Springy spring

Spring break keeps fading farther into the past, and I am swamped with HOUSE stuff. First it was an intense week of showings every other day (literally, we had four showings during the week of spring break). Keeping a house show-able while three small kids are living in it is a tall, mama-bear order, but that one hard week ended up paying off. Now our house is under contract, already inspected, and just waiting on the appraisal. In spite of our success with selling our house, I'm finding each step of the way to be stressful and hard in its own way. Thank goodness for a trustworthy, competent, ultra-experienced realtor who tells us what to do. We currently have no house lined up in Sunnyside, a fact that weighs on my nerves leaving little energy for indulging in carefree blog posts. Adulting is hard!

Here's a photo album from the rest of spring break:

 We visited/dog piled our favorite coach at a track meet.

Amber, that headband, those sunglasses, and a windy day at the track. 

Since I packed away 2/3 of the toys to minimize pre-realtor cleanups, Amber has been spending lots of quality time with her ABC blocks--one of the only toys I left out for her. She carefully takes them out of the box and lines them up methodically in a row, then puts them back into the box just as carefully, one by one. It's actually quite mesmerizing to watch.

 Family Mario Kart--everyone's favorite but one (hint: it's me).

Jay wore this funny orange headband almost every day during spring break. 

Amber totally has The Hair. She would be the envy of all 17th century French nobility. 

One afternoon I banished these two outside so Amber would have a quiet nap, and they brought me some flowers from the yard. Not sure I deserved them, but it was so sweet! 

Who needs a jungle gym when you have a daddy? 

 These girls and their dress-up clothes: I love their sense of fancy style.

MOVIE DATE! We indulged over spring break and went out on an actual date together. When it comes to dating, we prefer to stay home unless we can go somewhere really good, like...Paris. So seeing a movie in the theater together felt special. Beauty and the Beast!

 Amber found our Dr. Who sonic screwdriver flashlight and carefully sonic-ed a Magic Schoolbus book.

 Rose does her bedraggled bunny's "hair" (aka twists up the bunny's ears), and it makes me chuckle.

On Friday, April 7th, when I glanced out our back window, I had three thoughts in rapid succession: 

1. "Our neighbors got a trampoline! 

2. "Their yard is too small for that big thing--I wonder why they got it."

3. "Wait, where's our trampoline?"

In the previous night's windstorm, our trampoline had flipped over the fence, clipping off two of the finnials, and landed upright in the neighbor's yard. Somehow it jumped their little tree and landed exactly in the only place in their yard that doesn't have anything--there were birdhouses on the right, a small swingset on the left, and a covered deck beyond where it landed. We were very grateful and relieved. Sadly, our beloved trampoline suffered too much structural damage during its flight to be usable, so Jeff dismantled it and hauled it to the dump. I guess that's one less thing to move. We already feel its loss though--I can't say "go jump on the trampoline and get all that energy out!"

Later that same day--Friday, April 7th--the winds were still a-blowing at speeds of 25-30 mph. But the trampoline surprise delayed my run long enough that I didn't get it done before Jeff left for track practice. So I combined business with pleasure and took the kids on a family jog to the library.

 We jogged the mile to our library in 13:03. I pushed Amber in the stroller and Jay and Rose did a great job at running most of the way there with me.

 The wind was STRONG, but we were STRONGER!

 We filled the stroller with 25 books and then headed home.

 Amber's seat was taken up with books, so she walked about a third of the way home.

 We stopped at the park and played for a few minutes until some dark broiling clouds blew in, and we  headed for home again.

 sticks and swings

 That wind was blasting us in the face all the way home! I put half of the books in the stroller basket, then sat Amber on top of a throne of books because she got scared of walking against the gale.

 Hot chocolate for lunch, stories for dessert.

The next morning I was determined to go running. Jeff had no track meet, so I drove myself the 40 minutes to Badger Mountain for a quality trail run. I was standing at the base of the mountain when Jeff called me back to help him clean the house up for a realtor showing. I wouldn't have even had my phone, but my running watch was low on battery, so I actually had my phone with me to use as a timer! I took one last longing, lingering look at the mountain, then turned around and drove the 40 minutes home. It was SO HARD.

Jeff got stuck in line at the dump trying to throw out our trampoline, so when the realtor showed up, the kids and I had to skedaddle on foot. We walked to the high school and sat on the benches in the sun for 45 minutes. I was fighting some seriously grumpy feelings at that point. I almost didn't add this part because I don't really want to remember my irritation and bruised feeling of injustice, but I was peeved while we sat there. 

 Amber loaded my lap with dandelions and the sun warmed my face, and I started feeling just a little bit like forgiving the day.

Flowers and sunshine: mother nature's springy spring balm.