Life

Now that we've been home for awhile, things have returned to normal.

The flooring in our little remodel is done. Now molding, doors, and cabinets will be put back in.

While Stan is working on the house, I'm cleaning out another yet another newly vacanted apartment.

PEOPLE! THIS IS NOT WHAT MOVING OUT LOOKS LIKE!

There's nothing more fun than cleaning up someone else's mess.

Yes there is. A root canal comes to mind.

We need to figure out some way to get our renters to understand the "leave it like you found it" principle of moving on.

At least they left me a snack to munch on while I'm working.

In between cleaning sessions, I managed to sneak away to River Front park with the grand kids.

 We have started our summer exercise program and walked all the way around the lake,

enjoying all of the

spring flowers along the way.

It's enough to make you scream with Spring Fever delight.

May is a fun time to visit the park.

There are herds of goslings to enjoy.

 We buzzed through the loaf of bread in no time, teaching yet another generation of birds to chase park visitors around, begging for food.

The adult geese were especially hissy today. Are they protecting the babies? Disgruntled about having to share with so many mouths? Annoyed two little girls weren't tossing out the bread fast enough? Coming down with a cold?

 Hard to believe these cute little fluffy things grow up to be that snappy dad.

 There were 5 or 6 groups of goslings about this size, but it was impossible to tell who they belonged to. I'm not even sure a group like this came from the same parents.

You have to keep a sharp eye out for a suddenly aggressive goose. Makayla was happy to hide behind Hailey.

 After all that exercise, we needed to stop at the new ice cream store in town. It's one of those places that has flavors like lavendar, or bacon, or cinnamon licorice. That explains why Makayla got chocolate and Hailey got vanilla sprinkles.  I tried cardamon. Yum!

Remember this picture Ashley posted of Nora, upset because she's one, not zero years old? Turns out Ashley was going to spell out "o-n-e" but Nora wasn't having it. 

I totally stole that idea from Ashley and 

invited these two to paint the letters to spell

We then tried to get some pictures. These two aren't much easier than Nora was.

Makayla isn't quite understanding the invitation to "smile".

Not quite the look we're going for.

After taking 5789 pictures, we managed to get a few usable ones to make into a 

Mother's Day gift for Amy. 

We took not one, but two trips to Utah. The first one was to visit the Payson temple. 

Party Pooper Jessica wouldn't let Myla go swimming.

We picked up the Butlers along the way,

and of course the Backmans were there, too. We all had dresses, but got running late and didn't have time to change. 

 It's a beautiful temple.

 We drove by the old house, just as the current owners drove up. I got out and chatted with them for a minute, hoping they'd invite me in, but they didn't. They were very friendly, though, and told me her mom and dad had purchased the house from our mom, and then passed it on to them. The house is certainly showing its age.

We had a fun evening with David, Bonnie, Angie, and several of the nieces and nephews + spouses and kids at Rachael's house. I took one fabulously bad picture. My picture taking has completely fallen apart lately.

The next generation is so delightful--we were tempted to take them all home with us.

The very next weekend we returned for a wedding. It rained and rained all of the rain California has been missing, along with an ocean or two more, explaining why I have no pictures. I got this one ridiculously sorry picture of that weekend. These two are so cute. I'm irritated that I didn't take the time to document their cuteness.

Well, that's our life. We're done traveling for awhile. Now if only we could be done cleaning and remodeling....