Phoebe, along with her other freshmen basketball teammates, were invited to and attended Coach Steele Chapman's wedding the first Saturday in March. Phoebe got a beautiful formal dress to wear to the wedding and crocheted a small purse to match her dress for the evening.
Below, Kenzie, Phoebe, Morgan, Shawna, Mrs. Chapman, Mr./Coach Chapman, Baylee, Lilly, and Kirsten.
Sarah and Popee were the Pounce partner winners when we gathered on Saturday, March 1st to play games and eat dinner together for Sarah's 18th birthday.
We ate dinner with family at Wasabi Hinkaku for Sarah's birthday. The drinks they served us had ice cubes in the shape of roses. The food was delicious. They had funny hats for us to wear and they made a big deal about Sarah's birthday. After dinner, back at home we ate birthday pie and played a few more games together.
Silas's YMCA basketball team won the championship game for the winter session. Popee was there with us to cheer on Silas and his team.
Sarah's basketball team got to play in the first round of Sub-state in Liberal. We provided a fun birthday hat and Crumbl Cookies for the team because it was Sarah's birthday.
Later in the week, we celebrated Sarah's 18th birthday with dinner at Kobe's Steakhouse of Japan, then went back home so that she could open her gifts from all of us.
I caught Silas's Bearded Dragon, Ralphie, sleeping in an unusual spot on his little tree up high, with his tail spread out against the glass.
We had the ice cream cake for Sarah's birthday later in the week after her birthday. We did a great job of spreading her birthday out over the entire week this year.
Sarah had a few friends over to celebrate her birthday the weekend after her birthday. They played games and ate dessert.
Eric and I got to go watch one of our favorite gospel singing groups in mid-March. Spoken 4 was performing at the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon, about thirty minutes from our house. This group performs regularly at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and has a few singing engagements all over the Midwest during Silver Dollar City's off-season. Brandon Britton, the group's tenor has one of the most AMAZING tenor voices that I have ever heard. I'm a huge fan!
We took the kids on a fun Spring Break trip to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. We walked a LOT of miles all over New York City, saw so MANY things, and we took the kids to show them where we use to live while Eric was building a hospital there in East Stroudsburg, PA over 18 years ago, we got to visit old friends, see historic sites, movie filming sites, places Eric and I use to hike and fish, and so much more. It was a GREAT Spring Break! (There will be an entire separate blog detailing our Spring Break trip following this blog post.) Below, are just some of the things we saw, places we went, and people we visited.
Sarah was reviewing our families March Madness basketball brackets the first week when the tournament began. She had them spread out on the floor in the living room and Gus decided to use them as a little pillow.
Dad and I took some Spring flowers to Clearwater to decorate Mom's grave. I've been having a hard time again lately. The sadness creeps in during happy moments or big moments. With Sarah having so many high school "lasts" right now, there seem to be a lot of "big" and "happy" moments, and I have just been so sad that my Mom isn't here to experience them with us. She would absolutely have LOVED all of this and just being a part of her grandkids growing up. There aren't many things or people that she loved more than her four grandkids. She should be here.
Phoebe loves our chickens and is a great helper in their day-to-day care. We have eleven hens now and have been getting 5 - 8 eggs a day.
Silas sang with his 6th grade choir and played his violin with his 6th grade orchestra at our district's Fine Arts Fair at the end of March.
Our family spent a few hours at the zoo one Saturday at the end of May when the weather was beautiful. Our favorite animals to see/watch this time were the Black Bear cubs. They were active - running, chasing, swimming, jumping, and swinging.
Some of Silas's Toads (that have been in our window well for years) have started to come out of hibernation. He feeds and waters these Toads as soon as they start to emerge from hibernation every year only late fall when they go back into hibernation. Some of these big Toads are at least 6 years old.
