2021, May 17-23

The kids still technically have another week left of school, but for all intents and purposes, they're done. 

As Hallie and Landon drove to school early in the week, they saw a little old man selling flowers on the road side, so she bought some. Landon said the man was smiling and Hallie needed to turn around. The two were already late, but she made a U-turn and went back. The picture below does not do the peonies justice. Hallie had help getting the flowers half way to work. After she dropped Landon off at school Hallie had to figure out how to get two vases of flowers to school. With a little bit of water spilled on her pants, Hallie and the flowers made it to her work where she proceeded to give a vase away to a family she knows.

As a final extra credit project for his science class, Landon illustrated the concept of force by using bending from Avatar, the Last Airbender. Landon came in third place in class and earned himself a King Size Kit Kat.

For her birthday, Hallie got an Apple Watch and custom sugar skull wristband (that also happens to match her Tom's shoes). 

Fergus frequently perches like this on Mike's lap. He's gotten cuddly in his old age. 

Eliza does not normally perch like this on her mounts. But when bareback riding, it is a comfortable position! Eliza had a great ride this last Wednesday, and as a treat Eliza and the other little girl who rode with her got a chance to ride bare back, which both girls really like to do.

As her final writing project, Eliza wrote about how she will spend her summer annoying her brother. This includes giving him hugs, incessantly telling him, "I love you!," filling his pillow case with LEGO bricks, and TP-ing his bedroom. We had to take a couple of staged photos as part of the project. 

A bit of a mystery was solved this week when Mike's Aunt Janeen brought up a box of old 8 and 16 mm film reels that used to belong to his Aunt Karen prior to her passing. We weren't sure who they belonged to, but Mike recognized his Grandpa A.'s handwriting, and the dates matched vacations Grandma O. remembered from her childhood. Now to see if we can get them converted to digital media!