Officially spring

I saw leaves budding on the bushes outside our apartment today so it must be springtime. Finally! I even wore sandals for the first time yesterday. It hit the mid 50's and was sunny and beautiful out. The kids went outside with their sidewalk chalk and decorated our front walkway.

We are officially one day away from spring break and Easter was last weekend. I am so looking forward to having a vacation. We are planning on spending part of the week at Mark's parent's house, doing some house looking, and maybe spending a day in Chicago visiting some friends. Mostly I am just looking forward to spending time with Mark. He has been working so much and on-call so often that I really miss him. We are both counting the days when he starts his practice. He will be working 4 days a week and on-call only once every 2 weeks. Heaven! I almost can't imagine that kind of life. We are also really looking forward to having a yard of our own for the kids to play in.

Well, it's late and I'll leave you with some Easter photos. We spent Easter with our friends parent's house and had a fun egg hunt in the country. The kids had a great time and Hannah was quite smitten with chocolate eggs.

California Dreamin'

As promised, photos of our California trip! We got a new Mac laptop to match our iMac desktop and I was able to download my Adobe Photoshop Elements program onto it. Now I can do photo editing anywhere in the house and even print photos from the laptop.

Our first day trip was to Muir Woods. This protected area is just a few miles north of San Francisco, near the coast. We had a great time exploring, looking at the tallest trees in the world, and enjoying the gorgeous weather.













Only a few miles away from Muir Woods is Muir Beach. It was so relaxing to be near the ocean again. I just love sitting on the sand listening the the waves. The kids were so content. Hannah was fascinated with the sand and enjoyed her first real foray in the Pacific.










Don't worry, the crab was quite dead.



Noelle brought her dog Opal to the beach and she loved playing with the other dogs and hiking up the trail.


The other memorable outing (besides the obligatory trip to Chuck E Cheese with Aunt Noelle) was their romp on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the perfect day to be there. No fog!





I almost forgot, here is a photo of the kids after our Jelly Belly Factory tour. This is just before they got all sugared up!

Hit with the sickies

It's in the house again. Hannah had what we think was croup last week. She is still a little runny and congested, but doing much better. Now I think I have strep. Fortunately, Mark is feeling a bit better after a short bout with a little something and the boys got away with only slight coughs.

Today happens to be Luke's field trip to the fire station with his preschool class and I had to stay at home. It is his first field trip without mommy. He even gets to ride the school bus.

We have had a busy month since I last posted. Been pretty busy with shuttling the kids to school and basketball practice. We also have been going to the indoor park at the church pretty regularly. This is David's last week of basketball so hopefully things will slow down for a little bit. I can't believe that there is only 2 1/2 more months of school left in the year! Time sure flies. We will be moving to Elkhart in only about 4 months. House hunting for real is going to start for us over spring break in a few weeks. A lot has opened up on the market since the beginning of the year and we are excited to be finally looking at some of them in person. We have narrowed it down to 2 neighborhoods we are interested in.

As for the winter, it looks like it may be over. We have had the temps in the 40's and 50's this week and it has been so nice out. I actually went to throw the trash out yesterday and didn't need a coat! This winter has been especially cold (or so I am told) with most days below freezing and a lot of days in the teens. We even got below 0 a few times. I am so ready for spring. I can't wait to see the grass turn green, the trees leaf out and I haven't seen flowers blooming for months!

Last week Mark had an orthopedic conference in San Francisco and we tagged along. We stayed at my mom's house which is about an hours drive from the city. We got a taste of the good weather and gorgeous landscape. All the local hills were as green as can be and my mom's daffodils were blooming. The kids had a good time planting some flowers in her garden, playing with Aunt Noelle and her dog Opal, visiting with my aunt, uncle and cousins, going to the beach, visiting Muir Woods, going to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, and walking on the Golden Gate bridge. Noelle took them to Chuck E Cheese one day while I went into the city with Mark to shop with my friend Cassie. We had a good time catching up and trying on lots of shoes! It is good to be home, but we long for a real house with a garden. My mom's house is so peaceful and quiet.

I have yet to edit some of the photos from our trip. I'll try to work on that this week and get them posted soon!