My trip to Oregon

Last week, I left the house at 4:30 a.m. on Monday to travel to Hood River, Oregon for a work conference.  I don't like being away from Glenn and the monsters for too long but I do enjoy seeing new places and let's face it, it's nice to eat dinner and not be responsible for making it, getting people to eat it and clean it up afterwards. I was in Oregon until 6:00 a.m. Thursday when I flew back and was greeted with affection by everyone, including Coco.  Glenn does a terrific job of holding down the fort when I'm gone but I know that everything tends to run more smoothly when both of us are home.  I had a work trips every week during the month of May and I'm sure glad to have this month almost behind us.  Between school projects, field trips, sports practices, dance and piano, our calendar is full and we are all ready for summer vacation.  

Here are some camera shots from my trip.  

My hotel was right along the Columbia River.  Oregon seems to be overrun with friendly dogs and I met quite a few as I walked and jogged this path every day.  

As part of the conference, we took a quick tour of agricultural operations in the area and saw lots of fruit orchards, vineyards and Mt Hood in the background.  

On my last night, I headed back up to Portland and walked all over downtown and then drove to an amazing rose garden.  It made me anxious to get home and plant our garden.  Look at all of those colors!  

This lovely rose probably couldn't survive our short growing season but I loved the two buds.  

So I was back home in time for the Memorial Day Weekend.  We had a quiet few days filled with lots of hanging out, yard work, house work, movie watching, gardening and other seasonally appropriate activities.  Will was battling a double ear infection (what is with this time of year?!) but it was a good excuse to relax and watch baseball.  The kids have 4 1/2 days of school left and we are ready to officially kick off Summer 2018. 

Our weekend in a nutshell

What a whirlwind of a weekend!  Reina had three (3!) dance recitals, we had a bunch of rain that put a damper (ha!) on gardening and baseball activities, some of us watched the Royal Wedding so some of us also napped and then we had the last day of Sunday School, a classmate's birthday party and so many chores.  So let's recap quickly.  

It's a TRADITION for Vicky and I to watch royal weddings together so I hauled myself out of bed at 4:45 a.m., popped from frozen scones in the oven and waited for the guests to arrive.  It was strictly a pajama affair, although we had big dreams of making our own fascinators.  I did wake Reina up right before the ceremony started so that she could see the dress.  She was glad I did even though she asleep within the hour again.  Dancers need their rest!  

Coco was incredibly unimpressed with the getting up out of bed early and preschool guests arriving in the pre-dawn hours.  That's right, Preschool Cousin joined in on the wedding adventure too!  

 Reina and I got a few more hours of sleep and then launched into the second day of dance extravaganzas.  Reina took Ballet 3 and Jazz 1 this year.  Ballet 3 performed in a Friday and Saturday night performance and Jazz was during Saturday afternoon.  It was a lot of dancing but a lot of fun too.  I think my bun talents improved with each show. 

Reina and her Jazz 1 class. They danced to a song from Mary Poppins - they were chimney sweeps!  

Look at that ballerina!  Her ballet class danced to the theme from "Up."  Yep, I got a little teary-eyed.  It's a pretty piece of music and the dancers were balloons floating through the air.  It was really well done.  

I could watch her dance all day.  

 Today the sun came out during the afternoon and while the temperature wasn't warm enough to garden, we did get to spend some time outside.  Our lilacs in the backyard have gone crazy this year. 

Purple!  Green!  Allergies! 

Gratuitous shot of chicken girls.  

We only have a few more weeks of school to muddle through and then it's officially summer time. We are ready! 

A few things that made me smile on Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, I didn't wake up to breakfast in bed, I woke up to chickens shrieking to be let out of their coop at pre 6:00 a.m.  By the time I did get out of bed, I had to hustle to get my run in before it was time to leave for church.  Sunday mornings can be ridiculously hectic sometimes.  While I was tying my shoes, I was showered with cards and a giant box of chocolates. 

Reina's hand drawn card. That's the two of us.  Yah, I got a little teary.  

A close-up of all of our amazing-ness.  I'm on the right.  

 Actual text of the letter for posterity's sake:

Dear Mom,

Thank you so much for putting food on my plate.  Also for washing my clothes.  Without you I would be smelly and scatry (editor's note, still haven't asked her what this means but I'm thinking something along the lines of her version of 'hangry')  If you weren't there Coco would not be happy anymore.  Thank you so much for everything.  Though now that is almost mother's day I think that I should bake cookies with you and play with your hair.  Thank you for bringing me to Mexico with you it was very fun.  Also thank you for letting me do dance. So for letting me do dance, I will let you do your leaps (I always threaten to ballet leap across the street when we are walking to dance class. I guess know I'm free to do it!).  So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. 

I LOVE YOU!  Love, Reina

Awwwwwww. 

A lovely card from Will in which he points out it should've been a cat card.  

From Glenn 

It was a lovely Mother's Day. 

Will's Track Meet or a Bunch of Pictures of Will Looking Serious

Last week, on a gorgeous sunny Tuesday, Will had his school track meet.  Last year's meet was one of those days were it started off sunny and then got colder quickly and I was woefully under dressed and unprepared.  This year, I packed everything from hats to windbreakers to sunscreen and it actually got a little toasty.  But enough about my comfort.  Let's talk about our track kid. 

Will did three events again this year - a relay, hurdles and the long jump.  His relay was up first.  

Will was the first leg of the relay and here he's getting ready to run.  

Still getting ready to run....

Totally waiting for the starting gun.  Will ran a great leg and his team got second place.  It was very exciting!  

Next up was the hurdles.  This is my least favorite event to watch because of all of the jumping and chances of tripping and bonking beautiful faces and heads on the track.  So there are no action shots here either.  Just Will looking pensive and ready to hurdle stuff. 

The boys ran in heats and Will's was up third.  

Waiting for the starting gun.  Will won his heat and finished seventh overall!  

The last event was the long jump.  Will was looking forward to this event - he'd been practicing it a lot at school. I'm just amazed that a descendant of mine can jump - either forward or high.  He wasn't happy with his score - he ended up 7th.  His first jump was his best but he had better scores during practice. I think this will be one event that he'll be itching to try again next year. 

Waiting in line and getting ready to glare at me and send a silent message of 'stop taking my picture Mom.'  

It was a great way to spend a Tuesday. I love watching my kids have fun and compete - even when their competitiveness is even more than I can handle.  Net year, I'll get to watch both of them in track.  I'm already looking forward to it! 

May Stuff

It's May - the last month of school (except for a few days in June), Spring weather (mostly), a bunch of sports, gardening (kinda) and so many other things going on.  And we are hanging in there!  Will has his school track meet tomorrow and then it's all about baseball season.  Reina has started softball practice, is still working on piano and has her dance recital in two weeks.  Both kids have 4-H shooting sports and field trips and fun projects at school.  Glenn has turkey hunting and work stuff and I have more work travel this month than I usually do. This was supposed to be a blog post about our busy month but now I feel like it's just one big whine.  There are also plenty of sweet moments so far. 

Will and I played catch in the street tonight and he caught most of my pop flies and threw it so hard that I probably have a bruise on my ummm chest area. 

Reina drew a picture of our pastor during church yesterday that was sweet and also a realistic portrayal of his ummm bald head.  He laughed when she handed it to him and we appreciate her dedication to realism in her craft. 

Every time we check for chicken eggs, Glenn and I giggle about our lack of detective skills and the fact that Trigger was eating all of those eggs for months.  The chickens love the warmer weather and perch outside the kitchen dinner and shriek at us until we bring them some snacks. 

We started on the garden for the summer but stuck to cold hardy plants and seeds for now.  We know it'll snow at least one more time before summer actually starts.

Coco sits in her tent in the front yard and lets us know if another cat is anywhere within a 2 block radius.  Her yowls sound like a cross between "no no no no no no no" and a fire truck.  She's not a fan of other felines. 

I mowed the lawn while Glenn was turkey hunting and didn't break the lawnmower like I did last summer.  Success!

More Spring Break

Okay, it's officially the last day of April and I still don't have all of the Spring Break pictures posted.  And I'm still missing some pictures because I'm coincidentally missing the cord to my camera.  So, more pictures shall be posted in May when the camera cord finally (hopefully) makes an appearance.  

The trip might've been a month ago, but the memories are still fresh. 

Our second night, we had a big dinner at a local Cabo restaurant.  It was decorated with flags and banners from universities and professional sports all around the U.S.  We even found a UW flag up at the top!  

Reina drinking a soda.  She was delighted.  

Will was not necessarily delighted but definitely cool.  

Glenn and Everett and Reina's eyebrow.  

Super cool cousin.  

Will climbed up on an (empty) table and signed his name to the Broncos flag.  Will 2018.  

You can see his little signature way at the bottom.  

After dinner we walked around and window shopped.  Okay, yes, this hat now lives in Cheyenne.  It'll be good for gardening?  

Sea lion alert!  More on these guys later.  

The next night, we wandered around after dinner and I bought all of the cousins (except one) an ice cream cone.  Baby Cousin was sitting in the stroller and I actually forgot that he was an ice cream eater until I heard a loud and insistent "I WANT SOME!" coming from the stroller area. His mom came to the rescue with his own cone.  Worst aunt ever.  

We took a boat ride to the see the famous Cabo arches.  Our tour guide referred to these pelicans as Mexican chickens.  

One of Baby Cousin's favorite things is a truck, followed by #2, BOATS!  Here he is taking his boat ride very seriously.  

Frizzy-haired mom and Reina on the boat ride.  

Yeeeeehaw!  I'm on a boat!  

The Cabo Arch.  

After our boat ride, we ended up at a great swimming beach.  Here are three of the four Pauleys splashing in the surf.  

Another Reina/beach/sunset shot.  

I can't believe this is my only picture from it but Vicky and I spent part of a day at a really fun cooking class.  We learned how to make some new dishes and had a really fun day.  We've both made some of meals since we came back and they've been big hits.  

Will and Pop-Pop playing catch.  

More pictures of my favorite model!  

Reina taking pictures of her favorite model?  :) 

Reina's Spring Program

Before the month completely gets away from me, I have to post some pictures from Reina's Spring program a few weeks ago.  The theme of the third-grade extravaganza was along the lines of "skip Spring in Wyoming and just head straight into summer because Spring doesn't happen here."  We had a few inches of snow on the ground yesterday morning so the program is certainly prophetic.  

Reina had a speaking part for this program.  She tried out several months ago and was picked along with three other students.  She was pretty excited to bring home the news and she faithfully practiced her lines and sang us snippets of the songs for weeks.  

A few days before the program, Reina decided she needed a new dress.  The music teacher had suggested that the students wear something spring-y, western or beachy.  We took a quick trip to the mall and I let Reina pick the store.  We found ourselves in The Store Where All The Pre-Tween Girls Congregate and while I was wishing we were in Target, Reina picked out the perfect combination of denim, flowers and spring-y.  She looked adorable.  

Singing her heart out in the front row.  

Singing and flag waving to "Grand Ol' Flag" 

I can't remember what song this was but the hand motions were smashing.

More dancing and singing 

We took so many pictures but most were blurry because of all of the action and out seats towards the back. I couldn't get a shot of our superstar talking but this was close.  

 Reina's music teacher does a terrific job teaching songs and dance moves and you could tell the kids had a great time. I told the teacher afterwards that I thought the class was chock full of future music theater students.  I know at least one sure enjoyed her time on the stage.