The birthday parties continued with N attending AB’s party complete with a trip to Get Air. These girls have had a lot of fun together over the past month!
Easter morning finally came on April 20th this year. Here is a picture Natalie took of us when we got home from the special Sacrament meeting. Since our children aren’t huge fans of ham, we opted for fish this year and used a recipe from our copycat cookbook for salmon that turned out well with the Stealhead from Costco. The entire meal was delicious and I was grateful to have our entire family plus my mom together even though my Dad wasn’t feeling well. We opted for the bunny rabbit cake pan for our cake this year instead of the demented sheep. Lol And I got Danny (Kate declined) to participate in the egg hunt by letting him know there was a $20 bill up for grabs and he got it!
The weather has been close to perfect this spring. Just in time because also happening Easter weekend was the beginning of kennel training Maisie. Yes, we realized that she has been sneakily peeing in our bedroom and playroom at night and while we weren’t at home. We found professional carpet cleaners willing to take on the task and I finally agreed to Hubby’s desire to keep Maisie in a crate at night. It has been terrible! She will randomly start barking at 11pm, 2, 3, or 5am and can do so for an hour. If it wasn’t for Hubby’s steadfastness I would have given up by now. One of the consequences of this kennel training is I am waking up about an hour earlier than I’m used to, which has led to things like sunrise walks in hopes of letting the other members of our household sleep. I am exhausted but I have enjoyed those mornings when we walked a mile together.
Kate and Danny are thrilled the dog is facing the consequences of her actions. One night there was cheese stuck on a pan so I let her work on the cheese for me while I went to check on the laundry and both Kate and Danny texted me photos of her with the pan. And one day when I came home for lunch I found Maisie in the crate (we put up a kiddie gate to keep her off the upstairs carpet while we are away) and trash on the ground. Kate had discovered Maisie had gotten in the trash, cleaned up some of the evidence, and locked her in the kennel. The dog was so upset. If only Maisie could understand her behavior is the reason for all this drama! We will survive. Hopefully. Lol
Michelle’s tennis season has come to an end. She has enjoyed her time on this team so much. Such a wonderful group of girls supporting each other at every turn. I’m glad she had such a good time and grateful for all the people who made this a great experience for her.
Michelle also had a wonderful day volunteering with a local nonprofit for a day. She and her friends A & R got to help the videographer interview attendees and record the event. Michelle shared with me a wonderful story of a speaker who had been helped by this nonprofit. At one point her husband had lost her job, she was doing everything she could to earn money, they were about to lose their house, and she had found out her son had had a daughter but he and her mom could no longer care for her. Since she was a cosmetologist she sold gift baskets including certificates for services to be rendered in the future. She needed a 7k payment to save her home and only had 6k. After praying for help and applying for a grant, AWW was able to give her a timely 1k, allowing her to keep her home. Her husband got a good job at the same place Hubby works and they were able to adopt their granddaughter. Michelle said the story made her want to cry and I felt the same way she told it to me. I am so grateful for wonderful people coming together to help others and that my daughter could be a help at their fundraising event this year.
No April post would be truly complete without some pictures from our time at a field! I got to take Natalie to her first two games of the tournament and I had to laugh because I started with a winter coat and hat and outdoor blanket and by the time the game was over I ditched the coat and blanket and switched out my winter hat to my visor before the second game began. The weather had been rainy all day the day before but absolutely wonderful for softball all day. Our girls are showing improvement as a team and won their 1st game 17-8 and their 2nd game 13-7. Natalie had a couple confusing at bats and one solid hit but got out at 1st. But don't worry, after walking to the local burrito place and having a picnic on our outdoor blanket plus some fun at the playground with her teammates and other children, her 3rd game was much better with two solid hits and RBIs. They were very happy to win all 3 of their games that day, winning the 3rd game 13-6. Hubby, Michelle, and my dad had come down and joined us for the 3rd game so I told them they should come more often because she was doing better the game they were there. Natalie's assistant coach, M, took a photo of the fan club for us. I am grateful Michelle was willing to come support her little sister after participating in her last tennis match of the season and supporting her tennis teammates after her match was over. She paid for it with a sunburn!
While the girls were at the ball fields other teams had made cute clothespins with encouraging sayings and would sneak the pins onto the girls' braids or bags. It made the day so much more fun so our team got together at the head coach's house to make clothespins to pass out the next day. They had so much fun! Natalie enjoyed passing out the clothespins the next day and received another. Hubby and Natalie went to softball while Michelle and I went to Church. Natalie’s team won the first game but lost the second. Since it was a single elimination tournament that meant they came home to have lunch instead of continuing on. They came home dusty, a little sunburned, and tired but content. Such a beautiful day for softball.
Below is a photo from when I delivered sodas and help set up for the high school basketball banquet before needing to leave to take Danny to comp basketball practice. I just wanted to leave this here as a tribute to all the parents who tried to make basketball season better. I am grateful for them. Someday I hope we can make it to the banquet itself.
On Saturday morning 3 of our 4 children were playing a sport at the same time! While I was watching Natalie's softball games I was also getting updates in the Team Snap app about Danny's 3rd & 4th basketball games in Memphis. They had quite the journey out there and sounds like a much different experience than they ever had before traveling to a tournament. First of all, their flight that had been scheduled for 7:30 pm didn't take off until around 11:30pm. I had dropped the kid off at the airport at 5:45 so he got so bored waiting! Then went they got to the airport the rental car place was closed so they had to uber to their hotel, not getting there until around 4am. Luckily their first game wasn't until 5:30pm that night but they got "destroyed" according to Danny's texts to me later. He mentioned that there was a guy that was 6'8" tall that would just dunk the ball and that the average height in the building was 6'3" and that with this brand new New Balance league they were playing against much better teams than they were used to. Their 2nd game was a win because the other team had to forfeit. I bet they traveled individually like we used to have to do with Kate's volleyball team because half of their players got stuck trying to get from Idaho to Tennessee at DIA. Imagine flying all that way to watch your sons play 2 v 2 because of flight cancellations. Oof. I hope they were able to play in the rest of their games. Game 3 sounded like an amazing game, with Danny's teammate making a 3 pointer to win the game by 1 point at the last second, bringing the final score to 54-53. The last game was more like the first. Hubby picked him up at the airport and brought him home to us late that night but at least this time there were no delays. Danny said Memphis overall was probably the worst city he had ever been too. It was dirty and scary. There were shootings and the boys literally saw 2 body bags on their trip. The one thing the team did outside of playing basketball was to eat delicious bbq. So there was one redeeming trait to Memphis! Danny told Hubby and I to reconsider going with him the next time he has a tournament in Memphis -- but we already paid for our airplane tickets, rental and hotel all with points so I guess we are going this summer after all.
Above are the 2 photos Danny sent me from his time in Memphis. lol
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