April

 April flew by. Now it's May and almost summer break. Yay!!

Happily more and more things are starting to return to semi-normal. Ryan's basketball league started back up to finish off the season they had to cut short last year. It's not quite the same, but Ryan is loving being able to play ball a couple of times a week. He has practices on Tuesdays (which he skips on weeks he has primary activities) and games on Saturdays. Here he is shooting the ball at his first practice back:

They don't really have set teams right now, just all the third graders practice together, then on game days they're split based on which color of the jersey they wore (the jerseys are reversible). At his last game Ryan scored 8 points and got some good rebounds and assists. Unfortunately only one adult and no extra children are allowed to watch the games right now, so his cheering section isn't as big as it could be.

The kids' ELP teacher, Ms. Bradshaw is retiring at the end of this school year and since all except Megan have had her for ELP I decided to try and compile a book full of her students and co-workers sharing their favorite memories. It was a bit of a pain in the neck trying to collect submissions, but with Facebook, emails, and the help of some middle and elementary school teachers I was able to get a decent representation of past students. I compiled it all on Shutterfly into a pretty decent looking book. I think. The book should arrive any day now.

We are still riding bikes unless it's too windy or rainy. The kids sometimes ride the bus now, and that has made them all lazy so they ask for a ride every day instead of just assuming we're riding bikes like we have been all year.

Our "biker gang" has grown over the year and now when we're heading home after school it's not unusual to have 15 bikes between us, the Knights, the Sanders, and two other families with a couple kids each that ride in the morning on their own or with a parent, but ride home with us for safety in numbers. :) 

Megan and I ready for church:

After General Conference we got to start 2 hour church again! It was a little strange, but nice to stay after sacrament meeting and actually see and talk to some people. Not everyone in the ward is comfortable being back yet, but a lot more have come back. I got a new calling as a nursery leader and so far it's actually not as bad as I feared it would be. I might actually enjoy this calling.

I still am the YW camp director, and we're in full blown camp preparations now, so that is fun. Things are starting to come together and I'm hopeful that it'll all work out well. I do occasionally find myself wishing we had stake camp because my calling as a ward camp director would be so easy compared to what it is now as we plan our ward camp. Next year, I guess...

Our grass is looking more lush and beautiful every day. We still have to water it quite a bit, but not nearly as much as those first two weeks. This is after the first time mowing our new lawn.

Since we had new grass, I offered my backyard as a place to host a baby shower for Yadira Gollas, a lady in our ward that's relatively new to our ward and to the church and who mostly just speaks Spanish. It was a good fellowshipping activity and I think Yadira really felt the love.

The kids have been loving the new grass. Rachel has let them in "frolicking on the grass," teaching them how to properly frolick. 

It also makes for a perfect place to practice gymnastics moves, which Megan takes advantage of often.

Ryan was hard to convince to get his hair cut, but when he gave in we had fun doing weird styles until we got to the final, normal-looking style.

Annie is always very generous when it's someone's birthday. She buys something for them with her own money that is thoughtful and individualized for that person's interests. For Eloise's birthday she wrapped the gift (fancy mini Chinese fans) super nice, too.

Ryan got some new pants just in time for the weather to warm up to the 80s and 90s when pants are uncomfortable. He was excited that they're almost a full body suit because of their stretchiness.

Rachel does not like shopping, so I don't think I've taken her clothes shopping since 5th grade graduation. She needed new shorts so she went with me and we ended up finding 3 new dresses (and eventually at a different store the shorts she needed). Megan and Annie wanted to try on her new dresses. Megan looked awesome in this one:

Rachel got to model her new dress in front of the temple. Our temple moved to Phase 2B in April which means the baptistry is open! Yay! You can schedule up to 16 people for an hour, so Grandma Knight reserved a spot for us and we went for Jared's first time, and our neighbor, Hailey's first time, too. 

It was so nice to be back to the temple. I can't wait until our temple moves to Phase 3 and we can schedule other ordinances, too! 

Rachel got to go the next day with the Young Women, too. Lucky! 

April was also full of AZM2 testing (the state standardized test) for all the kids except Megan. The kids did great, I'm sure, and now are happy to be done with that and on to the last month of school! That's where all the fun projects and other exciting things usually happen. This year might differ with COVID and all, but at least things are starting to wind down. And starting tomorrow the kids are allowed to remove their masks while they're outside if they want. Up until now they've required 100% mask wearing when on district property at all, so as they start to relax mask regulations a little bit, hopefully that is a sign of a return to normality. 
Jacob got his second vaccine shot last week, so for now our family is as vaccinated as we can be. I expect in the next week or two that the Pfizer vaccine will open to kids 12 and older, so Rachel will soon hopefully be vaccinated, too. Thank heaven for modern miracles. Last year when we held a worldwide fast for an end to the pandemic I never expected the answer to come in the form of a vaccine that took less than a year to develop and test, being the fastest vaccine ever to be developed thanks to research that has been done over the last 5 or so years. I'm so grateful for that modern miracle.