Jordan's Track and Field

Jordan has become more athletic over the years. He doesn't always put as much effort into sports as he does with Art and Science, which is alright, but this year he did great at Track and Field. I was so excited because they have two new events when they enter 3rd grade. Shot Put and high jump (which is my NEW favorite). I could've just sat and watched high jump the whole time. It was SOOO much fun. Jordan also got selected to be in a relay race with four of his buddies. .....they finished :) and that's what counts right? ;) They tried hard and apparently someone jump the gun which threw them off at the beginning. All-in-all a very great job and hard work done by my big boy!

Shot Put

High Jump!!!

Distance Run: This one surprised me the most. Jordan hasn't put a lot of effort into his distance runs and more or less lolligags, but he RAN! :) Way to go!



Softball throw


50 yard dash


Long jump


Relay Race

Sydney's Track and Field

Last year Sydney got the flu for Track and Field and only could do a couple of events. This year she was feeling fine. Each kid gets a card that gets marked with a ribbon color, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green according to how they performed. The first event was my least favorite...the shoe kick. Really??? To me they could've come up with something more than a shoe kick. The funny part was it was the one event Sydney and her friends practiced the most. They loved it!

Next was jumping rope.

Softball throw

Long jump

50 yard dash

Distance run

Tug-a-war

Mother's Day

Mother's day is always fun because the kids and Arlie have fun spoiling me. My morning started with coffee in bed (I finally convinced the kids I don't need a huge breakfast and i don't enjoy eating in bed ;) ) and with gifts. My favorite gifts are always the fun homemade things they make me or things that they write that describe me.

I had to teach my toddlers at church so I asked Arlie and the kids to help me for Mother's day. They did and it was fabulous. It was so nice having them in there and it made it so much easier with all the additional help. After that we went to Osaka and had Sushi and Hibachi. We had a "dream roll" which was just that...Dreamy. Note to self: The dream roll is 2 on my sushi delicious list.

The thing I love to do the most is be outside and go hiking. Unfortunately when we got out of Osaka....it was rainy :( YUCK. We decided to go to a movie. We had a groupon to go to the New Hope Cinema. They were playing the movie Hop and we thought the kids would love it. They did...I thought it was really dumb. Typically I can handle kids movies, but this one wasn't one I'd want to watch again. Thankfully I loved watching the kids watch it. I love watching their expressions and the joy they get out of silly moments in the movie. That part made me very happy.

Fortunately after the movie the rain had stopped. We went and found a cool spot in Maple Grove that had a Frisbee golf course and walked around there for awhile. Definitely my favorite part of the day. I made the kids pose for some pictures, we got a little muddy, and found a great place to come back to. The kids played at the playgroup. Arlie and I hung out and admired a tree that we decided we wanted in our yard...however, we have yet to figure out what it is. Dad? ;) After putting the kids in bed, we watched a chick flick. It was a lovely day. Nothing like being spoiled and adored all day! I love my family! I could do pretty much anything and if it was with them, I'd enjoy it (even Monopoly and Swimming ; )).

Summer grilling..oh yes!

Nothing smells more like summer than sunscreen, spring rain, fresh cut grass and GRILLING! I love to grill. I know that technically you can grill when it's winter and cold outside, but we never do. The best part is it becomes a treat when we can grill then. We got propane and fired up the grill. I went to turn on the other side of the grill and saw a lovely HUGE mouse nest. It definately put a bit of a damper on my excitement for grilling. Thankfully Arlie took it out and now grilling is lovely again!

Life is always better on the other side

The guardian of the fish

Blaine Junk Carnival

Every year our neighborhood has a HUGE garage sale weekend. There are over 250 sales. Along with the garage sales there are food vendors, other vendors, biffy's set up around the neighborhood, jumping castles for kids, Mascots walking around and tons and tons of people. There are cars lined up and down the streets, people pulling wagons, strollers and carts. People traveling by foot, bike, golf cart, and 4 wheelers. It's absolute craziness. It's a super fun time to people watch. My favorite are the scopers. They drive around and look for specific things like furniture or small motor things like our broken down snow blower that doesn't work ;) They drive in a big truck and slow down at every sale to see if they have what they want. If they do, they sometimes pull over...sometimes just stop and jump out. Ask how much you want, whip out the money, load it up and are off to grab the next thing. I think they are extremely entertaining! It's always the first Saturday in May if you ever want to experience the Junk Carnival first hand. It's pretty phenomenal.

The pictures aren't very good because I didn't want to bring a big camera out and have people wonder why I'm taking random pictures of them. I brought out my little junky point and shoot and held it at my waist and took them like a spy :) What can I say? I'm sneaky :)