Another Early Arrival

The cottonwood trees are at it again. This year like everything else that blooms it is flying much earlier. The ground, the garage, any cars with open windows everything has fluff on it.

I try sweeping it out of the garage and then a slight breeze comes and blows it all back in.

After all that snow this winter it's surprising to see the ground covered with white so soon!

Even T-bone is a little flummoxed by the white stuff!

Yep, that's a picture of a flummoxed Tucker. What a life!

Orchestra Concert

May 27th was the date of CJ's final 6th grade orchestra performance. It was another amazing night of wonderful music. They sounded great, they looked great and they had fun.

Can't ask for much more! Especially after you hear about the events leading up to the concert.

CJ had the day off from school, his team was going to camp to do the high ropes course and CJ opted out of that excitement in favor of ATVing with dad. Steve had taken the week off to do maintenance around the house and welcomed the change of pace. I must tell that CJ also had the previous Friday off as it was the original day for camp. Due to a rainy week and a rainy Friday it was postponed to the 27th, the kid had 2 days off!

So off they go early Thursday morning. The plan was to head back to town about 2pm so that they could get cleaned up and to the concert in plenty of time. I got a call about 2:30 saying that Steve's bike was at the bottom of the pit of despair and that they would be heading home as soon as they got it out. Getting the bike out meant getting both of them back to the truck on CJ's ATV and getting the truck and the tow straps back to the dirt bike. Getting the truck back there meant doing some 4-wheeling, thank goodness we bought that truck!

Unfortunately they couldn't get the truck close enough to use it to pull the bike from the pit, but they did have enough straps and strength to do it with CJ driving his ATV and Steve guiding from down in the pit.

At 4:30 they were finally heading home. CJ was due at school at 6:30 for cello tuning and the concert was to start at 7pm. Steve and CJ had a 1.5 hour drive ahead of them. They hadn't eaten since breakfast and they both needed a shower.

Since the concert is 25% of CJ's grade for the quarter I went into panic mode. Time for to get the cello to school for tuning and me to school for volunteering. The boys will have to fend for themselves. I need to earn brownie points in case they don't make it!

As you probably figured from the picture they made it, with 10 minutes to spare. The fact that CJ managed to perform well after all that excitement tells me that he truly loves playing in the orchestra. Normally after a concert we go for ice cream, that night it was dinner we all wanted! Dinner and a good night's sleep.

Too Much?

When lettuce starts sprouting from your child does this mean you are serving salad too often?

The Hat

Recently CJ's school had Hat Day. The kids got to wear a hat during the school day. CJ is not a baseball cap kind of kid. And it is a little too warm for a winter hat. So he made a hat, a very large hat.

And he wore it all day. It even came home with a name.

Ahhh...

Winter in Central Ohio is a cold grey affair.

And then we have this...



These beautiful sunny days sure do make up for all that greyness!

He Did It!!!

After years of being told 'he could do better' by his teachers,
CJ showed us that indeed he could.
He made honor roll this past quarter and is on his way to doing it again.
The best thing about this is that he wanted it.
Way to go, CJ.

Who Knew?

On the way home from hockey, just as our spring rains were starting, Steve's windshield wipers quit working.

No worries, probably just a fuse.
Let's check the book, ahh #26. Hmmm...no connecters in #26.
What's this, now the car won't start.
Time to check all the fuses.
Did you know that if the fuse for the fuel pump goes your car won't start?
Yep, it is true.
Gotta love that volt meter!
Car starts, windshield wipers work,
The man can fix everything!

April Showers, finally...

Spring rains have finally come to Central Ohio. Perhaps there will be May flowers after all.

The rain has done wonders to bring out the green leaves. CJ's fort is almost hidden again.

Shelves for Stuff

Steve's spring break projects.
Shelves & a new to us car!
Thanks Steve, it is so much easier to get into the garage now.
A passenger can even get into the car while it's in the garage!

Signs that Warm Weather is on the Way

1. Kids playing outside.

2. The large glowing orb in the sky is visible.

3. Buds on the trees.

4. Box of wine in the fridge with the easy turn spigot.

Still Fun!!

Just before spring break I was wandering through Wal-Mart and saw PlayDoh. It brought back memories of hours and hours of playtime with CJ and PlayDoh. So I grabbed a package of 4 colors and brought it home. In the back of my mind I hoped that CJ would be excited, my more practical self figured that he's in 6th grade and too 'old' for PlayDoh.

Happily he's not too old for PlayDoh!

While home on spring break and nursing a nasty cold he created a bunny, roads for the construction vehicles, and battles for Storm Troopers.

All while sprawled out on the couch watching TV!

Easter

This years eggs are for decoration only. I put them in the pot to boil and we sat down to watch Stargate. About an hour later we remembered the eggs. Thankfully I had put way too much water in the pot. These eggs are HARD boiled!



CJ had fun experimenting with the colors. All but one of the eggs has been dipped in more than one color. My favorite is the 3 color striped one in the middle. Nice job CJ.


Easter morning brought nice weather and our first outdoor egg hunt in recent memory.


The kids all had a good time.
Tucker helped clean up any spills.

This year I showed great maturity (thanks mom) and did not eat the ears off of CJ's chocolate bunny!!! Although this meant that CJ had to eat his bunny quickly to ensure its' safety, poor CJ.

March Madness

After a month of crazy snowy days, it was a relief that March was a month of just normal chaos.
We started off the month with a band concert.
There were performances by the 6th grade band, the 7th grade band and the jazz band.
The music was a little slow and gave us an understanding of why CJ is not interested in playing in the band next year.Fortunately he is still very much interested in music and the clarinet.So off to lessons we go. CJ started with a private instructor and has been learning and enjoying. He's still not interested in band for next year, maybe high school...

Later that same week we headed back to the high school auditorium for the orchestra concert.
This time it was the 6th, 7th, 8th and chamber orchestras playing for us.
Each put on a great show. I continue to be amazed with the improvement each time they perform. The kids are learning so much and really seem to enjoy themselves. CJ is looking forward to next year and maybe trying out for chamber orchestra.


Soon after the concerts, Pia came to visit. She arrived during beautiful weather. We were all glad to see the sun and warm weather.

The warm weather must have stirred something in me as I started to think about a new car. Steve was thrilled and started looking immediately. Soon I was driving a new/used car. Less than 12 hours later (6am) Steve was on the phone with the salesman and demanding to return it. Amazingly enough they did allow us to return it. Did they know that there was a problem with the engine when they sold it to us? Or are they just that customer oriented? Being cynical I believe that they knew. So back to the hunt we went.

That same week CJ's Tour of Europe took place. Off to school he went with his 160 pierogi. His part in the project was to bring in the pierogi and to keep his group on task. I was a bit skeptical about that last part so I contacted the teacher just to make sure. Turns out he's pretty good at keeping a group on task, he brought home an 'A'.

Then came spring break. We opted to stay home this year and get some things done around the house. Steve worked on creating a new shelving system for the garage. His new creations opened up and brightened up the garage along with it being more organized!

CJ came down with a nasty cold on the first night of break, good thing we weren't on vacation. It stinks having a cold and not getting a day off from school , but it did mean that he missed out on the somewhat boring task of car hunting. Yep, we used spring break to look for a new/used car. We drove lots of cars and thought we were settled on an Infinity. Then I sat in an Acura TL and loved it. We drove it home Thursday night in the rain. Only it wasn't raining when we arrived home - it was snowing. Friday morning we woke to 3 inches of snow.

Tucker and Pia had a great time romping in the snow. CJ wanted nothing to do with it!

Friends of ours went somewhere sunny and warm for spring break and I got to take care of Teq. So each day Teq and I moaned about the cold and dreary weather. She would squawk and I would complain then laugh with her as she did her Stevie Wonder imitation.

The yucky weather for spring break was not as I had wished but it was nice to not waste beautiful days building garage shelves and buying cars!

March came in like a lamb and went out like a lion. Will April flowers bring May showers?

Weather Update

March has arrived like a lamb. We can add that to our unusual weather for 2010.
The days are ever so slowly getting warmer. We've seen the sun the past couple of days. The snow is melting. Much of the front yard and woods are uncovered. The grass that is visible is very sad looking. It is all smashed down and brown.
The days are getting noticeably longer. It has been wonderful to have dawn arrive before CJ leaves for the bus. Daylight savings time arrives soon and with it the hope of summer!

6th Grade Social Studies Project

CJ is studying Europe in social studies class. The kids were put into groups and given a country to teach the rest of the 6th graders about. CJ's group is going to teach their peers about Poland. CJ chose to make pierogi for his part of the project. This morning we started out making the filling, mashed potatoes.
He peeled and chopped.


He mixed, tasted and declared them good.


Then, after a trip to the grocery store, it was time to make dough.

And fill them.

And eat them.

Some of the pierogi were really good. Others opened up in the boiling water which made for soggy mashed potatoes. So, we tried again and had a little more luck keeping them closed, but still many were waterlogged. We will have to do some research and try again.