Spring 2017 Catch Up

This year has flown by and I promised myself that I would catch up on the blog while the kids were in Florida visiting Mimi and Papa, so here goes!  This spring was full of busy and fun times.  

I started working again part time for a local payroll company and really enjoy it.  I work M, T, W during school hours.  It has been an adjustment getting used to working, but it has been a blessing to our family.  I'm trying to save most of my earnings for the kid's college funds.  Heaven knows it will be here sooner than we think!  I really love being back in the work force, and these hours are just the right amount for our busy family right now.

Haley and her friend Claire teamed up for their school service project.  They chose to spend their 10 hours working to raise funds for the local humane society.  They sold homemade dog treats door to door in our neighborhood, and sold dress down passes at school for a week.  Come to find out, kids LOVE dress down.  For a dollar or a animal food donation they don't have to wear dress code.  Genius.  The whole school practically bought these every day and the girls raised over $800!  I was surprised.  It was so fun to deliver the donation and visit the animals up for adoption.  Haley was also able to use it as one of her church young women's value projects.  
 Our favorite pizza place in town  (Goodfellas) opened up a new place in the old distillery district and we love it.  We have gone here many times since.
For St. Patrick's Day, I usually do a big green spread in the morning, but I just didn't get things pulled together in time.  Instead I bought Grant a shamrock shake after school and thought I was off the hook, until the kids were so disappointed that I snuck out to Kroger and did an evening spread of goodies.  The leprechaun was tired, but stepped it up in the end.

 
 Grant has a great time at his last pinewood derby.  His car didn't win fastest, but he was happy.
 My friend Caroline scored some awesome UK basketball tickets and invited me along.  It was such a fun night out.  I treated us to their famous ice cream cones that were super yum. 
 Brian and I both turned 41...but I only have a picture of him! 
  Grant trained for a one mile run and ended up coming in second place!  We were so happy for him.





 The next day, Brian ran the Bluegrass half marathon.  It was super cold out, but he ran it in record time!  He finished about 1:45, which was at least 25 minutes faster than last year.  He used it as a training run for his first marathon.
 The plants at Costco arrived and I made the family go that same night and we filled the car up with 25 plants.  We finally got some parts of the yard under control.  Less weeding = happiness.
 We spruced up the fire pit a little.
 Haley ran her last season of middle school track and did great.  She ran her first sub-7 minute mile.  She enjoyed this year the most of any other year.  It's always so fun to watch her run.

Grant and I at a rainy and cold track meet.
 Grant has a webelos cub scout hike one Saturday.  He's a hiking champ, so this was a fun and easy hike. 

 We had a nice mother's day, where I was able to just sit back and relax, which was very nice.
  We had McCaela (and Alexander and Jason) visit and tell her about her mission to New Mexico.  It was great to see them!  We chowed down on some greek food.
Brian presented a lecture at UConn and was able to see his sister, niece, grandma and aunt.  
And, of coarse, Dusty kept being awesome.  He's 15 now and a little grouchier than he used to be, but we still love him - floppy ear and all.  

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