beds, and I watched a YouTube video made by a man who sells straw bales talking about how much water a straw bale garden uses and how he doesn't recommend it for a large area (we did use a ton of water in our garden last year), and when I sat down to plan and price out the garden the cost of all the bales gave me pause. So I started scheming about building raised beds. I spent a whole day making a digital rendering of it.
I showed it to Drew and asked him what he thought, hoping he could tell me if any structural improvements to the plans needed to be made, but the entire project was a surprise to him (he understandably thought we were planning to do the bales again since I had not made him privy to all my scheming), so what he heard when I asked what he thought was, "What do you think of doing this project that you don't have time to do?" and of course he said he did not think it was a good idea. And of course that made me huffy, so I asked him for no more advice and proceeded to do my best on my own.
"My best" involved some questionable construction practices that were not kind to my hands. I smashed my ring finger against the sharp edge of one of the boxes when my socket wrench slipped off a lag screw I was trying to tighten up and it completely detached the nail bed from one corner. Rafe was with me and witnessed my wild dance of agony and barely restrained swears. Then about an hour later I did the same thing, but this time took a good chunk out of my index finger's knuckle. I wanted to work through it because I was so close to being done, but I was getting blood all over everything (Dad smearing blood into the caulking came to mind...) so I ran inside to get a band-aid so I could finish before dark. When I came in that night (finished!) I had to pull the skin off to clean it out. It was very deep. I had to lay on the floor for awhile afterwards with my face on the cold wood.
Once the boxes were in and the dirt evenly distributed I laid down some brown contractor's paper to be a weed barrier, then ripped open a couple bags of fall leaves I had saved and spread them over the paper. Then I placed new weed cloth where the beds were not, made a new cinder block barrier, and started moving the wood chips again.
I nearly herniated all my spinal discs pulling out the t-posts we had pounded to be supports for the bale garden, then I spread the rest of the wood chips evenly over the whole garden space. I laid out all the scrap wood we had lying around to see what kind of boxes I could make from it. Once I had them all measured and cut and screwed together, I placed them where I wanted them, scooped the wood chips out of the middle and cut the weed cloth out with a knife. I laid the contractor paper down here too but filled these with the leftover straw from the bales instead of leaves.
It was a very time consuming project. I was lucky we didn't have school the 5th and 6th because of parent teacher conferences to get some of it done (it makes a big difference to not have to take an hour break in the middle of the day to pick up kids). Then we had one more week of school before school got cancelled entirely for the rest of the year, thanks to that now household name COVID-19. He kind of took over the rest of March. And April. But we'll get to that. Let's finish the garden first. After the beds were mostly finished I felt like I wanted a bit more stuff to go on top, so I took the truck, which we own this much of now...
...to the city compost place, way out west of the volcanoes. It is called Compost del Rio Grande!
I pulled up on the truck scale to be weighed, then I drove all the way down past the heavy equipment and airplane hangars full of heaps of decomposing matter to the very end, where I had been instructed to pull up next to a pile of compost as big as my house. I put the truck in park and sat there for half a minute, then I saw in my rear view mirror a huge front loader come zipping around the corner, driven by a tough looking lady with short, spiky gray hair and a cigarette in her teeth. She scraped up a big scoop of the compost and maneuvered around until she could dump it over my truck. It was like being at a car wash, but opposite! Then I had to secure the load with a tarp (I forgot my gloves so I had black hands the whole way home), go back to the scale to be weighed again, and go in to pay. It was $22 for my entire truck bed. The lady at the register took my card with a gloved hand through a tiny slit in the window. I was super lucky I decided to come this day, because my neighbor tried to go the day after and they had closed for infection control purposes! I came home and Drew (who had begun working from home at this point) and I transferred it all to the new beds, he on the truck scooping it into a big tub that could be dumped into my wheelbarrow. So beautiful! So ready for planting!
Ok, back to the 'rona. Drew found this meme that hit the nail right on the head:
March 10 I went to pickleball as usual on Tuesday and as I was leaving Kristin said something about how she had just been to Costco and everyone was loading up on water and toilet paper, so if we needed any, now was probably the time to get it. I couldn't remember if I had toilet paper, so I went by Costco and got a package (I did have half a Costco package at home, but I was not sorry to have an extra one later). On my way home I picked Annie up from what would turn out to be her last day of preschool.
They played with slime.
March 11 the WHO started calling COVID-19 a pandemic, we had 3 confirmed positive cases in New Mexico, and Governor Grisham declared a Public Health Emergency. The schools cancelled out-of-state travel and cancelled or postponed community and parent events. March 12 RRPS started by cancelling/postponing all assemblies, dances, performances, and sporting events until April, and by the end of the day it had escalated to 3 weeks of school closure. I went to Costco again that night, mostly out of curiosity. The lines were the longest I have ever seen and it is the only time I have ever been to Costco and seen empty shelves. I wasn't able to get diapers, ground beef, chicken breasts, a bag of potatoes, milk, or eggs. March 13 With school closures the hospitals started scrambling to figure out childcare options for their work force. They sent out a survey to everyone to determine needs. I sent a text to my manager to let her know that since Drew would be working from home I'd be more available to work. She texted back, "We have needs tonight, tomorrow, Wednesday, and Friday this week. Next week we do on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday." I picked up a bunch of shifts.
I squeezed Rafe and Merrick's well-child visits in this day as well. Rafe jumped up a bit on his height chart, which was no surprise to me as he has woken up in the night crying in pain a couple nights this month. He always has painful growth spurts. I think Drew gave him a heating pad to help him one of the nights; sometimes I'll give him Tylenol if he can't get back to sleep (and if I can wake up enough to remember why he's in pain).
Also, I finally got all the kids their flu shots, 2 months before flu season ends!
Vivien cried the most.
March 14 The internet stepped up to the challenge of educating all the children from home and started offering a bunch of stuff for free. We used some lessons put together by Scholastic for a week or so, in addition to Zearn for math.
March 15 Our first Sunday of no church. We had a sacrament in our living room and spent the afternoon helping Vivien and Rafe prepare Come Follow Me lessons. It looks like the McEwens came over as well. I can't remember if they came over to eat, or just came over after dinner to chat. But here is a ballet the girls put on for us.
March 16 First day of online school. We started Annie back on the reading lesson book as well. She is so much easier to teach than other-children-I-have-had in almost every area of life. She is cruising through the book.
March 17I had been planning a big St Patrick's Day party, with fiddling and dancing and corned beef and Darby O'Gill, but we had to cancel it because half our guests weren't comfortable being a part of a big group with everything going on, and then I picked up a shift for that night. So, we just had our little St Patrick's Day feast by ourselves.
Here's Drew regaling the children with Irish lore.
March 18 Rust changed their visitor policy to no visitors whatsoever this day. L&D patients were allowed one, and if a patient was unable to make decisions their POA could stay but they were basically admitted to the hospital with the patient and could not come and go. Also if the patient was on comfort care they could have one family member at bedside.
March 19 We protested our confinement a little this night and had the missionaries and McEwens over for curry. The missionaries were still out proselyting at this point. I think they got confined to quarters within the next couple days. March 20 Everyone in our ward-ladies GroupMe started making masks for the hospitals this day, swapping patterns and elastic and fabrics. I had to go by the hospital to pay for a team shirt I had ordered. They had the ER entrance all blocked off to be a waiting area for people with COVID-19 symptoms. There are folding chairs and heaters behind the blue screens. I had forgotten my badge so my assistant manager Jolavon came to let me in and told me that it was very quiet on the floor, since all the elective surgeries had been cancelled and people were staying away from the ER. They had had to put a lot of people on standby.
I came back and stopped by Drew's office to say hello. He's got all kinds of things going on at work.
I went to Smith's this day. They were out of eggs and this was the hand soap shelf. It felt like being back in the commissary in Iwakuni!
March 22 I got put on standby this night, then called in at 0100. It was nice to have an evening with my husband and a short shift!
March 23 Governor Grisham issued a "stay at home" order this day that shut down all non-essential businesses and restricted all restaurants to take-out or delivery. March 25 I got put on standby again this night, but they called me in around 20:00 to be "visitor control" at the front desk. It was me and a PT named Tom whose hours in his clinic had been cut and was looking to pick up some more anywhere he could. 5 people came in all night: the Tricore lady with her cooler of labs, a couple family members dropping off belongings for patients, and someone who was looking for the ER entrance. I read Emma and chatted with Tom. One of the ER docs came by on a little stroll to pass the time because it was pretty quiet over there too. There was also a scary security guard who came by and told us about all the guns he has to protect his property in this crazy time; I had just finished reading The Great Alone a few days before and found listening to his conversation highly disquieting. At 0500 the INCIDENT COMMANDER and all the official Pres people came to start the new employee screening process. Every employee is now required to enter at the main doors, contest that they have no symptoms, and have their temperature taken. If they pass the screening they get a sticker and are cleared for work. The line to get in to the hospital is marked with tape 6 feet apart so people can wait their turn safely.
Here are all the people getting ready for the first day.
Our job significantly picked up at 0530 when all the emergency surgery patients started showing up. The majority of the patients were breast cancer patients. The OR charge nurse came by to chat for a bit and told us that they were having to spend a lot more time with the patients because they were already scared going in for surgery and handling their new cancer diagnoses, but now they weren't even allowed to have their family with them.
March 24 Rafe's birthday! We celebrated with the van Langens and Sextons. Since the kids are home all the time and are used to freely hopping back and forth between the three consecutive yards, we decided to give up the futile fight for separation and count our three consecutive houses as one household, sharing whatever germs may come. Rafe really wanted a scavenger hunt to Exegol in the yard, so I made up some clues and hid them. I had tried to write them out the night before to make the day less crazy, but I was so tired after working the night shift that my brain would not work. So I did it while my Texas sheet cake baked.
Either my oven racks are not very straight, or my pans are seriously wonky. Icing covers a multitude of ills.
The clues are long, but I think I'll put them in just for fun.
You want to fight the Emperor? You feel his dark-side pull?
Well, you’ll have to find a trail of clues to get to
Exegol.
The starting place for you is the old, destroyed Death
Star.
A field of
dangerous rubber lies between it and where you are.
The Death Star now is full of holes; it’s green and tan
and dull.
Look for Rey scrapping metal on its half-buried hull.
(Our little Rey action figure was hiding on our jungle gym, the next clue rolled up in her hand)
From here to get to Exegol, you have to cross a field
Full of fast and furious asteroids. I hope you have a shield!
The clue you need is hidden on the surface of just one
of all those little asteroids. It won’t be tons of fun.
Fly through the field and find the clue, but stay light
on your feet,
If you get hit by falling rocks, your journey is
complete.
(They jumped on the trampoline while we threw balls at them. The next clue was taped to the inside of a wiffle ball we threw in)
The path will take you now to the Forest Moon of Endor,
There you’ll find the tallest tree of all, some ewoks,
and more.
The next clue will be waiting with a Wookie from
Kashyyyk.
This will be the tricky part; your future looks quite
bleak.
The Wookie’s great at climbing trees; he’s trying to stay
hidden.
Climb the tree and find him. Go! Do
what you are bidden.
(Chewbacca action figure hidden high up in our ash tree. Krista spotted me climbing the tree to hide it while she was working in her garden and was most alarmed)
You’ve traveled far, but there is more to do before
you’re done.
Your next adventure takes you to the den of a Kushiban.
A monster waits inside the lair, with claws and teeth and
fur.
If you want to find your clue, you’ll have to deal with
her.
Distract the monster, then you’ll creep inside her
darkened den.
Find the clue and run, so you can start your quest again!
(Clue was taped up in the corner of the rabbit house)
Your next clue, I’m afraid, is a bit of a disaster.
It’s gone and fallen into a disgusting trash compactor.
Branches, grasses, vegetables, and leaves will block your
view.
Once you find the nasty mess, then you’ll know what to
do.
Scale the wall, find the clue, then hurry on your way.
The Emperor is gaining power! You simply can’t delay!
(Clue was in a plastic bag tucked in the compost heap)
Hurry quick! It’s
getting late! Empire Day is almost here!
You’ll need to find a speeder that’ll take you far to
near.
Travel through the wilderness to Toshi station, quick!
Jump aboard a speeder, bright blue and shiny slick.
Fly through air and gather close upon the landing
pad.
It’s there that you will have the chance to fight with
Rey’s grand-dad.
(They had to run across the retaining wall to ride the zip line down to the patio, where they were met by Drew in costume with his light saber that makes sounds).
I'm so sorry I didn't get a video! I was frosting the cake.
Rafe specifically wanted a Mon Calamari Cruiser for his cake. We ate spaghetti dinner, then sang him a Happy Birthday and all ate enormous pieces of "delicious confectionery."
When friends had gone home he opened presents in the Birthday corner.
We love this handsome lad!
And he loves Star Wars. My Primary Secretary's ex-husband was a great Star Wars collector and she passed a few of the toys she ended up with after their divorce on to me. Rafe (and Drew) were thrilled.
March 27 Schools announced they would be closed for the rest of the year. Vivien was heartbroken. Also this day Michelle knocked on my door, gray-green and trembling, and said she thought she'd broken her arm. She had come down the stairs and thought she'd just step off onto Elliot's hoverboard and go for a ride around the kitchen, but she lost her balance and fell back on her elbow. She went to urgent care to get some images taken and had indeed broken her arm.
Michelle's xray
She was supposed to have surgery the next Monday, but with all the craziness happening she didn't get put on the schedule. She had to have an appointment with the surgeon first and then he was able to push the surgery to "essential" status and get her in the following Monday. I was supposed to work this night, but I got put on standby, went to bed, and woke up snug in bed the next morning! Such a wonderful feeling.
March 29 Bishop Sego and Erin came by to give Merrick and Rafe their birthday treats and check up on us. Visits seem like such an event when you don't see anyone anymore!
Outdoor birthday visit
March 30 Annie's preschool was also cancelled for the rest of the year. Her teacher brought by a bag full of all her things. Annie was initially excited to see the things, but then devastated that she won't get to go back. She loves her friends! She has greatly missed getting to go to their houses to play.
And she loves her teacher. It was a pretty sad ending to an incredible year. And next fall (assuming we are all still alive) she will be off to kinder.
Please remember that every development and announcement this entire month was welcomed with the choicest memes the world has seen to date. While my Google photos stream is full of kids and birds and plants, Drew's is choc full of wonderful things he has found on the internet and saved. It's almost like having Colette around. Here are 3 of my favorites.
We went on a couple hikes in March. The first was to Sandia Cave. We had to drive about 4 miles on a rough dirt road, but Drew took the van in to work so I could take the truck and we therefore had no trouble. It's been a very convenient vehicle for this sort of thing. There was another family there when we were loading up to go. As I walked to my door to hop in, one of the men breathlessly called across to me, "Do you like your Chevy?" I said I did, especially for drives like this. He added wistfully, "I want one." This has happened pretty much any time I've driven the truck anywhere.
We looked at the frozen puddle for a little while. Bubbles trapped under ice are always cool.
I did not choose this outfit
Then it was hiking time! Rafe insists on climbing every mountain.
There were times when it was warranted due to muddy trails.
Littler people can't climb as well as him, but still insist on climbing all the things he does, so he was soon far, far ahead.
The cave entrance is up high in the rock face and is accessed by a twisty stair.
There were many spooky noises made at the entrance.
We had stopped by Walmart on our way out to get everyone a new head lamp of their own. It was very exciting for them all.
The cave was dusty and low and surprisingly long (I think I read 140 meters).
The kids were perfectly sized for walking straight through.
They soon left me bear crawling along behind them in the dust. I had forgotten to change the batteries in my headlamp, so I was left with only my feeble beam and the sound of my breath in the close darkness. Definitely got the heart pumping.
We finally got to the end of the space big enough for kids to be comfortable in.
They squeezed themselves into a low room.
I squeezed my head in, but felt sure I would not be able to fit my body in there with them, or get out without squashing them all.
We made our way back to the entrance to descend the stair...
...show off our dusty buns...
...and enjoy a snack.
Here follows individual pictures.
I love Annie's eyebrows pinned up under her head lamp.
It is hard to eat an apple without front teeth!
Our beautiful Vivs.
The view from the cave entrance.
Some cool lichen on the trail.
Back at the parking lot the kids wanted to go down to look at the river. I took this picture and then Merrick fell in, so we left.
We also went and explored the Piedras Marcadas trail in Petroglyph on a day of questionable weather.
We only got rained on a little bit.
There were tons of petroglyphs on this trail. And parking was free!
It's such an interesting landscape with those big black basalt rocks.
Vivien said she felt like this area was definitely "restorated" now.
We counted it as "school" by observing all the different wild flowers we could see and discussing their differences.
I should have come home and identified them...
...but I didn't!
These cheery yellow ones were nice too.
Merrick found some more and wanted me to take a picture of them, so I took a picture of him and them.
We saw a big ol' jack rabbit and even a coyote! It was a nice outing.
Drew also took the kids to the Rio one of the days I was sleeping after work, but I wasn't there so I don't know what to say about it.
How else have we spent our days in quarantine? Or as some people on the internet have been spelling it, corn teen? We have all lost the ability to awake before 8am.
We have played with LEGO.
Even when we were supposed to be asleep.
The zip line has gotten a lot of use and the soccer net took so much misuse that it finally broke into pieces. Levi and Joel used the scraps to make handles for the cart they designed to sit on top of their hoverboards.
Rafe set up his home office in the garage.
The kids go to the Sextons or van Langens when they want to swing.
We have watched many movies (the kids loved Onward).
We love it when Merrick rests his little hand on our shoulders.
We have practiced our music.
We have taken a few stabs at potty training and given up just as many times.
We have played Funny Bones.
We have enjoyed treats together.
People have cut their hair.
Who it was, I still don't know.
Merrick ripped the tip of Bella's ear off.
He is now forbidden from entering her cage unattended.
I think she forgave us, but I'm not sure.
At least we know she likes us when we feed her.
There has been much riding of bikes in the front yard. Annie has a little piece of hair sticking up from her helmet in the picture below.
She's been trying really hard to figure out her roller skates, helped patiently by her best older sister.
We have decorated our garden wall with sidewalk chalk.
So cool!
We have had family dinners.
We have learned new Spanish words.
And played Spanish games. I bought a Muzzy subscription the kids have been enjoying immensely. And I came up with a Spanish game that doesn't make anyone cry!
We have oohed over sunsets and aahed over supermoons.
We have discovered a Siberian Elm in our retaining wall. According to the internet they are the worst tree in the world. I also discovered a Rudyard Kipling quote that amuses me: "Elm hateth man, and waiteth/Till every gust be laid." We shall rip it out, because they can grow to be 70 feet tall. A retaining wall seems like a bad place for a tree that size.
We have thoroughly enjoyed watching Spring spring.
These nectarine blossoms are so cool. They start a pale pink...
...then their centers get darker...
...until the whole tree is hot pink.
And this beautiful thing I think may be the pride of the cul-de-sac in March. It is surrounded by trees that are late bloomers, so we all appreciate it's cheery blossoms.
Now if I could just keep the littles from picking the bulbs...
We have loved watching this handsome pair of phoebes swooping over the lawn in pursuit of flies.
And the Cooper's hawk definitely keeps all the doves on their toes.
Here are some "green eggs and ham" burritos we had some morning. This is my favorite way to use up Spinach quickly.
And here is a side view of the finger I smashed, right before I drilled a hole in the nail to relieve some of the pressure. The whole nail has come off now and is very ugly.
I think that's all I've got for March. What a weird month it was!
