Day in the life

Just another day in the life...

Boys playing with fireworks

Boys doing garage science experiments

Large tic-tac-toe outside of the ice cream parlor that we were able to ride our bikes to! This was especially exciting to me because some of my earliest, albeit fuzzy memories are of taking bike rides with my family to get ice cream while we still lived in Ohio. And we found a way to do it here, in Raleigh, on bikes! It's not perfect in that we have to cut through a forest and cross some busy roads, and ride some hills, but we did it!!

And then we rode over to the golf store with an indoor driving range and hit a few balls. Because we could. 

Aaron

Just some Aaron cuteness. 

Sleeping bear

Eating bear

Bear in the woods. Yes, with goggles. Always be prepared when you are a bear. :-) 

Track awards

And just like that, the track season is over. The kids had a great time and learned a lot about track and field. Emily constantly improved on her PR in the mile. Kyle remained undefeated in the mile and set his own PR. Great job Kyle & Em!

Darth Vader at fair

Just a random Saturday morning at the North Carolina fairgrounds for an agriculture festival. Who doesn't go in their Darth Vader costume with a sword? 

You can fry anything in the south. Anything. 

Emily mile

Emily running the mile

Kyle mile

Kyle running his mile at track. He has so much left at the end and is just kicking it in. He remained undefeated in the mile during this track season. 

Monkeying around

Just a day in the life with these boys. 

Kyle climbing

Kyle up on the bouldering wall at rock climbing. He is pretty strong and must more fearless than I thought! Great job Kyle!

Asheville with Spike

This weekend I went to Asheville with Spike to run in a trail race. It was great to get away and spend time with Spike. And it was my first race since before Aaron was born!! That's a long, long time. My race was only a 10k while Spike did the 30k. It was up in the mountains through some pretty cool trails. 

It's beautiful up there

Pre-race drive up the mountain with Spike

I did fairly well at my race coming in first for my old lady age group. :-) I was pretty proud of my race though I think I told myself I was done racing because I didn't like the pressure I put on myself to do well. I trained hard for it and was prepared and did well so that's what matters. 

The 3rd place girl had already left. The awards were a while after the race, but before the 30k runners had come in so I was a captive audience while Spike was still out there running. 

Spike finishing her race. 

Running series finale

What was even cooler than a fun weekend away in Asheville with Spike was making it back home in time to see Kyle, Emily & Aaron run in the final race of the running series. Aaron did his speed mission and Kyle and Emily ran their miles. Em had accumulated enough points in her division to be the overall winner for her age group! Way to go Emily!! Kyle raced to first place in this race. He didn't compete in all of the races in the series because he had soccer at the same time. He ended up with a 3rd place in his division. The kids have certainly gotten a great does of running and are seeing how much fun they can have with it. Way to go!!

At the starting line

Kyle sprinting down the finish line. 

Emily kicking it in

Finisher medals

First place Emily!!

Aaron's sayings

A gems of communication that Aaron had with Jeff on the way to preschool:

Aaron: "it's drippy out"

Aaron: "it's almost daddy's Mother's Day"

Mother's Day

This was our Mother's Day: a great 9 mile family bike ride in the forest. 

Mother's Day preschool style

Aaron's preschool class put on a sweet Mother's Day performance for all the moms in the class. They made muffins to share with us as a snack afterwards. They also made us little flower pots that they created out of clay and painted themselves. It was very sweet.

Protectors of the Jedi

While Aaron was napping, his Star Wars dudes stood guard to protect him. Both The Force and the Dark Side came together in a moment of truce to protect this young Jedi Knight of the Future.