May Day!

Received such a lovely bouquet from a friend -- Happy May Day everyone!

Spring Flowers!

I'm so so grateful to be back to the Springtime portion of our wheel 🎡🎡🎡 even if my garden is trying to kill me

Wild Roses

I was so happy to be able to spend some time with my sisters today.  Ellen and I hiked up Rock Canyon with the kids and the weather was simply perfect!  It is so so so pretty here right now. I think they have gotten a lot of rain this Spring and I honestly cannot remember the mountains ever being this green!  As we made our way up the steep path, I noticed giant wild rose bushes blooming like crazy!  I had never noticed that they were there -- because it is a desert!  It was so lovely.


We had a little photo shoot with my wild sisters -- there is always a lot of chatting and laughing when we get together.  Which I love.  How lucky am I that I get to have three?







And one with our mama -- she thinks we're all quite silly



Tomorrow is the first day of my yoga training!  I am so excited!

Happy May Day!

I am quite sure that most people don't even celebrate May Day, but our neighbor happens to own a maypole, and if I was the proud owner of a maypole you had better bet your boots that I would use it!  We usually make a little craft with flowers to drop off at other neighbor's door steps and then we attempt to circle the maypole without getting too too tangled up -- it's so quaint.

Allerton Park

To continue our enjoyment of this delightfully sunny and abundant spring, we invited the Rowley family to join us on a little excursion to Allerton Park in Champaign.  Neither of our families had ever been there so it was fun to discover it together.  We had a little picnic and then hiked through the woods.  The path circles back around to the main house and who should we see lounging on the grass?  Sean and Jessa Mitchell and Sean's lovely new wife, Alecia!  It was such a nice surprise to run into them.  We also tried our hand at flying a kite on the expansive lawn.  Overall, a very fun afternoon!

Lake of the Woods

It was so nice to go on a little field trip with our homeschool friends.  A lot of them we haven't seen at all since we returned from our trip.  It was so nice to reconnect and also spend time in nature.  I think the universe is trying to tell me that Illinois is incredibly beautiful and I need to just stop with the restlessness and always wanting to be somewhere else.

Spring!

There is evidence all around that Spring has sprung and it makes me so happy!

But our friends, the McLaughlins, are moving which makes me so sad.  They were supposed to be the more permanent ones who kept us company forever! We were able to have dinner with them one last time and enjoy a little walk around their neighborhood.

Spring Break to D.C.

We just went to Washington D.C. this past week for Spring Break.  We had been tentatively planning it for a while, but it still felt spontaneous when it finally happened.  We were worried about the weather driving out because it was snowing on the way there -- we could barely see as we drove through the Appalachians in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, but then everything warmed up and I thought that winter just might be finally over -- wrong!  When we left Rebecca's house early yesterday morning it was raining super hard and by the time we made it to the same mountains again it was snowing pretty hard and the roads were terrible!  I stopped breathing a couple of times and was clutching the sides of the car -- because holding onto the door would totally keep the semi from ramming into us, right?  I was so happy to see the sun again and relieved to get out of those hills -- I am now a flatlander through and through.

We did some fun things in D.C.  We drove out on Tuesday and got there late so Wednesday morning we had a little bit of a late start.  We went to the Library of Congress and the Botanic Garden.

 This is a pic of the boys running wild through the hallways from which we were subsequently shushed out.

Charles was being crazy at the Garden and saying that he had to archive each plant so he kept pulling off leaves and flowers!  When we got back to the car he had quite a collection, brat!  We tried to explain to him how bad it would be if everyone who visited acted the same way, but he thinks he is above the law.  It was pretty funny!  He had an orchid blossom, a leaf from a "cabbage on a stick", and he had consumed a kumquat.  Before driving back we drove past the White House.

Thursday, Rebecca let her kids skip school so went into town and toured the U.S. Mint and the Holocaust Museum.  The boys enjoyed seeing where money came from and the museum was really well done!  I didn't really want to go because I knew that it would, of course, be completely depressing, but it is such a great museum!  They did a wonderful job presenting how horrific it all was.  On the way home we stopped at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.  It is really amazing!

Friday was Phin's birthday!!! We went to the Hirshhorn gallery, had lunch at the Native American museum and then headed over to the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial.  It was really awesome!  I heard someone say that it is one of only four memorials in D.C. that isn't dedicated to a president or a war.  As usual, the kids got right down to business of running all over the place.  They conquered it.

I actually left everyone at the gallery and had lunch with two friends from high school so that was fun.  I met them at the Natl. Gallery so I quickly ran around to see some of my faves... Vermeer, Van Gogh, Whistler, etc.  I have so many memories of that museum.  I wonder how many times we went?  50?  It is all very very familiar, thanks to my mom!

Isn't that a great selfie with Twila, Amy, and Maggie?  Love it!

We then went to Arlington Cemetery, which they know longer let you drive around, so we walked a lot!  Later, Charles made all the kids some dinner while the adults tried an amazing Korean place.  We finished the day with some candles on brownies for Phin.  Saturday we went to the temple and shopping for Ella's birthday.  Sunday we drove home!  Through the snow!  Ack!