A Long Time Gone

There's no excuse for a three month delay.  I've been negligent in taking pictures at events and even worse at posting them to the blog in a timely manner.  Mid-year resolution is to do better.

Mason played spring soccer this year with Luis as one of his assistant coaches.

He was much improved over how he's ever played.  It was exciting to see the change and progress he's made.  He just seemed so much more confident out there and everything seems to be clicking for him.

It was a shortened season because it's spring but he scored 5 goals total, including two in one game which earned him (well, the whole family really) a trip to Baskin Robbins to celebrate.  The spring games brought a variety of spring weather though, with some games being sunny and warm and some with torrential rain and hail.  His team won every game though and were super excited.

Siena continues to be our girly girl.  Here's one of her attempts at curling her hair.  One day she twisted it around her finger so much in an effort to curl it that it ended up tangled in 3 tight knots and we had to just cut it.  She now has a side whisp of hair.

Lots of things happened over the last few months, including my parents moving from Battle Ground to within a mile of our house.  They are in the process of building a new house but in the meantime are renting a place.  It has been wonderful having them so close.  We get to see them a lot more and the kids get to have more fun experiences with them than they did before.

Easter also happened!  We celebrated Easter at my parent's rental house this year.  The weather was nice but we decided to have the egg hunt indoors since their rental house has no foliage in which to hide anything.  Our house isn't much better.

As you can see, we got creative both with the goodies and the hiding places.

Of course Mason had to go out and play with his purple bubbles...

And Papa Ron got to snuggle with Bunny Bun Bun.

Now that the kids are older, Yaya and I had fun making the hunt more challenging for them.  It took a while.  There may still be a hard boiled egg rotting in a plant...

Go Mason!

Mason's haul:

Siena's loot.  Course, she had to video the event.  It may be part of a future Mermaid movie.

Siena and Yaya!

We enjoyed a nice Mother's Day last weekend.  We had dinner at the Rhinelander with my folks which, other than Siena getting car sick on the way there and throwing up on the bathroom floor of the restaurant, was a nice dinner.  We went to dinner with Luis' family Sunday night at the Spaghetti Factory and also had a nice time together.

Mother's Day was a little bit bittersweet though because my Grandma Bessie passed away that morning.  We had a graveside memorial Friday night and the service itself yesterday at the Tualatin Seventh-Day Adventist Church.  Mason was asked to read a Bible verse at the service and did a wonderful job.  We were very proud of him.  The rest of the service as also very nice, including a lot of pictures and stories.  It was a good tribute.

After the service, we headed over to Auntie Jo's house for dinner and to visit.  The kids of course had to take advantage of the pool and hot tub.  Well, more the hot tub since the pool isn't heated yet.

Siena FINALLY had a chance to use her mermaid tail in water.  She has been very into mermaids and is working on a mermaid series for YouTube.  Yaya made her this tail.  Siena's hoping to be able to film some water scenes later this summer at Joanne's pool.  We had to inform her that a funeral wasn't the best occasion for mermaid movie making.  However, she was thrilled enough just to be able to use it in water.

Most of the kids at least braved the cold pool.  Mason took the quick approach of just jumping in quickly...and then making a beeline for the hot tub.

The silver lining to funeral services is getting to visit with family that we don't get to see often.  My cousin Shelley came out from Minneapolis and my cousin Travis was home for a week from college.  We also got to visit with more distant relatives that it seems we only see once in a while anymore.

Those are the highlights of the last few months.  More to come as the spring and summer continue to bring activities for us.