Spring Highlights 2022

Spring puts people in the mood for beauty, I decided a family art project was in order.  I'd like to say everyone enjoyed the exercise, but one person got really annoyed with having to use color not mentioning any names.....Lance

"The Wall That Heals" is a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial.  It was in our area the first week of April and we had the honor of attending a docent led tour with our friends.  It was truly informative and emotional experience.  Our docent was amazing, he presented the timeline of the war and the history of the memorial an incredibly engaging way.  We stood among many Vietnam Veterans as we experienced the memorial, it was interesting to hear their add-on chatter as our docent told the story and one even told the story of how 40+ names ended up on the wall rather quickly one day as the troop transports next to his helicopter tragically fell.  Needless to say the my kids minds went back to Uncle Ryan as we saw survivors trace the names of their fallen comrades.  It was sobering, but so important that history not be forgotten.  My house at least will remember and share true history with their own.

We went from serious on Friday to fanciful on Saturday as the boys attended their first Cars and Coffee Car Event.  It was "Ferrari Day".  Lance loves Ferraris and he was so excited that one of the guys actually let him sit inside his car.  My boys and girl all love ICE Vroom, though since it was a bit chilly Amber and I did choose to stay home for some girl time.

This Winter I finally went ahead and bought a grain mill and bread maker.   I was determined I could make bread that we could eat; that didn't taste like junk.  I was right about quickly being able to make something edible but it took till now to truly perfect the process.  We are all so thankful to be eating real bread again.

Lance is very happy to announce "I'm a Daddy!"..... a shrimp daddy that is.  He hopes to breed enough to eventually sell them, for now he's just enjoying them.

For the past eight years we have tried to get grass to grow in our backyard, we've done seed, sod and even just tried getting clover to grow but eventually it all just washes away.  The kids are all too big now to really use the yard as a play area so we decided we'd try and slowly just turn it into a shade garden.  Then Titus came up with another idea, he decided we should put a dry river bed in with a pond, along the path of the drainage.  He and Amber got right to work and you can see in our Annual Easter Egg Hunt photos the early progress.

Friends came to watch Titus' baseball game today, which was really nice since Lance and Daddy couldn't be there because of Lance's game.  Titus of course did a great job in the field and at bat.

Little Miss continues to improve as an equestrian.  She started learning her two-point and "jumping" cross ties.

Thanks to a friend not needing some things Amber's room got a mini-remodel too.

The crazy carts had been garaged for a while but they are back out in force again.  The kids build these elaborate tracks around the court and spend the afternoons racing single and in teams.

Kids have been helping out the grandparents when they can lately.  We brought over a variety of our Canna the other day to fill in a spot between them and a neighbor.  While we were there, Frank asked Titus if he could help him with a building project.  About a week later he and Frank had a great time building a chicken coop together.  Frank said he was so impressed with Titus that he has a bunch of other projects for them to do together.  It's a win-win them working together; Titus gets to learn many tricks-of-the-trade and Frank gets things done on his to-do list. Amber is over frequently to visit the new chicks and help Mary around the kitchen.  Jared helps with the yard and Lance recently helped fix an oil leak on his truck (The shop put the wrong oil filter in).

When not working on other peoples cars, Lance has been working on Homer.  Earlier in the year he replaced all the break pads and recently he did an engine clean, replaced the spark plugs (what a huge difference) and smoothed out some old dents. I really think he's going to enjoy learning more about cars over the summer and a Wake Tech next year.