The beach with Lily

 On one of the asynchronous days, Alice got invited to go to the lake beach with Lily's family. Alice was thrilled! She painted a picture to commemorate the day.

My new chair

For my birthday I got something I should've gotten a long time ago: a portable chair to sit in when I'm at creeks with the kids. So much better now that I can relax and read!

Simon's Legos

 The kids go through long phases of not playing with the legos and then suddenly building something. Simon went through a little creation phase recently. I wish he would play with legos more, actually. Although it does make the living room very messy.

Sera's 41st Birthday

Another year of being here on this amazing planet spinning around the sun with my loved ones.

Alice and Izzy

 We have Izzy over on Sundays often. She and Alice play pretty well together.

The Furry Cat

 Simon is going through a book-writing phase. Most of the books involve a furry cat who needs to shed. Some of his other tomes are works of non-fiction about types of fish.

Simon's April Fish

 

Simon caught way more fish than this, but he usually fishes alone so there's no one to document his successes.

NC Botanical Gardens

 We went to the botanical gardens to get some ideas for our yard, which we are starting to populate with plants now that the hardscape is mostly all in. We got some native plants at the plant sale, then took a hike down to elephant rock and played at the river for a while.

Cat lady

 The cat often comes into Alice's room in the evenings during story time, so she'll pet the cat while we read to her, and then the cat sleeps on her bed with her. Unfortunately, the cat also wakes her up early every morning by meowing a lot.

More days off...

 After a week of spring break, the kids still had three more days off from school.  Anna came over in the afternoons on Monday and Tuesday. They played outside and then had some gaming time together.

Simon's Gift Shop

 Simon has once again set up a gift shop in the garage. Let me know if you want to buy anything.

Easter

So, this was our second Easter in the midst of a pandemic. So weird.

We still do the candy-filled plastic egg hunt in our house on Easter morning. Simon gets really excited about finding the eggs.

After the egg hunt, while Zac and I got breakfast ready, the kids had to do a 10-question treasure hunt to find their Easter presents (a few things from the dollar store).

Alice got the just-released 14th book in her favorite series, Wings of Fire.

Simon got some puzzles, and got right to work on one (fueled by some gummies).

Around 11:00 we headed to Izzy's for a much scaled-down Easter hunt. Here the kids are opening their eggs and trading their prizes.

Back at home that evening, we finally had time to color the Easter eggs!

The next day, Simon made an egg hunt for me in the back yard. He never read me these rules, but I found them laying on his work table. I suspect the rules were just for if Alice participated, but she declined.

Backyard life

 We are so happy it is finally spring and we can enjoy our beautiful back yard and fire pit more! Usually every other weekend, when Jess has Anna, we get together for hotdogs around the fire. Today we acquired Izzy as well. Jess watched her in the morning, then we did a walk at Apex, then Jess dropped some stuff off and met us back at our house for the evening. Usually the kids play outside (some sort of hammock wars) and when it gets too dark or cold they go up to the house and play computer games or watch videos.

Simon and the cooler

 I once told Simon he would need to eat more so he could grow. He told me he didn't want to get bigger because he liked being able to fit into "nooks and crannies." He really does love fitting himself into small spaces.

Lake Lure Mtn Trip Day 5: Cold & Windy

 On our last full day in the mountains, it was much colder and windy. We stayed inside most of the morning, but eventually went out, lured by the sunshine. Plus, Simon is relentless in his desire to go fishing.

Unfortunately, he's still learning to use the bait-caster and got it a bit snarled up when his hook got stuck on a weed right before casting.

While Zac tried to untangle the line, I took the kids out of his hair and up the creek exploring.

After lunch, I had the bright idea to drive down to a park by Lake Lure. I have an insatiable desire to go places, and it bothered me to drive all the way out here and then spend two days just staying at the cabin because of less-than-ideal weather. 

But the weather ultimately won. It was way windier there by the big lake, and freezing, so after taking the shortest walk possible, we took shelter in our van and drove back to the cabin. We had a relaxing afternoon, which I suppose is another purpose of a vacation -- not just dragging kids up mountains.