Gavin's indoor soccer season was kinda fun, kinda frustrating, and kinda hilarious. He spent most of his time at each game playing outside the boundaries of the soccer 'field' with the kids who were there to watch their sisters and brothers play soccer. While on the playing field he sometimes ran after the ball and occasionally kicked it. He was more likely to hold a teammate's hand, shove an opponent, or instigate a game of tag than to actually play soccer.
We were hopeful that tee ball would interest him more. It's more of an individual sport than soccer and let's face it: Gavin is an individual. Brandon has fond memories of playing little league as a youngster and he has dreamt of following in his mom's footsteps by being his little boy's coach. So the Green Dragons, coached by Brandon and aided and abetted by Gavin, charged through an 8-game season with great success - as measured not by wins or hits, but by a minimum of crying and the ability to find first base by season's end.
Meanwhile, Viv has continued her reign as Princess Cuteness. She's a girl of many teeth and few words. She loves to color alongside her brother, is generally fond of playing with spherical toys ('balls' would have sounded crass), and has definite opinions about what she would and would not like to eat.
What else have we been up to? Well, we've had some pretty awesome visitors roll through here this spring. The Fantastic Frantz Fam paid us a visit in early April. They're the kind of friends that you instantly catch up with even after not seeing one another for a long time. That's a great thing. Especially since we don't get together nearly often enough. The highlight of their visit was a 3-day trip to Zion. We shared a 3-bedroom suite in Springdale and savored every moment.
I haven't taken the time to figure out how to get photos to nestle side-by-side and to get text to wrap around photos in the 'new' Blogger, so you'll just have to do some scrolling. Deal with it.
Nana and Papa swung through in mid-April after doing some property shopping in the St. George area. We're excited at the prospect of having them closer, but I'm saddened at the idea of them moving away from 'home'. They still live in the house I grew up in, which means more to me than I realized before they started talking about downsizing. Anyway, we enjoyed their visit and look forward to the next time we can spend time with them. Yes, you have to keep scrolling down to get to the pictures.
Here at the homestead we're working on ugly-fying the front yard in the short term in order to beautify it in the long term. We used to have a statuesque silver maple tree and lots of green grass. Now we have a stump, some piles of dirt, and grass of every shade from brown to yellow to almost green. But we're making progress. We put in a decorative fence (not quite done yet) and a veggie garden and we hope to bring in some more fill dirt and mulch in order to sculpt out a water-wise berm across the front. Eventually the grass will be gone altogether and the veggie garden will be planted in raised beds. One thing at a time, people. We have jobs and small children, you know. And we have aspirations of lots of weekend camping trips, so stay tuned but don't hold your breath.
