It’s officially Spring, and although winter was dry and not too cold, we’re still excited to see everything green up and start to grow. Summer’s still a bit off, but we’ve only got 2 more weeks before school is out and we’re released to the wilds of June, July, and August. To get ready for the summer, the entire family’s logged hours of time outside putting a raised garden into the side yard. We’ve got a list of all the plants planned to go in, but we were excited to see so many of the plants we planted last fall have come back! Our hops and our clematis are already weaving their way up the side of the house, and almost all of the perennials and grasses we planted around the house have thrown up green shoots. (The only ones that didn’t make it so far are ones that Iris pulled out of the ground.) Once we get the backyard sod installed, we’ll have thick, green sod to play on and generally enjoy for the summer. We can’t wait!
Here’s a bit of a roundup of what we’ve been up to these past few months.
Asher’s moved from basketball onto flag football, and though he enjoys it, there’s nothing he likes more than building Legos. He used some of his allowance to purchase military Legos, and now he’s constructing a Lego military base. He will sit at the Lego table or on the floor in the Lego room building for hours and hours. He’s creative and has fantastic spatial awareness, so his builds are fairly impressive for a small nugget.
He’s still swimming and is now officially a good swimmer. Yay, Asher! His skills have advanced to the point where Mom feels comfortable with him being in the pool without water wings, which means that we might even go to Water World this summer!
At the beginning of March, Emmett completed an epic 7 show run of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, performing as Poseidon. It was marred only by a 24-hour stomach bug. He performed Friday night, threw up immediately after he got home, missed his Saturday performance, but managed to pull off performing in the Sunday matinee. He was ashen faced and tired on Sunday, but he really wanted to finish off the show’s run, so he pushed through. Nice work, Emmett!
Tessa, Riley, and Emmett asked to start music lessons again. (Asher declined.) Riley on the guitar and Tessa and Emmett on the piano. (Emmett wants to learn to compose on the piano.) They’ve all received top marks from their teacher, and have progressed through a ton of material in a very short period of time.
They’ve all three also been coding in online classes. Tessa and Riley’s classes just ended, and Emmett’s has just begun. They’ve stuck to games they love, Minecraft and Roblox, but they are learning general coding skills that are applicable across many platforms.
Tessa is still arting, creating wall hangings, clay creations, and paintings in art class, in addition to undertaking her own art projects at home. Tessa’s creativity also runs to cooking, so we are never without baked goods in the house. Thanks, Tessa!
Riley has hit new milestones in archery with both his recurve and compound bows. He practices in our backyard range and has worked his way up to scoring in the top third of the class. Go, Riley! He has also just started taking Greek language classes. He loves all things ancient Greek, and he decided he’d like to learn the language as well. When we visit there next year, he’ll be able to translate for the entire family.
Finally, Emmett and Asher bought some Learning to Draw books and are working in their sketch pads to master cartoon figures and animals. Asher loves cute animals, and Emmett’s working on faces and hands. So great!
Everyone’s looking forward to taking a trip to Maine in a bit to visit our cousins Suzy, Gail, and Rose. We can’t wait to see their home, hang out with them, and tool around Maine. It’ll be a perfect start to the summer because when we get back, it’s week after week of summer camp. We decided not to enroll in any camps together, which makes our overall summer more full, but we’ll each strike out on our own, meeting new people and learning new skills outside of our tight knit crew.
We hope you’ve all enjoyed the start to this year and are smoothly moving into the spring!
Best,
The Pigs
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