Our month started out the same as it does every year: celebrating Elena's birthday. This year was her 14th. With one year of teenagerhood under her belt, my theory that wild and temperamental young children make up for it by mellowing out in their teen years has not been proven false. Elena has grown in both height -passing me up by about 3 inches! (admittedly not a difficult feat) - and maturity. She continues to thrive of social activity, happiest when she can be with others. And she grows more helpful every year. This will mark the year she crosses over to the high school. We're all a bit sad to see her leaving St. Ed's, but I know she has a self-confidence and laid-back attitude that will serve her well in the new environment. Happy birthday, Elena!! We enjoyed a day at the zoo while Seth brought Sam to wrestle with his team at a tournament.
Next up was Easter - what an amazing day!! It was our first big celebration at Seth's parents' house since COVID-19 hit. When first planned we assumed it would be a mostly indoor affair, but it turns out the weather was nice enough for us to spend the whole day outside anyway - 80+ degrees and sunny all day! Sunscraeen was applied (twice!), the bikes and beanbags were out, and Elena offered to run home and grabbed shorts for everyone in our family.
The next weekend brought us to our friends, Steve & Mel's, place up in Freemont. They have 2 little boys with another baby on the way. Our family of 7 took over their entire house and we had to get creative with sleeping arrangements since we forgot our air mattress: one night had kids sleeping in a bouncy house, the next Frankie slept on a stack of 4 yoga mats. We were able to visit both of their family farms and tour their extremely beautiful church. Requests for an annual repeat have already been made by all involved.
The friends we stayed with are much better at taking pictures than we are so this segment is drastically more well documented than the others.
