End of School Year Festivities

Since things are opening up, I don't really feel like we are 'quarantined' so much anymore, although we are still supposed to be social distancing as well as wearing masks when in public places if you are 10 years of age or older. Businesses can now have 50% capacity instead of 25%. Last Thursday we had an 8th grade send off for the students at my school. The staff all stood out on in the parking lot, while the parents drove their students by in their cars waving. Perhaps, I didn't social distance appropriately when I saw some of my favorite students. I am going to miss them!!!!

Afterwards, a few coworkers and I went to a local restaurant to celebrate my birthday! So fun!

I started another labor intensive project last week that took until this week to finish. Honestly, I was not planning on it taking me days to complete, but it did. Some of the expansion joints in our driveway and side walk have rotted and a few have come out. Some stuck up a little and I was afraid someone was going to hurt themselves by tripping on it. So, I bought a product called Trim A Slab that is a rubber material to replace the wooden expansion joints. Placing the Trim A Slab was not hard, it was the removal of the old expansion joints. Very few pieces came out whole, so there was a lot of chipping away of wood in the heat. But, I am super pleased with the finished product!

This week, the pool opened up on Memorial Day, so I took the boys to swim. The water was rather chilly due to the recent rains, but that didn't stop the boys!

We have been doing a lot more bike riding! Last week Camden and I went and rode bikes while Shane and Casen were at baseball practice. We were riding on a trail that we have ridden on several time before that has a few mud holes. There are a few mud holes that have a very narrow place to ride beside, which has never really been a problem, until today. Somehow, I fell smooth into a mud hole and was drenched in stinky mud! Good times and lots of laughs!

There is a great climbing tree in one of the neighborhoods we go through to get to the trails and the boys love to climb it! Camden is getting braver and braver trying to go higher and higher. 

Even though the boys finished their school work last Friday, their 'official' last day of school was today. We of course had to take our obligatory last day of school pictures to compare to the first day of school. My, how Casen changed over the year!!! 

It was allergy shot day for Casen today, so he and I dawned our face masks and he got his shot!

This afternoon, the teachers from the boys school did a End of Year Celebration Parade and drove through the neighborhoods where their students go to school. Camden and I picked up his best friend Cole, went to Dairy Queen and got blizzards for everyone and then met Casen and Shane to watch the parade. The boys enjoyed getting to see some of their former teachers.

And of course, our sweet Nina. She is doing good with her potty training and enjoys being held like a baby. She LOVES to drink water, be it out of her dish, off the dew covered grass, or out of the down spouts after a rain. She has been sleeping through the night for weeks now, but still like to get up sometime between 6:30 am and 7:00am. Now, if we could just move her wake up time a little later. . . She has her appointment for her final set of shots next week and we are looking forward to that so we can start taking her for walks.

Quarantined - Week 9

This week has consisted of school, soccer tryouts, riding bikes on the trails, picking up the boy's school work and supplies from school, slime making, ''real" haircuts and celebrating my birthday. 

When Casen went to baseball, Camden and I headed to the trails and then when Camden went to soccer (which started back Monday) Casen and I went to the trails. We had lots of fun exploring new parts of the trail.

Camden had soccer tryouts on Monday and Wednesday, which looked very different than any other tryout he has had, thanks to COVID. Each boy had to sanitize their hands with hand sanitizer before entering the field. They were each assigned a 6 foot square box where they were to put their soccer bag and to remain in for the tryout. They were not allowed to touch their ball with their hands, only their feet. Camden said he was not nervous at all, which was good. He made U11 gold again, which was expected as several weeks ago all the parents who have boys born in 2010 had a Zoom meeting with the coaches to discuss how they envisioned the teams from this point forward. For the past several years a hand full of the boys, including Camden, have played up a division, meaning they played with the boys born in 2009. They were wanting that handful of boys to no longer play up so that they teams would even out and they would have a strong U11 team. They still want the boys to play with those born in 2009, which is great, so it looks like Camden's main team will be the U11 gold and he will also play up on the U12 gold team. That should definitely keep him busy on the weekends!

Wednesday, the boys and I headed up to school to pick up their items that were left in the classroom as well as drop off library books. It was hard to believe that everything they had at school fit in a brown paper bag. Camden received his art work, however Casen will not receive his until next school year.

This is Camden's last year at Willow Creek Elementary, as next school year he moves to his daddy's intermediate school. Instead of having fun step-up party pics, I instead took pics of he and his brother in front of the school.

Once we got home, we made some puffy slime and then headed to get haircuts since the salons finally opened back up this week. Everyone was glad to get their ears lowered!

We (meaning I) had a slight issue with the pepper plant. It has been looking great and has several peppers on it. We have been wondering when the largest one, which we have been watching for weeks, was going to turn red. So I was looking at it and touched it to turn it a little and it pulled right off the vine. I felt horrible. Regardless, I cleaned it and Camden ate some of it, although he said it wasn't as sweet as it should have been. I vowed to no longer touch any of the peppers from here on out!

Today was my 47th birthday . . . ugh!!! So not a fan of birthdays, although I guess I should be glad I am alive to celebrate them. Earlier this week I got a new bike for my birthday so our family can go ride the bike trails together. I was able to go and eat lunch with two women who I adore earlier this week and then today I received Tiff's Treats from two different friends who obviously know me very well!!! I spent the day finishing a 2000 piece puzzle that I have been working on a month! I was bound and determined to get the darn thing done and finally did! We went and ate Mexican food at our favorite restaurant and then had ice cream cake once we returned home! 

The 2000 piece puzzle that has been giving me grief!

"M" for mom!

Quarantined - Week 8

Earlier this week the Blue Angels flew over Houston as a tribute to all the essential health care workers. The boys and I packed up after I got off of work and headed to the mall to watch from the parking lot. We saw them, but it honestly was only about 5 seconds and I felt horrible because of those 5 seconds the boys maybe saw them 1 second because I made them turn and look at me so I could get a picture, of which I chopped off their chins. . . big mom fail!

If you look hard, you can see them between
the tree and the building.

On Wednesday, one of our neighbors who has a son Camden's age (and who was on Camden's very first soccer team when they were 4) asked if she could take the boys over to some bike trails to let the boys ride. There are apparently some trails along with a BMX trail a few neighborhoods over that you can get to taking some trails. Knowing they would absolutely love it and that she would take good care of them, we let them go. They were gone 2 hours and had the time of their lives. They can't go back soon enough!!!

Once they got home, Shane took the boys to pick out some flowers for me in honor of School Nurse Day. Casen wanted to get me a bouquet of flowers and Camden wanted to get me a plant, so they got both! I love to see the boys different choices and appreciate them acknowledging what I do. 

I only thought I was done with hours and hours of work on my flagstone pathway. After looking at it and talking with my mom, I decided I should extend it to the edge of the porch. I wasn't sure it would be able to happen because I thought all the flagstone had been hauled off from my sisters. But that was not the case, they still had her patio to do. The only thing different with those pieces, were they were not as thick, but they had a very thick layer of concrete on them that had to be chiseled off. What is a little extra work, right? And of course, more river rock to dig out . . . But after days of work, the job is done and I am so glad I extended it out! Now to dig out all the river rock on between the path and the fence and plant something on each side . . .

I spy with my little eye . . . a snake!

Yesterday was our nephew, Gavin's birthday. So after Shane's parents went and spent some time with his sister and her family and did a little celebrating with Gavin they headed over to our house. Papa Ron brought a mountain bike for Shane to keep for a bit so they could ride trails together and also brought his motorized bike. The four of them headed to the trails so the boys could show it to their daddy. Once they came back, I went with Shane and the boys and it was fun! We have now decided I need a bike so we can all go on bike rides together. Later in the evening we had a Zoom birthday party where we all sang happy birthday to him, watched him open presents and then had cake (which Nana picked up on the way to our house).

And of course today is Mother's day. We got up, ate some breakfast, watched church on line and then the boys had written a few songs they wanted to play for me. So we all headed upstairs where Camden played the guitar, Casen played the drums (pillow) and they sang the songs they wrote. I must say, they did awesome! They have been sneaking up to the guest room off and on all week working on the song. I love the relationship they have where they enjoy doing things together and can work together to create music.

There was another fly over today with vintage planes that the Lone Star Flight Museum organized. We headed to the elementary school across the street from our neighborhood and watched them from there. They were kind of far away, but were still fun to watch. We then came home and had some fried chicken and got our bellies full. After eating, Camden received an Amazon package he had been waiting for. He received some birthday money this week in the mail (a nice surprise) and he wanted to buy a yo-yo and a sleep mask. Well, just so happens the yo-yo, as well as the sleep mask he wanted both came with two, which he thought was great because he could share with his brother. So, now they are working on how to yo-yo. 

Waiting for the planes.

This pictures absolutely cracks me up!!!

Our sweet Nina girl!