Still fishing

 Simon is back to fishing with the warmer weather. He's less obsessed with it now compared to previous years though.

Sometimes he'll fish at the pool pond before or after swim practice.

Simon's interests

 Simon has many hobbies currently. He likes fishing, skateboarding and playing basketball.  He also likes building mansions out of Legos and checking on his cucumbers in the garden. But now he has a new interest in gems and rocks, as well.

Resin

 One of Alice's new art obsessions is making resin molds. We have little clear creations adorning window sills all over our house.

Swim team opening day

 The neighborhood swim team, the Wellington Wahoos, launched their season. It will be our third summer on the team. It's great fun and a nice way for the kids to make friends in the neighborhood. I still can't believe how lucky we are to have a neighborhood pool.

This year is different because we have new coaches (Brooke & Josephine) and a new TSA rep (Missy instead of Angel). I'm also trying to help out more, so I helped organize the opening day event so it could have a bit more structure and be more useful. It went about half according to plan. But the weather was beautiful and the kids had fun, so we're off to a good start. 

Alice will continue to swim with the TAC Titans, the year-round team, so she'll go to Wahoos practices when she can, but she'll do the meets.

First middle school dance

On Thursday, Alice had her spring band concert. On Friday, Alice wanted to go to the middle school dance. I'd taken her shopping and let her pick out any dress she wanted, and this was the one she adamantly chose.

She said she had a really good time and was excited to be able to buy a slice of pizza for a dollar.

Cat pillow

 

Simon is completely obsessed with the cat and often takes her hostage to his bedroom. Alice gets mad about it. There are a lot of fights about the cat.

Eno River Spring Hike

 The hike from Pleasant Green to Eno Quarry is one of my favorite local hikes. You go through normal woods, a bamboo forest, a rhododendron patch, a swath of tall pines, and end up at the quarry with it's rocks, river, and deep enigmatic lake. I love it.

Sera's birthday (a day late)

 As we adapt to the rigors of a live controlled by Alice's swim practice schedule, and not being particularly sentimental, we've gotten better at rearranging things. So Friday was my actual birthday, but we celebrated on Saturday, which was rainy. So we did my birthday hike on Sunday.

My main birthday gifts were a new garage door opener and refreshed houseplants.

Hurricane Eva

 Zac's cousin Eva was one a whirlwind tour of far-flung relatives and stopped by our house for a night. We had Chinese takeout for supper, then Alice was whisked off to swim practice. We sat around the firepit visiting in the evening, and the next morning she was heading back to Denver.

Due to Alice having swim practice Friday evening, we decided to celebrate my birthday on Saturday.

Fun & Games with friends

 We started the game night trend with our friends at Zac's birthday with the hope of getting to play some games ourselves, but also to encourage our kids to play non-screen games with their friends. They now know that they can't be on screens the whole time, and will at least play games like and hide and seek or something. I am always grateful for this excellent family friend group that dates all the way back to the daycare days.