Both the kids tried out for the Missoula Children Theater play this year and they both MADE IT!!! It was the Frog Princess this year. Austyn was ecstatic to have a bigger part than the ones she's been casted for before. And Quade was eager to experience what Austyn has been doing for the past 3 years. Quade was casted as a Venus Fly Trap and Austyn was a Swamp Thing. They both did sooooo good. And it was adorable to watch them. Quade probably won't continue on next year. It was too slow for him and not enough action. But he stuck it out and gave it 100%, which I was very proud of him for. Austyn has the preforming bug, and she will definitely be returning for her 5th year next January.
Quade as a Venus Fly Trap
The whole cast
Austyn as a "Swamp Thing" (she's a spider) along
with her best friend Addie
Our next adventure was the Snowpocalypes of 2019! Although they did predict the amount of snow we got. I refused to believe the weatherman this time, due to the previous 3 times they called for snow it turned out to be nothing. But not this time!!!!!! The kids and I were so excited when we woke up to snow. I was like a little kid and woke up every couple hours and looked outside to check and see if it had snowed yet. The kids have a traditional "snow dance" they do to ensure the snow will really come. They turn their jammies inside out, put a white crayon in the freezer, put ice cubes in the toilet (one ice cube for each inch of snow they want), run around the table 5 times, and finally walk backwards to bed. It's been about 80% accurate so far. I love watching their excitement. We were hoping for enough snow for the power to go out. Unfortunately we only lost power for about 5 or 6 hours. But everyone else did, so they came over and hung out and played. We are very prepared for power loss with a generator big enough to run most of the house. And our wood stove and gas cook top keep us very comfortable. It's so sad that our mighty oak trees in this area are not accustomed to the heavy snow. We lost a few big ones, which always is a total bummer and such a mess. We were pretty lucky to not have them fall on any structures though.
Sledding behind the quad
Walked to Dari Mart for Hot Coco
My parents had a huge tree fall and the
kid couldn't wait to climb on it
Look at how amazing their Snowmen
turned out!!!! All I did was lift the body and head
into place
Another one of my parents tree casualties
We were only out of power for 5 or 6 hours so the
kids and I had to pretend we were out of power. So we
built a fort in the living room and slept in it that night.
We go to Seattle this weekend for Jordan's stair climb. I'm not sure he's looking forward to it as much as past years. He says this is probably his last year he will participate, at least for awhile. It's been so nice to see him be able to actually have some spare time and do projects that he's been waiting to do. He is going to build our shop this spring/summer so that will start soon. It will be so nice for him to have a bigger space for him to work on stuff.
Austyn is totally rocking it at school. She set a goal for herself to get into the highest reading group and has already achieved it. She is so good at math and writing too. I love that she loves school. She is doing a group dance in her schools talent show and loves every minute of that too. And right now she's doing swim lessons and then on to softball.
Quade is also in swim lessons and will be playing baseball too. I will be coaching Austyn and I think I will play Quade up on our team and try to take advantage of having both kids on one team. I continue to be amazed at how Quade is passionate about school. He was also put into the highest reading group for his age and is exceeding all areas of school. I thought since he was a boy he wouldn't LOVE school and I definitely didn't think he would continue this long into the school year loving it so much. But I'm expecting as he gets a little older his love will dwindle and his interests will be in other places.
I have been subbing a lot at the school and started something new as well. I have been doing all the State Testing for the school this year. It's a very interesting process and super super strict about how you interact with the kids and what you say. There are only a few scripted lines that you can say to them. And in a couple months I will be coaching the kids baseball team. I'm really excited about it this year. But I always get excited about baseball season.
This year has been so crazy fast and busy for us. Since January we had Disneyland, I threw Jasmin her Bridal Shower, Seattle stair climb, camping for Spring Break, MEXICO (Jordan and I, along with two other couples will be going to Puerto Vallarta), then Chad and Jasmin's wedding. And of course in between all those huge trips we have sports, Birthdays, etc. After May I'm thinking Jordan will start working on the shop and then we will have our summer camping trips. Busy, Busy, Busy!!!!!
Hope everyone faired well through the snow. I'm late on Quade's Birthday blog due to the fact that we had to cancel his party twice. Poor little guy got sick with the legit flu ON his Birthday and had to cancel his party and take him home early from school. Then when I rescheduled it the snow caused us to have to cancel it again. So now we're on the 'third times a charm' theory for tomorrow. Both kids got Type A influenza and were on Tamiflu for a week. Poor kids were so sick. It knocked out almost half of each of their classes up at school. Very scary stuff.
STAY HEALTHY!!!
