Kite Festival

It was great to be back at the Kite Festival! The weather was great and the kites were amazing! There was a great wind for getting our kites in the air as well. And you can't beat the food! 

Kite "Festival"

 We've enjoyed going to the local kite festival for the past 5 years. I found the date online but when we showed up and only saw about 2 big kites and 12 little kites, we knew something was different this year. Thankfully we'd brought our kites we bought last year and it was a nice, breezy day, so we still enjoyed our time flying them and Nana and Grandpa met us there too. I spoke with a couple that were there with a big kite (an indicator that they at least knew of the annual event) and apparently it had been cancelled in January. Next year, though, it'll be run by the city and should be back up to full speed again. They were super nice, though, and helped us get Owen's incredibly tangled string cleaned up. He also let me fly his two-string kite!!! It wasn't as simple as I thought and he was super patient telling me the same things over and over again. Grandpa gave it a try too!

 After enjoying kites for a bit, we headed to a Japanese ice cream place nearby (since there was no "free icecream" at the festival). Nana and Grandpa hadn't been before and it's always fun to watch them make it. Owen did a "create your own" and picked mango icecream with cookie dough topped with gummy worms and chocolate chips. Interesting!

Catching Up

We've had a mix of snow and sun this spring. The kids have enjoyed getting outside to play catch or in the trampoline more. 

They've played a lot with neighbors, which is fun. One of the other 3rd grade girls is moving into the neighborhood and comes over while her family works on the house. At one point recently both kids were playing with friends, so I almost didn't know what to do with myself!!!

Some of the neighborhood boys:

Owen had Community Helper Dress-up Day recently and borrowed the hard hat that I wore during AmeriCorps. So cute!!

For our Mother-Daughter date, Willow and I went to play laser tag. We had a great time! They had an arcade there too!

Willow's really enjoyed a light up tracing pad that she got for Christmas. This is one of her creations:

 We're happy that this little man isn't afraid of falling asleep in the car when he needs to. It's probably the only thing holding us back from putting him in a booster seat!

Owen has been swamped with Lego sets since his birthday party. He got some pretty intricate sets!! I have an 8-minute video of him explaining two of them.

 Willow went to a friend's sleepover recently and got ZERO minutes of sleep!! Yes! No sleep AT ALL! Craziness!! Her FitBit confirmed it (it was charging Wednesday night):

She took a 4-hr nap the next day and couldn't even stay awake to listen to Chris read Harry Potter!

 Jumping in a warm, spring rain!

Aunt Kim ran a crazy half marathon up and down two mountains!! We were able to run around town to see her in 4 places. She did great!!

She ran up the mountain in the background with the star on the top!!

We've enjoyed going to the Kite Festival for many years. We weren't able to make it at the beginning to get a free kite and shirt this year due to softball/tball games but we still got free ice cream and purchased a couple kites that the kids got to try out. 

Gramps and Gramma came down for Willow's birthday. They always soak up the extra time and attention they get when Gramps and Gramma are in town!

We tried a fun pizza place downtown that only makes 28" pizzas! Needless to say, we had leftovers!

Remember when Owen was as tall as an iris?

He's a head taller than an iris now!!

I love when the kids take time in making birthday cards: