It's been a hard days night

The school year is quickly coming to a close. One more week of full days and then one week of minimum days. Last night was the elementary schools open house. We got to check out the classroom and see some of the kids work. Bud made a PowerPoint presentation about Wolves:

His teacher Mr Grizet is retiring this year. We have been very happy with him as a teacher and are disappointed he won't be around when Emma goes into the 4th grade!

Emma has the same teacher for first grade that Bud had for Kindergarten. We have loved having her as a teacher and look forward to Mo having her in a few years! She puts together a memory book of much of their work throughout the school year that the kids get to take home at the end of the year.

Our fingers are crossed that we get as awesome of a teacher for next year!

Today was Mo's last day of Park Preschool. He has grown a lot and really made some fun friendships. Today they got to go to the city pool and then picnic after. Next year he will be in Pre-k!

This past weekend was a relatively calm one. That's nice for a change! Besides cleaning the church building we were mainly around the house, N8 and kids geocaching and making a yummy dinner! I decided to grill some burgers and boy did they turn out good!

I wanted some bacon on the burgers and thought I would give grilling bacon a try. While it's a great concept, my execution was a little off! A had read a few tutorials and all of them said watch if very closely and avoid leaving the grill-I can burn quickly. It all started out well and good:

But in the end I walked away a little too long and it was a little crispy!!

But boy were they yummy burgers!

On Sunday N8 had to leave on travel in the middle of church but Ricky & Kim came over for dinner. We decided to try out a simple 2 pieces of cardstock, on with a pinhole trick for the eclipse.

And guess what...it worked!!

Here's a reminder of how it started:

 

and now a month and a half later:

So far so good on our garden. Our 3 tomato plants are large with lots of blossoms

 

 and so far about 20 or so green tomatoes.

Our banana pepper is small, but has produce this guy! Now I need to figure out what to cook with it!

The jalapenos are still small as well, but one little pepper is coming along.

I'm not super hopeful on the squash, but we'll see. 

Still not quite as magnificent as my Grandma Fielding garden was growing up or my Mom's garden, but we're trying!

 

About a month ago N8 and I decided it was finally time for us to get bikes. The kids had bikes, but neither he or I did. Since he is having to take a break from his running addiction while an ankle injury heals (no running for 4 weeks), he has taken up mountain biking. A friend from the ward had a bike that he was willing to sell N8 that was in good condition. They have been biking up in our hills several times a week, biking 10-15 miles each time up some pretty good hills.

I decided on a turquoise and white beach cruiser from Walmart (both the fun color and larger, comfier seat were an influence). We had some other friends that were in the market to sell their bike trailer, we tried it out, liked it and bought it from them.

Now we can all go out as a family on our bike. Also, Henry and I have been out several times while the kids are at school for a ride just the 2 of us.

This morning we had signed up to help clean the church building. I decided it would be nice to ride over to the church. N8 was running a little late from his morning ride so the kids and I headed over. They all did well. Mo has a harder time keeping up which meant I was riding really slow. It's hard to ride really slow pulling the trailer! But we made it and were only about 5 minutes late and the other 2 families cleaning with us hadn't got their yet either.

For the way home N8 took Henry in the trailer and I rode with Mo. It was a beautiful morning for a ride!

 

Today while wandering around Walmart (which happens a little too often) I came across and gadget I decided I needed to try out. It is made to clean blinds. And boy are my blinds dirty and dusty. It was less that $3 and the verdict---positive! Simple and effective for cleaning the blinds. My only issue is it got dirty too fast and I only got one window done. Now i need to throw it in the wash and do another window!

Today was a "nerd" day at school. Emma made sure we had an outfit for her to wear. First she needed to know what a nerd was. I actually found it difficult to define for her:

Me:"It's a geeky smart person"

Emma: "What's geeky"

Me: "Well someone that's kinda dorky"

Emma: "What's dork"

Me: "It's someone that's smart that dresses silly"

Emma: "Oh ok!"

So here's what we came up with!!

Henry really wanted his picture taken too!

I have an amazing mom! She is handy, compassionate, loving, fun, happy, a fighter, and the best mom I could have ever asked for. As she has fought this terrible fight with cancer the last few years she has remained upbeat and optimistic in the face of difficult news over and over. I love you Mom and hope you have a fabulous Mother's day!!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my Mom over the years:

 

Emma has been a nail bitter for many years. One of my rules has been, no painting nails if you bite them. She finally broke the habit recently and today I painted her nails!! Woohoo, she was super excited!

I've had my little Ford Escort since my Sophomore year at BYU (1999)!! Yesterday we said good-bye. It's been N8's work car since about 2004 or so and has served us well. But in the last few months we knew it was not going to pass smog and was going to cost more than worth it to us to fix. California has a program for recycling cars that don't pass smog, we applied, got denied, got reevaluated and got in!! Yesterday we drove it down to the dismantlers to turn it in to get smooshed and get a check (the program pays you $1000 for recycled vehicles).

Here I am saying good-bye!