Kristiana's Garden

 Kristiana has been asking for a garden.  So we decided to let the kids have one.

 Tabitha was so happy to help, but it was limited.

 Everyone was happy to help.  It was sunny, but cold.

And maybe that should have been a clue.  Within three days the frost had killed more than half of what we planted.  But they are dutifully taking care of the what has survived.  We promised Anna more plants next year.

My Birthday

The only picture that was taken, but I took it with my brand new camera lens!  Happy Birthday to me.

Jeremy Soccer

 #20 Jeremy  Team: Eagles

 For a first game, and not understanding the rules of the game, Jeremy did great.

 As we are not a soccer family the game was a bit confusing to both Jeremy and us.  I think I need to find a Soccer for Dummies.  Off sides seems to be a bit subjective.

 It was quite the work out and the field was so uneven - just look at that grass!

 It is a co-ed team.

 Alas, it was a loss, but both sides played hard.  Oh, and they are wearing the exact same jerseys.  To save time and a headache the league buys all the same age groups the same jersey.  Then in a game you simply put "pennies" on one team to tell them apart.  This is going to be an interesting ten weeks.

Dreamsong

 Jeremy's 7th grade band played at the ISSMA festival at 8:30 this morning.  He had to get up at 5:30.

 He loves to play the trombone.  He's been disappointed that all year long no one has challenged his first chair status. 

 The second song they played was Dreamsong and Jeremy switched to the piano for this piece.  Never before has there been a piano player in this band, but for this piece they needed one.  The Jazz band pianist is in this band so Mr. Christian automatically gave it to her, but Jeremy challenged and was awarded the slot.

 It was a proud moment to sit there and listen to him play (he had two solos) with the whole band.  I have video of the whole thing on Facebook.

He did a marvelous job and the band took Gold.  Congratulations Jeremy and the 7th Grade band!

The end of Gymnastics (for a bit)

 Kristiana's new gymnastics outfit!

 She is doing so much better than sixteen weeks ago.

 The closest I could come to a group picture.

 Kristiana, Aleesa and Natalie.

 So to celebrate the end of sixteen weeks we went out for frozen yogurt.

 Now Kristiana and Natalie can't wait until they can do it again.  (Natalie didn't do the past eight weeks.)

Brown County - Girls Weekend Away

 Kristy & Jenny.  Two very good friends.  2011 was a bad year for all of us so last year we went on a retreat together.  We had so much fun that we decided we would do it every year.  To top it off we called it a birthday celebration since our birthdays are close enough.  This year we rented a cabin in Brown County.

 We didn't think about the fact that it was Spring Break and would be crowded!  We went to the pool the first night and couldn't even swim it was so crowded.  Last year we practically had the pool to ourselves.  Then the adventure began during the lifeguards break (so everyone was out of the pool).  The fire alarm went off. 

 It was 9:30 at night.  We were wet, without towels or flip flops (two of us anyways) and we had to leave the pool house and go to the far end of the parking lot.  Once outside we stopped to put on our shoes before trekking across the parking lot in the dark.  Luckily, they cleared it and let us shivering folks back in.  And it cleared out the families with kids that were waiting for the lifeguard break to be over.  We were able to swim and enjoy the last twenty minutes of the pool being open.

 Our cottage was tiny and cold.  It had heat, but I was cold all night.  The other two weren't.

 We went on some hikes.

 These stairs were at the beginning of the second hike.  We were not looking forward to coming back up these.

Up them we did go at the end of a four mile hike.  Hurray!!  We made it.  It was such a fun time.  Can't wait for next year's adventure.  Where will we go?