Yard Progress

 Jason's new hobby is our yard. He's always researching what to plant, where to plant, and when to plant. Mostly for grass seed, but also for ground covering, trees, and our garden. Our yard was pretty damaged from all the work done on our house last summer and all the rain that fell during that time. Plus, we had years of neglect when we just didn't have the time or resources to take care of it the best that we could. Not that we have any more time now, but with Jason working from home and kids that are older, we just do it anyway. 

For years we've been talking about taking down the huge sycamore tree in our yard. Though we love trees and all the beauty and good they provide, this one was just more of a burden than anything. It dropped sticks all through the year, (like crazy amounts of sticks), the leaves never turned a beautiful fall color, just brown, and they were so big that they were hard to suck through the mulcher and they smothered everything they covered. The leaves also didn't finish falling until mid -January or even February, when everything is either frozen or covered in snow. They don't even pick up yard waste after the first week in December, so we're often storing leaves from rakings we do in December when the weather isn't as freezing, until the first week in April when they pick up yard waste again. The other thing we realized that was a problem is that it was so big it was shading everything else and stunting the apple trees' growth, among other things. 

This is after they cut away the first 5 or 6 huge branches, in February.

They took a break for some bad weather and came back a week or two later.

We were sad to chop it down, but now that the stump is gone, we're so happy! It also makes the sunroom sunnier! We found out that it was over 100 years old! That's kind of cool. I kept thinking of Pocohantus' song Colors of the Wind when she sings, "How high does a sycamore grow?..." Well, ours grew very high and it lived a very long life.

After the stump was out, we decided to take out the cement border from around this area. It turned out that there was not only cement around it on top but buried at least 2 feet in the ground below! So we just kept on digging and finding new pieces of cement. Not to mention huge roots that Jason hacked away at. It was a tough project!

This is it now. If you look very closely, you can see our little evergreen, a Norwegian Spruce, that Austin got a few years ago at school. We moved it over here because one day it will be pretty big and it will take up the whole corner. We made sure to measure that it won't shade our sunroom!

That spruce was where the apple tree is on the right and that apple tree was near where the spruce is now. Eventually, we'll take out the arborvitae tree in between those apple trees. They can grow better now because they won't be shaded by the sycamore.

All that beautiful mulch in the back there is our sycamore tree stump. It's about inches thick there. ( I should have gotten a close shot, but I didn't feel like going outside just now. It's so cold again that I can't take it anymore and can't just stand outside.)

Currently, Jason is getting the yard ready to overseed, and in some cases to seed, since we have some places that are totally bare. That's why we had to put the extra pavers in when we did. The garden plots need to be replaced anyhow and we also want them by the sunroom, but we have to prep that area so we can take them apart and move the dirt over into the new beds he's making. The old garden area will then be bare and ready to plant grass seed.

Here's where the garden beds are now, You can see the one behind Kai has no front, it rotted off!

Here's the new one Jason's been working on in the garage, with good wood from our old deck. 

Mother Nature has been so accommodating during this time, NOT! It was in the 80s over the weekend and has been about 45 degrees colder this week. Not to mention all the rain we got, including over the weekend, even though it was hot, there was standing water everywhere!! Jason's been a trooper and continuing on with his plan to overseed on May 7, despite the weather.

Easter 2022

 Easter seemed out of place this year. This was the first year that we had spring break separate from Easter and not had school off on Good Friday. Ford Motor Co. always has off on Good Friday. They even have off Easter Monday! The owner of Red Bell, the good Christian that he is, closed Red Bell on Good Friday this year, so Jason and I both had off on Friday and the kids had school- so weird! 

Jason and I did yard work, in the cold and wet weather. I promise, my next post will explain all of our yard happenings over the past few months, but we added another row of pavers so we can put our garden plots right by the sunroom since they need to be replaced anyhow and they'll get really good sun by the sunroom, whenever the sun shines again! It's been so cloudy and rainy or snowy lately during our yardwork days that it seems we'll never see the sun again!

It looks bright here, but it was rainy, wet, and muddy!

It started raining harder around lunchtime,  so we enjoyed a lunch out at LA Bistro, before returning home to catch up on housework for me and work in the mud for Jason.  

Elder Andersen, from the Quorum of the 12 and Elder Johnson from the 70 gave a special devotional from right here in Michigan! They were in Ann Arbor,  so we didn't attend in person, but enjoyed watching it live from our home. Knowing they were in our area,  made it so special! We all watched it together,  which was shocking since it was a Friday night. 

Saturday was busy with all the usual Saturday games, jobs, and friends.  Even Saturday night found the kids with friends till somewhat late.

We snuck in egg dying after soccer games.

Here are Erik's.

 Since Elder Johnson was here visiting family for Easter,  we actually had Stake Conference on Easter (Elder Andersen did Ann Arbor's Stake Conference). Going to the meeting 2 hours earlier than normal made it hard for the kids to be ready in time,  but we made it and enjoyed the meeting,  even though at first we were not thrilled with the idea of Stake Conference on Easter.  

The kids still wanted an egg hunt, so we did that, along with the search for baskets.  We had a nice FHE and watched a Christian movie about Christ as a young boy. Then everyone worked together to help finish meal preparations for our friends with 5 young kids who were coming for dinner.  They're moving to Utah soon and we wanted to have a nice visit before they leave.

It was 37 degrees and Erik was shirtless!

Resurrection rolls

Carrot cake

Kid table

Adult table

Kai said this Easter was one of the best ones ever! I was happy to hear that because we didn't put a lot of planning into it- it just happened.  Maybe that's the best kind!

Trying New Things

 Austin had been wanting to try out the swim team at Discovery MS and is now in the middle of the season and loving it! Since he didn't like cross country that much because it was tiring and he didn't like being out of breath, I wasn't sure what he would think of swim. After the first practice, he said, "it's even more tiring than cross country and I can't breathe at all, but I love it!" Since then, he really has loved all the practices and meets. I've never seen him get ready so fast for anything as he does for swim practice. He's very motivated. 

There are a bunch 7th graders that have been on swim teams before, and some of the 8th graders swam on the team last year, and then there are the kids who haven't been on a swim team before. Austin's in that category, though he has had lessons from friends here and a few from Grandpa Dave. He was practicing in the middle of the skill level group but has quickly moved up to practice with those who were previously on teams. From his first to his second meet, he took 10 seconds off his 50 free, and from the second meet to the 3rd he took off another 4 seconds! He has raced the 100 free twice and two relays as well. He raced his first breast on Thursday and did pretty good. He has been racing in the top heats, so he's never the first, but he has improved so much and I'm so proud of his efforts and motivation! 

He's at the end, ready to jump in!

In motion!

This video was his second time racing the 50 free. He's in the farthest lane. He came in last here, but he was racing in the fastest heat for the first time. 

And, check out these hats he's been making for his friends.

 He's a hat-making machine!

Victoria wanted to try track out this year, she even did last year, but we didn't get good notifications about it last year, being virtual for most of the school year. She very excitedly joined at the beginning of the year for off-season training and made many fast friends being in the weight room with them on a daily basis for almost the whole school year. She kept maxing out on weights, beating most everyone in pull-ups (no surprise there, being the daughter and niece of the pull-up champs from our younger years...) and loves the camaraderie of being part of a team for her school. 

She was invited to the first invitational to run the 200 M and the 4 x 3 relay. We were surprised, it being her first season and she wasn't on varsity yet and they know that dance is her first priority. Well, she did so awesome and even earned her varsity letter at that meet! We weren't able to go since it was a school day, about 2 hours away, and took the entire day, but she loved every minute of it! 

The problem we have now is that sometime when track started picking up more with more intense running and training, about a month and a half ago, she's been experiencing shortness of breath and pain in her chest, and experiencing some dizziness. I was observing these problems even when she was home and in between track and dance, not working out. 

My siblings and I all have a problem with catching our breath once in a while, even though we're all very active and don't have asthma. We used to think it was related to my sister's allergy to milk when she was younger. I always notice mine when I feel anxious or overwhelmed, or overexcited. My kids have all exhibited the same thing at times and have worried about it. I took them all to the doctor during their times of worry and each time has resulted in no cause for concern. None of the others seem to have any problems right now, so I think their breathing "issues" are like mine. We have to take a step back and I even do cleansing breathes to help. 

Victoria's has been much more severe and the pains she was experiencing were causing concern. We went to the doctor and since she had Covid in January, they're not sure what to think about it, since we don't know enough about the long-term effects of Covid in athletes. The dr said her lungs and heart sounded good while we were there, but she ordered an inhaler for Victoria and we are scheduled to see the cardiologist on May 12. The inhaler seemed to be helping a little, meaning that maybe she is asthmatic (we have one blood relative with asthma, my nephew), but I don't think it helps her enough. 

To make matters more complicated, she actually has P.E. this semester and they're in the swim unit. She was swimming for 45 minutes each morning, weight training or running for track each afternoon for about 1 1/2 hours, and then dancing 7 hours a week. (Don't even get me started on why she has to take this P.E. class when she's on the track team....) Anyhow, after getting the inhaler and noticing that she still didn't feel right, she asked her counselor if she could get out of P.E., but it was too late for that. She asked the P.E. teacher if she could just walk during class and was told she could if she had a doctor's note. The doctor would only write the note to include that she be excluded from P.E, track, and dance, if she really wasn't feeling well until we see the cardiologist. I was certain she would just say, "never mind, I'm fine", but she didn't. She is now taking it easy during P.E., attending all track practices and dance classes, but only observing, stretching, and or doing minimal activity. She still doesn't feel great after some of the minimal work-outs. The worst part is that she had been invited to the next invitational and missed that last Saturday and will miss most of the track season, waiting for this appointment. She's kinda bummed, but taking it in stride. I don't really know what to make of it, since this has never happened before. We're praying that everything will be okay and that she will make improvements after this time of "rest".

At the invitational in the relay.

She tried some high jumps too and was going to compete in that as well.

Getting ready for the high jump.

Spring Break

After our super month-long vacation in August and our extended vacation over Winter Break, I was happy to not have a vacation planned for Spring Break. I even took the opportunity to teach at Red Bell over the break, something that I've never done. It's actually not usually an option for me to teach over a break (unless I want to be in charge of child care over a break). During this break, the Headmaster gave the preschool students who would normally be required to take it off, the option to come in due to the disruptions in school for quarantines and snow days. When she asked if I wanted to teach, I gladly accepted, knowing that if we were to be home over the break, my own children are getting old enough that they either want to spend time with their friends or be in their own rooms. They don't necessarily want to all hang out together, even for the very fun stuff. There are exceptions of course and we still have a lot of fun together, but I figured my working 4 hours in the morning would not be a problem. 

It turned out that Erik came to work with me most days, helping in my classroom the first day, enjoying all the love from my students, and then hanging with the school-age kids who attend Red Bell over breaks, for the other days. He really enjoyed the time with them and Ms. Cam, the teacher over that group, was happy to have him. She saw him the first day with me and invited him down for the other days because she has a 5th-grade student who was the oldest and needed an older friend to play chess with, etc. She had a Super Hero day and a Super Mario Day that Erik got to participate in as well. The only day he didn't attend Red Bell was Wednesday as that was the day I had chosen to send my kids to Airtime to jump for 2 hours. That was one of Victoria's "jobs" for the week, to take them there and hang with her siblings!

She spent lots of time with friends and going to track practice and had dance off over the break. She also grocery shopped and prepared dinner for me on Thursday when I took Austin to Detroit for his brain study so he could earn $120 as they studied his brain for the trauma project. Kai had driving practice just about every day. She'll be getting her permit in the mail any day now! 

I dropped Kai, Austin, and Erik off at Skatin' Station on Tuesday evening to go roller-skating with their free passes. I would have gone, and love going with them, but Jason and I had some work to finish up in the yard, something I need to blog about. This was the first time I didn't go skating with my kids and they were shocked but excited! 

They all had very specific spring cleaning jobs to complete, which they also got paid for, and ample time to hang with friends. We completed it with a nice General Conference weekend, one of the sessions having some friends over to enjoy the session with. 

Monday morning found everyone up earlier than normal, ready to start a new week of school! 

Here's Erik at the Skatin' Station with friends, doing the Hokie Pokie!

Kai in the car after her first drive!

Erik's mowhawk after sleeping with wet hair.

This kid loves maps!

Leia, getting cozy.

Austin completed his second hat during conference and now has 8 orders from friends and a teacher!

Kai drew this for a friend of ours in a nursing home. 

When Victoria gets a hold of my phone...

Austin's brain study activity. They measured the sweat he produced playing this virtual game, among other things.

P.S. 10 days before the break, we had such a fun weekend that I felt like a young college student again. Friday night, Brad, who baptized Jason and was his good friend in highschool, as well as my good friend in college and introduced us to each other, paid us a long overdo visit! He was visiting a girl in Ohio and went out of his way to stop by. We went to bed way too late, but we all had such a good time, including our kids, that it was worth it! The next day we went to U of M to watch BYU Women's bball play in the tournament with some good friends from our ward. We ended up losing in the close battle, but it was so enjoyable to be there!

Brad and Jason

With Cosmo and the cheerleaders!

Austin and Owen sat up a little higher than the rest of us.

The rest of us...