Spring is in the Air!

Spring is in the air and it's time to get outside!  This past month has been filled with mountain biking, dances, soccer and lots of yard work.  

But of course to start it all off a picture of my dogs--I've been way too soft on them, they think they own the place.  They've claimed my two nice chairs in the living room as their own.  I don't have the heart to tell them to get off.  They look so cute and cozy!

After about 9 years of guitar lessons, Tyler finally had his last one.  His teacher, Scott, has been so great over the years.  He's not only been a guitar teacher, but he's been a great friend and mentor to Tyler in so many ways.  I am so glad we chose him to be Tyler's teacher; he had a big impact on Tyler's life.  Not to mention the fact that Tyler is an amazing guitar player now!  He did another musical number at church last week for Mother's Day.  It was beautiful.  What a talent!  I could listen to him play all day.  

I don't know if it's because Tyler is feeling the impending time when he leaves the house, or who knows what, but he's taken more time to do things with his siblings, and also help out around the house.  Out of the blue he offered to help me do the dishes the other day when he saw me doing them!  And he has taken his brothers and sister to a fun place nearby where they can swing on this rope thing over the canal or a pond or something (I guess I should probably find out).  They think it is super fun, and I think it is super cute that their older brother likes to take them there.  He even took pictures!

Tyler also planned a really cute triple date.  They did a "Bob Ross Painting Night."  They set up easels as teams and watched a Bob Ross video and tried to recreate the painting.  It was so cute and they all had a blast!  The paintings don't look half bad either!

Here's Tyler with his friends Max and Cassie.  I love these guys.  They are good to Tyler and they are just good kids who have fun together. And yes, masks because, you know, covid.

And here's Jake and his best friend Chase.  I can't get any normal pictures of them because they always make dumb faces (teenage boys, ugh).  But they are both rocking the shaggy hair look, much to Eric's dismay.  

Jake has definitely lost his little boy look and is growing into a teenager. He looks so much taller and older!  Having kids is funny--you can't wait for them to grow up but when they do you're like, "STOP!  GO BACK!"  I definitely miss the times when they were little in a lot of ways, but them growing into young adults is exciting and fun in it's own ways too.  Jake's glamour shot.....

Tyler went to a dance and practiced his Deacon Shuffle with Jake....  Awww, how sweet.

Tyler and his favorite dad, dad and his favorite 17 year old.  What a great couple of guys.

Getting ready to party!

Dogs.  Can't live with them, but we keep them around anyway.  Kidding.  I love my dogs (especially Ziggy--she knows she's the favorite).  However, they can be such pains in the butt sometimes!  Every time we give them a bath, they run off and find something stinky to roll in.  Every.  Time.  So it's almost a futile effort to bathe them.  These two had only had a bath the day before, and here they are in bath time jail getting ready for another bath.  You can tell Pepper is NOT excited about what is about to happen.  She gets no sympathy from me.

A few weeks ago we sat down with Eric's family to watch a slideshow of some old photos Craig had.  Here's two favorites...  This first one is a classic 1980's shot--Eric at a cigarette vending machine next to a payphone.  Nice.

This next one is just adorable.  Eric on the right, with his Grandpa and Great-Grandpa on a horse ride.  Craig was taking the picture.  4 generations of men together on a horse ride.  You can look at Eric's face and tell he thinks he's pretty hot stuff.  

After the slideshow we snapped a current photo of the siblings and their spouses, and then just the siblings.  What a great family.  It's been a long time since we were all together at the same time.

Ever since Jake got his new bike, Joey inherited his old one.  It's way too big for him, but it is a nice bike, especially for a 10 year old!  He's started to love to bike around town--to school, to the neighbors, to his friends, to the gas station for treats...   he goes to a little jump area and has a great time.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll end up with two mountain bikers in the family!

Tyler went to his Senior Prom!  He didn't really want to, but I told him he had to go--you only get a senior prom once in your life!  He went and was glad he did.  They had a really good time.  His date was lovely and really nice.  They took some pictures but it was very windy!!

They boys in the group love to goof around....

I have a kitchen letter sign that I put a new saying on every week or so.  I woke up one morning to find this little gem of a surprise....

Ha ha!  Can you guess who wrote it?  What a funny girl.  It made me laugh.  

Here's Jake and Chase--see, silly faces.  I guess getting a normal picture of a teenage boy is a rarity.  Oh well, this captures who he is better anyway....  I'm so glad he has a friend like Chase--every since they day they met they bonded.  Best friends from day 1.  Chase is awesome and his family is great too.  It is so nice when your kid has a great friend who is a good person and lots of fun.  

Joey goes to bed late every night despite my attempts to get him to sleep earlier.  But the real problem is when morning comes and he's dead tired.  I have to go wake him up every morning.  This particular morning he was extra tired.  I had to go physically pull his covers off and shake him awake.  Why is it that as a kid the last thing you want to do is sleep, but as an adult it's the activity of choice?

Joey played soccer again this spring.  They had their last game yesterday.  So appreciative of the coaches who take time from their busy lives to coach these kids!  If I weren't such a dummy at sports I might do it myself but it's no secret I'm not a "sports" person.

I've gotten a little more into mountain biking myself since I had so much fun in Sedona.  I used to mountain bike in college but haven't really done it for years.  But whenever I go I always have fun.  So I bought a bike and decided to get back into it--not like crazy into it, but just for fun and exercise. I also signed up to be a level one coach for Jacob's mountain biking team that he's doing.  What?!?  I know.  I'm not very good or fast, but they need one parent for every 6 kids on a ride.  That's hard when they have 150 kids!  So I thought it would be a good way to get more biking experience in and a way to help the team.  Basically all I have to do is go on the practice rides with the team.  I was concerned because I'm not very good, and I will be biking with the group Jacob is in (who I can't even remotely keep up with).  But the coach (who is awesome) said it doesn't matter.  They ride loops for practice so I'll just keep on the loop and watch for any stragglers, lost kids, or kids that need help.  I'm pretty nervous about it all, but I figure it's good to be out of my comfort zone.  And hopefully I will have fun doing it!  We will see. Of course riding the other day (I'm trying to get in some practice before the team practices start next month) I fell and skinned my knee.  I guess this is my initiation into biking...Jacob always has scabby knees!  ouch!

Jacob and I went on a ride over at the Spanish Oaks Trails by our house.  It was so fun to be able to go with him and share something he loves.  I couldn't keep up of course, but he'd wait for me periodically.  I don't know if it was fun for him, but I loved it.  Hard climbs but great company.  

Jacob just did his third mountain bike I-Cup race yesterday.  This hot tub photo is from a previous race, but the boys like to preside the course the day before the race, then go sit in the hotel hot tub that night.  I went down with Jake this time and Chase didn't get there until late, so Jake and I rode the course and then went tubbing at the hotel after some yummy Mexican food.  The course was pretty tough. There was some technical climbing that was rough in spots.  I had to walk a couple places.  Jake crashed and skinned his knee.  He was a little nervous about the race because the course was harder than the others, but excited too.  

We got there early the morning of the race.  He was pumped and ready to go!

Here he is on a long climb coming to the end of the first lap.  They do two laps that are each about 8 miles so the race for him is 16 miles.  Right after I snapped this shot he passed a kid on the uphill!  Way to go Jake!

This is toward the end of the second lap--catching some air.  He was pumping it hard!  I was so excited!  Come on Jake!

I was so proud of him.  He finished strong, but he was a little mad because he had taken a wrong turn which cost him a couple minutes and then crashed twice, which also cost him seconds.  And seconds count!  But even with the wrong turn and crashing he improved another 5 spots from the last race and improved his time another 2.5%.  So a total success!  I'm so proud of all the hard work he has put into mountain biking.  It's fun as a parent to see him be so passionate about something, to find something he loves to do, and take the initiative to try to get better and pursue it.  I can see all his hard work paying off!  He's only been biking for a few months and he's doing great.  I think next year he will see even more improvement.  Keep at it!  Shred the gnar, as he would say.

Maggie got to have a fun little sleepover with her friend Macie.  They were going to go on a girls weekend to St George but had to cancel so this was the consolation prize.  They wanted to stay up all night...and didn't make it.  But they did stay up a long time.  Maggie had a lot of fun.

Joey is so much fun to have around.  Sure, there are times when he can be a real stinker, but, can't we all?  And just when you're ready to tie him up to a tree he does something adorable.  He left this note for me the other day...

I can't even tell you how much I love it.  I can just see the little cogs turning in his brain--rode?  Rided?  Hmmmmm.....    I love that he went with 'rided' even though I probably shouldn't love it.  It's just so sweet and cute.  Then he left this for Tyler on Tyler's bed...

 He put a little Twix on it.  Just as a fun cute surprise.  Joey bring so much fun and spunk to our family.  yeah, I think we will keep him!