Manifest Destin-y, Part 1

Needless to say, we were ready for some beach time, come spring break. The plan was to meet Oma and Papa and Uncky Dan and fam in Destin, Florida, a 9-hour drive for us. We opted to make the drive in one day. It was a long day, but we soldiered on and got to the house before sunset. Let the fun begin!

After brief greetings, it was straight to the beach for us, which was just a short 5-minute walk over the dunes at the end of the street. The boys tossed the football, while the girls enjoyed the shoreline.

The sunset was spectacular, and the beach was already worth the drive! Even if they were doing a once-in-a-12-year dredge with unsightly pipes right off our beach... 

To cap off our brief, but perfect beach visit, we saw several dolphins not far off shore.

Then it was back to the house for family time and pizza!

The next morning was pretty windy, especially on the beach, so it made sense to make it a pool day. We did a loop around the point and back in to the complex on the boardwalk to check out the other (non-heated) pool and the pond.

I didn't get any pictures at the heated pool, which was just the next block over, but we had a good time. We spent the rest of the day close to the house, each unwinding as they saw fit - whether enjoying fresh air reading on the balconies or vacuuming.

Tuesday morning saw us boarding a pontoon boat with Captain Jenn! It was time for a high seas (or high bay) adventure.

Once we cleared the bridge at the harbor, we picked up speed in the bay. Soon we noticed lots of dolphins and followed them for a while. Spotters up front!

It was a family effort to keep Will aboard. :)

A little further on, the dolphins were gone and the bay became pretty shallow. We had some time to kill, so out went the paddle board. We took turns on it, with and without kids aboard. It is harder to dock a paddle board to a boat than it looks, but it was fun!

After all the paddleboarding, we had worked up an appetite for refreshments at Lulu's. They have a fantastic set up on the bayfront with a huge, covered patio and white sand beach play area with water and sand toys. The kids had a blast! I think we could have stayed there all day, but we had to get the boat back.

RIP Ollie

Well, 2020 just keeps on giving, doesn't it? To start off March, we had to have our favorite cat, Ollie, put down. She had a tumor on the back of her leg, close to her tail, that was leaving gross stuff wherever she sat down. The type of tumor has a high recurrence rate if it's removed, so we made the difficult decision to say good-bye. She was a very dog-like cat: greeting us excitedly in the morning until she got some love, playing fetch with a paper wad, exhibiting high tolerance of the kids, and sitting in my lap while I worked from home. She is most missed by Hadley (who called her her best friend!) and her "sister" from the beginning, Tibbs, who has cried many nights from loneliness. She was a good cat, and the house does feel a little empty without her.

From Queso to Cocktails

We celebrated a birthday with cake and a delicious steak dinner at Saltgrass. We think this was the kids' first experience with queso (not really a thing in Idaho), and they both really thought it was amazing! More, please!

The next day, J flew to SLC to take in a Gonzaga basketball game at a boys' weekend rendezvous with some Idaho friends. This left mom and kids with three days and a rather busy schedule. While the kids were in school, I decided to use my first day finishing some repainting in the dining room: before and after. 

The next morning, we had a charity run benefitting the Children's Heart Foundation. It was a little chilly early in the morning before the race, but we consoled ourselves with free donuts, breakfast tacos, and coffee while we waited for the starting sound.

Although I just signed us up for a mile walk, the kids weren't having it, as they regularly run a mile at school. Oh boy. Since I was a single parent at the race, I didn't want to let them out of my sight, so that meant I had to run a mile too! We all did it - no walking (except a quick water break at the halfway point)! 

Because there were walkers and runners for a 5k as well, we were some of the first people back to the brewery. Owen's finishing strides actually made it on the official event photographer's page!

Our first stop, after water and bananas, was to go see the unicorn!

Then the kids moved on to the bouncy houses and mobile game trailer, while Mom had a refreshment from the truck taps. 

We had a brief respite at home and then headed to Owen's final basketball game. His team did really well and made it to the championship game, but the opposing team was very talented and the game unfortunately wasn't close. However, Owen really found that he enjoyed this new sport, and every game we saw him improve! By the last couple of games he was scoring nearly a third of the team's points and was a formidable defender.

To celebrate an awesome season, Owen chose Taco Bell's Doritos Locos tacos, one of his favorites. We can share a party pack between the three of us!

And from one sport to another, soccer season began in short order! At least we finally got on a team with some kids from Owen's school, including the coach's son, so practices are very close to home. Yay!

In between, there's nothing quite like a box for creative entertainment, whether it's a huge box that became a spaceship or a Kiwi Crate filled with science experiments.

Finally, we celebrated Texas Independence Day with other UT alumni on this Leap Day at a local distillery. There were cocktails, cake, and yard games. Oh, and a bouncy house, of course!

Gnome for the Holidays

Owen started off the month of February with a friend's American Ninja Warrior (ANW) birthday party. It's basically a fancy obstacle course competition, and the kids LOVE it. Here's Owen climbing the wall at the end (apparently one of the few to be able to leap to the top)!

Hadley is a little obsessed with ANW, so she was bummed that it was a boy's only party, and is already planning her own birthday party there for this summer. To distract her, we used a Groupon at a local ceramics painting place, which she enjoyed very much. She chose a gnome, "Petey", to paint.

It was a two-for-one, so I got to paint too. I chose a spoon rest, since we needed one, and a teabag rest for a certain tea drinker. I had time to do both, while Hadley diligently painted Petey.

We are still learning about tropical plant life here, so when we cut down the banana plants, we weren't sure what to make of the bananas attached. Given a few weeks, they actually ripened, and we made muffins with them. I didn't get a picture of the muffins, but they were yummy!

A few days later, Granna and Grandad came to town. The weather was beautiful and we spent some time outside.

Hadley enjoyed showing them her chalk city, Alemedatown, very well planned out with neighborhoods, school, shops and parks.

Before we knew it, it was Valentine's Day.

The kids' classes both had Friendship parties, and as room parent, I got to attend (and run) Hadley's party. She adores her teacher, Ms. Cashion, and loves to go to school to see her!

They had treats and played games. My favorite was the friendship yarn, where each student tossed the yarn to someone across the circle and gave them a compliment and so on. It was so sweet to hear their kind words to each other.

I was even able to sneak away to peek in at Owen's party where he was playing a kind word memory game. 

His class was a featured class of the week, too. (Ms. Teter, his teacher, is in the middle of the back row.)

Finally, we had a day off from school for President's Day, so I thought the kids would enjoy some time at Monkey Joe's. And they did!