Delayed Christmas gift to me!

Bill gave me a flight to go visit Becca in Arizona for Christmas. The weekend finally came! I was so happy to just leave and not have to plan any food or childcare. Bill did a great job organizing it all. 

Saturday morning we were off bright and early for a hike! 

meanwhile at home - the girls attended a princess tea party for a friend's birthday. Belle showed up!!! This is the Belle in the school play this spring too. Claire was wearing her Belle dress and was delighted! 

the group of girls! Emma's birthday party (she in in the middle)

Ellie.

their teachers actually hosted the party. the parent had purchased the tea party at the school auction! seems like an awesome idea!

back in paradise...the glorious sunshine! and Becca's beautiful backyard!

at night - crashed out with 1 million pillows and scarlet on my lap.

out for a fun happy hour before we went to a speaker. 

my happy place. margs, chips and salsa, onion rings. can't beat it!

It was such a great recharging trip for me! Loved spending time with one of my besties! Thanks Becca for being an awesome host and to Bill for holding down the fort while I was gone! 

Spring time

Last few  random pictures from Schweitzer. The kids had a blast one of the warmer days with their coach. 

Charlie and a buddy at the "Lightning Tree". 

Ellie, Claire up in the tree with some of their teammates.

They found a skull. Ellie was so happy.

Back in town - Claire became really into climbing this tree in our back yard. She also would start to make it sway back and forth. 

Geography Day - a big day at the Oaks. All of the grammer school classrooms convert to different continents. Charlie's classroom is Africa. This year the theme was Animals. The girls were North America. 

The moms put in a TON of work to make these classrooms transform. 

Charlie's classmates.

The girls both practicing reading the books they will read in class. It is hilarious as they both read loudly over each other. 

At Charlie's soccer practice - climbing yet another tree. This time together.

 

Ellie getting ready to read to her class. She did a fabulous job! 

Claire did awesome too! Loved watching them really take this task and run with it! 

I was on a plane to go visit Becca in Scottsdale, but Charlie celebrated his birthday on Friday (his birthday was Sunday this year) with his class. They had donuts. I love how they have the class pray over the child whose birthday they are celebrating. What a sweet thing! 

Last SARS Home Race

The last race of the season was the first week of April. 

Here came Ellie!

Ellie!

Claire!

I had to watch Charlie from the bottom because the girls were with me. 

he did awesome!

one of our last runs as a family for the season. bittersweet.

 

love the base area. 

Ellie would have done awesome (probably been on the podium), but she missed a gate at the end. She was so bummed. 

Claire took 2nd!!! She was embarrassed at first and then was beaming with pride. Ellie was so frustrated with herself. Having twins is so hard for these kind of situations. 

 

Abby is a friend from school and happened to be up there right as Claire won. 

Charlie getting his medal. He placed 6th! 

After awards there was a pizza party with the SARS family and everyone watched the Zags in the Final Four game. It was so fun and such a great atmosphere to watch the win! They went to the Championship game ,but sadly lost right at the last second.  

Sunday - our last day as a family for the season (Bill went up the following weekend, but I was out of town). Claire finally spent her money from Christmas on this massive brownie at the Outback! 

We had some blue skies! The snow was epic this year. Over 330 inches of snow and it was still snowing on closing day (April 16th). Thankful for a great winter of fun family times together! 

That same day we came home and assembled the new trampoline. It has been a great (ugly) addition to our backyard. Crazy to be skiing about and 2 hours later being in the backyard with green grass! 

 Within 2 minutes of having the trampoline built -Bill challenged the kids to a flip contest! I was like - NOOOO. Thankfully they have been pretty safe on it.