Happy Spring! Wow, what a difference a few weeks makes. This weekend the temps were in the low 70s. Needless to say, most of the snow is gone, although you can still find a few small piles here and there in the shade. But that didn't stop the peeper frogs from peeping all night and all the daffodils and crocuses from blooming. As well as the flowering trees. That means next weekend, the cherry blossoms should be looking pretty good for the start of the cherry blossom festival in DC. I am still trying to convince Tom that we should go so we can enjoy the kite festival, along with the cherry blossoms and possibly a trip to the National Geographic museum to see the chinese clay statues before they go back to china.
Anyhow, we also did a little celebrating for St Patty's Day this past week. Scott was happy to get out of wearing his uniform and put on his St Patty's Day tshirt we bought last year. Allison wore her new St Patty's day tshirt, but noone in the family would eat corn beef and cabbage! I had to have mine at work for lunch. And I really couldn't get them to eat lamb. So we settled for Irish Soda Bread(I found a good one this year at Safeway). And I took green bagels into work-much to everyone's amazement. They were very green! Tom simply enjoyed his irish whiskey with the neighborhood big boys -It looks like Cookie had a taste for Irish Whiskey too! (note: photo inspiration from a favorite Rambo-the-dog picture) We really did not have much time to celebrate anyhow-Scott was filled to the brim last week with tests at school. They had to push a lot of info on the kids since they are spending the upcoming week completing standardized testing. So no time for new lessons. Plus I think they are still a bit behind from the snow days. Scott just finished his marking period so he brought home a very nice report card. We are proud of him and all his hard work, even though it usually comes with a bit of whining! And that includes we parents! Allison's marking period is off track-they extended theirs to catch up with the SAT schedules. She will be taking the PSATs next year, so we don't have to worry so much about that. But then there is the quarterly state testing, on top of testing for high school graduation. Fortunately she already tested out of math since she is ahead of schedule and took Algebra I in 8th grade. Less stress to worry about. We will be signing her up for a PSAT orientation class this summer-much to her disappointment.
And she just finished her indoor field hockey sessions, with two make up games due to snow. They did not have very many players left for the two make up games as Spring sports began, and many of the girls play lacrosse too. Allison will go on in May to play outdoor field hockey on a rec. team. I was glad I had a chance to chat with her JV coach during the last game though. It gave me an idea of summer camps to sign up for-we opted out of the very expensive trip to New England for World camp. We would like to stay a bit closer to home as well as a leaner summer camp budget. So far she is enjoying her goalie position. And Scott is still enjoying his gymnastics.
So this weekend I didn't have to sleep over anyplace except my own bed-thank goodness! It took me all week to catch up on my sleep, not to mention that the one hour spring ahead time change really messes me up! And we have all been fighting colds/allergies these past few weeks so everyone has been taking something different for stuffed heads. Sleep is always nice. However, Allison decided to have a sleepover(which usually means no sleep) after staying up past midnite at a release party at Borders book store for the newest New Moon video release on Friday night. Fortunately Tom took her and her girlfriend and waited until midnite. I don't think I could have stayed awake. Then Allison joined her friend for a sleepover at her friend's house after their Dad picked them up. Her friends family even took them to breakfast and brought her home which was a nice touch on Saturday morning. The girls loved watching the movie again and getting all the free giveaways, playing New Moon trivial pursuit, along with purchasing a few trinkets at the store. While Tom was entertaining himself at the books store with the girls, I was off with Scott at a Scout Pack meeting, racing wooden rocket ships! They have a Space Derby race where the boys assemble and design wooden rocket ships and they race them down a wire track, complete with rubber band power. The whole event takes a while since there are lots of rockets, one for each boy from 1st grade to 4th grade, and each rocket needs wound about 150 times before releasing it to pop a balloon at the end of the track. Needless to say, it can get a bit noisy and crazy. This event was just for fun though-no trophies or awards. But Tom opted for the crazy screams of the Twilight girls over the screams of a pack of cub scouts. Either way, we both made some type of sacrifice Friday night. At least Friday morning Tom had the day off and we both enjoyed a movie and lunch together early. I wanted to see Shutter Island since I was in the mood for a spooky movie-I know Mark Seitz did not enjoy it much, but Tom and I found it interesting enough to stay awake. A bit of a psychological thriller-reminded me of A Beautiful Mind in a way. And on Saturday, Scott was invited for a play date to go see Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He has read all the stories, and I think he liked the books better. But a nice play date. Tom tried to join him, but the afternoon movie was sold out. Lots of people out shopping at the mall and stores this weekend-Spring Fever I guess. I know I was busy running errands and trying to get ready for our trip to LA at Easter. New shoes, new bathing suits, new short sleeve shirts-the kids won't stop growing! We also had to pick out a doggy day care for Cookie since we didn't have anyone available to take her in this time. Or else she would be stuck in her cage all day. I found a place that lets the dogs out all day-they can go in and outside of their pen with all the other dogs during the day, and then they have their own kennels for sleeping at night. So Cookie needed to spend a day getting acclimated to the day care at no charge, so I dropped her off on Friday. It really did feel just like dropping off the kids when they were little at PreSchool! It's a good thing she is such a friendly pup. I think the whole experience wore her out though-there certainly were alot of dogs there! At least she is in with the dogs her size. Even another cavachon. We also started intermediate dog training class yesterday at Pet Smart. She was the smallest dog in her class, and everyone said she was already so well behaved than their dogs! They wanted to know why we were there. I think she was just a bit overwhelmed by their sizes and energy level. She knew when to stay out of the way from the big dog play. We got to work on "Wait and Stay" and ignoring distractions. We really need to work on "come" after she has run down the street to play with the neighborhood kids! One nice touch at the day care is that when we drop her off, we will be able to watch her on video on the internet. So we will be able to see how she is doing while we are on vacation. We also asked our neighbors to stop in and check on our house and the cat and gerbils while we are gone. They will be out of town a few days over Easter weekend in Williamsburg, so they really couldn't have kept Cookie. Sadly, we will miss seeing The Phantom of the Opera while we are traveling. Tom got the tickets in the fall, and did not check the dates carefully for spring break. I tried to trade the tickets, but since he bought a package, they would not let me. So it looks like that will be our payment to our neighbors for watching the house. They also invited us over for dinner Sunday night-to our surprise, it was to celebrate Tom's birthday early. Tom went birthday shopping this weekend for himself as well. He was up at Home Depot picking up some supplies to continue repairing and patching our walls, and he found himself a Weber grill close out sale. We have a really big grill we bought a few years ago from Sams Club, but it had too many hot spots. We really missed our old Weber grill. So I drove up to Home Depot with the van to pick up Tom and his new grill. We broke it in with some wonderful steaks on Saturday night. It is a lot smaller than our old grill, but cooks great and takes up less space on the deck. Unfortunately, when Tom was moving the old grill, one of the neighbors decided to help him out and ended up crushing Tom's big toe. He had quite a difficult time walking after that. He did manage to give away the old grill though-turns out a fellow Michigander took it. I am just glad I did not have to go out and pick out a new grill for Tom.
So I also stayed pretty busy at work last week too-I managed to get my CPR recertification squeezed in. I was scheduled to take the class in February, but it was cancelled from the snow storm. I also volunteered to go into work for a few hours on Friday afternoon(always a mistake since I end up working more hours than I want to!). I was helping out with a Home Health patient who got sick on me-not a fun afternoon. Tom had a busy schedule too since he was teaching a class for a few days. We can both use a vacation! But I know we will be busy then too! My brother Dan and wife Sheila and their two kids just finished visiting with my brother Mike in LA. Hope they left a few things for us to do out there!
And my girlfriend Laura in Michigan with the broken shoulder just started her own therapy. Take it easy Laura-don't overdo!
Way to go MSU mens basketball team now in the Sweet Sixteen! We could barely watch the game-they have all been so close!
Enjoy the better weather! Kathleen and Family(Tom added the photo by the way-I consider that dog abuse).