2019 :: week 22

May 26

The flowers in our backyard have been so beautiful lately. Even this horribly overgrown mock orange bush's blooms have been in full force. We are making plans to chop down this bush and several others that have gotten out of hand in the past few years. The previous owners of our home had the yard professionally landscaped AND professionally tended. In the almost eight years we've owned our home we have not once had the landscaping tended by professionals. Unfortunately, it is starting to show.

May 27

Monday was my birthday and we went swimming as a family at my request. It has been a cool spring, and the heater at the pool was broken, so it was much cooler than I expected. We still had fun. Several of our friends were there and we had a good time visiting with them. The great part about having the pool in our neighborhood is that we get to run into so many friends and neighbors when we go. It was a relaxing way to spend my 36th birthday.

May 28

Will started off summer vacation with four days of Cub Scout Camp. This year the troop went to camp in Lawrence (as opposed to Gardner where they went last year). Our ward combines with the Olathe 3rd Ward and Will really likes several of the boys in that ward. It also means there are more potential parents to go, so I didn't have to this year. I enjoyed going last year, but having Miles makes the logistics of going more complicated. Will enjoyed many of the activities they did at camp--Gaga Ball, archery and soap carving to name a few.

May 29

Lauren's girl scout troop chose to use the money they earned from selling cookies to spend a day at SkyZone. We dropped her off at 9am, picked her up and 5pm, and she spent the day jumping, crafting and watching a movie. She had such a great time, but was so exhausted when I picked her up and complained of an ear ache. I wanted her to come home and rest, but of course we had more plans that evening and I couldn't convince her to stay home with me. The Lenz's invited us over for a BBQ and pool party with friends in honor of the Hildreth's visiting town for a few days. Will and Lauren especially had a great time playing with their friends. In addition to these plans Will had Cub Scout camp and then baseball practice and Anthony met with a few people at the church that night. It was a very busy day for our family.

May 30

While Will was enjoying another fun day of camp I took the other three kids strawberry picking with the Mansinghs. Elliott and Blaise have become such good little buddies. Blaise sometimes struggles to behave around Lauren--he often does things that bother her to get her attention--but they got along fine. The berries were delicious and it was not crowded. We tried out a new patch and I really liked it. Several of the berry patches around here are adding attractions to their farms, making the outing to pick berries into an "experience." In some ways it is really fun--doughnuts and slides and tractor rides, etc.--but it also makes things cost more and I feel like it makes the experience less about picking berries and more about entertainment. I don't think it is bad that the farms are adding these things, there is clearly a market for it, I'm just not sure that I like it for me.

May 31

Lauren helped her friend Hailey do a lemonade stand during the neighborhood garage sale on Friday. They ended up making $10 each in just over two hours. Pretty impressive considering there were about thirty lemonade stands happening in the neighborhood that day!

June 1

Melanie came to town for about 48 hours to go through the temple with her friend Elizabeth when she received her endowment Saturday. That evening she had dinner with us and each of the three older kids had fun showing off their rooms. We've done a lot of work getting the kids rooms cleared out of junk and organizing things this week, but they are still a work in progress.