April 2017 Part One: Track and Crafts and Easter and Clot Trot

Don’t those go together?  No?  Okay… Too much going on in April to make just one post. Even divided into two, this will be kind of long…

Elizabeth started track at her middle school this year.  She is able to sign up for four events at each track meet.  So far she is sticking with shot put, discus, high jump, and the 100 meter dash.  She is learning a lot and trying her best, but mostly just having a great time with friends on the team.

I may have said the same thing on the post last month, but these are new pictures.  She did get a track sweatshirt and I bought her some leggings.

Throwing the discus.  Her discus coach is behind her on the field.  Luckily, she didn’t hit him.

Trying out the high jump…still hasn’t made it over the bar.

I took Vincent and Abby with me to Elizabeth’s track meet the end of April and she offered Abby a piggy-back ride.

Elizabeth and Olivia were able to spend the second part of Spring Break visiting Grandma Mary at Grandma Quilting Camp. My mom designed the blocks and taught them how to make them.  They chose fabric from her collection and arranged the blocks on the quilt in their own order. My mom’s blog about it here and here.

Olivia was quilting the whole day before quilt camp started making four patch squares to be added to a larger quilt later.

Olivia finished the top of her quilt and even helped Grandma start quilting it.  It’s going to be at a quilt show the first week in May.  Elizabeth decided to make extra blocks, so her’s isn’t quite done yet.

While the older girls were away, we had a playdate with some friends. We met them at a park and they played for a few hours. It was awesome.

And then Abby came home and decided to start a flower stand in the front yard where she can sell flowers.  She likes to make up songs too.

Olivia helped to arrange an Easter Egg Hunt for our Primary kids to fulfill one of her Faith in God requirements.  It was on the Saturday before Easter and was pretty well attended. Several Primary kids came over Tuesday afternoon to help fill the eggs and some showed up early to help hide the eggs as well.  I even invited the missionaries to help with that. Olivia planned a few games too.  (This is NOT all the kids who were there.  We had about 40 kids.)

Abby with one of her Easter Eggs.

The Easter Bunny left baskets for our family.

After church we fed the sister missionaries.  I made them special Easter Baskets.  One of them said at her house their baskets were always hidden and they had to find them and she asked if we could hide it for her.  The kids hid them outside before dinner. We took a few pictures too.  Since it was after church, we aren’t all still in church clothes.

Andy would like me to mention that if he’d known we were going to take a family photo, he would have put his tie back on.

Our sister missionaries with their Easter Baskets.

We were able to attend the TENTH annual Clot Trot.  We have been to all of them since they started and because of that, Sam Smith (Andy’s former boss whose son started the Clot Trot as a Boy Scout Eagle project), asked us to be on the news with him the day before.  Andy was gone on a trip for work and couldn’t join us, but I took the kids (SO early in the morning).

The news station wanted us to meet them at the park at six am.  Then there was an emergency, so the anchor who was set up there ended up having to pack up and hurry to the more important story and we went to the news station (we didn’t go to the park first though since Sam sent me a text).  She asked me why we do the Clot Trot each year and I babbled about something like to support Sam and his son initially but also because it’s fun and we can learn more about blood disorders like Hemophilia which is what Aaron has.  Then she asked Abby which race she was going to run: the 10K, the 5K, or the mile.  Abby told her she didn’t know what any of those were.  I answered for her that we usually do the mile.

Miss Washington was at the news studio for a piece that morning too.  We were able to meet her and chat for a little bit before it was our turn.  She’s very nice and is busy with a lot of different things: college, work, and pageant stuff.  She just competed for Miss America and got third runner up.

Just for fun I made up a little timeline of all of our Clot Trot pictures through the years.

I think Andy and Abby are the only ones who haven’t been to all of them.  Some years one or the other of us aren’t pictured, but I think Andy missed two: one due to work (that Sam sent him on) and the other because the run was on a Tuesday and so was mutual.  Abby hasn’t been to all of them because she wasn’t born yet when it started.  Vincent was an infant the first year, but we don’t have a picture of that.

We always like seeing the fire truck Sam owns.

Andy and I drove that old truck in a county fair parade when we were first married and had a local cheer group behind us doing a M-I-C-K-E-Y cheer for hours.  And it was very hot.  Anytime we were too sick of them cheering, we’d pull the siren.

Our family picture for the tenth Clot Trot.

Just the kids in front of the fire truck.

I took Olivia and two of her friends from orchestra to an orchestra concert for Barrage8.  They are a fun band of violins, viola, bass, and guitar along with drums who dance while they play beautiful and fun songs.  They sing as well.  It was a lot of fun to take these girls to the concert.

Vincent’s still taking piano lessons.  I took this photo during one of them.  Audrey Clark is an excellent piano teacher.  He’s learning a lot and sounding better and better all the time.

Morning with Mom at Jason Lee Elementary School.  We had donuts and juice.  So fun.

Our elementary book fair had a fun family event last week.  They had face painting, a book walk, fishing pond, guessing jars, and a few giveaways along with the book fair.  The kids had a great time and brought home several new books each.

The house of our neighbor who passed away last year has been sold.  We are looking forward to meeting our new neighbors soon.

Because Andy and I have been asked to be Pa and Ma on trek again this summer and because of back pain and chiropractic rehab, I’m trying to be better at getting outside and walking more.  Olivia is always quick to be my walking buddy, especially if I tell her we’ll have time to watch “The Voice” on Hulu afterwards.

Between all of that was plenty of school, work, and church callings and the rest of the story which is in Part Two coming up.

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