Our Spring Break 2026

As a kid I never went anywhere for spring break. We never went anywhere after I got married either. That is, until we moved away from all of our family 3 years ago. Now it seems to be a tradition to go back to Nampa every year for the kid's spring break. I don't know if that will always be the case, but for now we enjoy getting to see family and old friends each year. We spent the week with my grandma again because she has plenty of space and she's all alone in that big house. And who knows how much longer we'll have with her since she is now 94 years old. Staying with grandma isn't always easy though, because she keeps her house a little too warm for the rest of us and a lot of her food is usually expired. 

We drove to Nampa Sunday afternoon after we went to church, because that was our Easter program and Jack was speaking in our ward that day. Curtis and I drove separate vehicles so that he could go to work. In fact, he stayed that first night with us but left early the next morning to go work in Ontario and stayed over there in a hotel the next two nights. I wasn't really sure what we were going to do on Monday, but it quickly turned into a cleaning operation as I discovered weevils in Grandma's napkins when I went to use one! I found weevils and remains of them in all of the cupboards surrounding her fridge and freezer. We started emptying the cupboards and throwing food away that either had weevils in it or was just expired. It was mostly Grandma and I cleaning out the cupboards, but I recruited the kids to take turns helping and then later Dad and Laverne came over and helped. That certainly wasn't on their agenda that day either. I think we spent a good 3-4 hours cleaning out the cupboards and washing any dishes that were in them and wiping down the cupboards. We threw A LOT of food away along with paper goods. I had wanted to help grandma in some way when I knew we were coming but I definitely didn't think it would be this! I am glad that we were there to help. We were all so tired and didn't feel like cooking anything after dealing with bugs, so Dad went and got pizza. Then the adults played the card game Golf while the kids did their own things.

I am just going to summarize now some of the things we did that week since it's been a couple of months and it's difficult to remember everything. The kids got to see some of their friends over the next couple of days and I got to do some clothes shopping. On Thursday, we went to the Meridian Temple and did a bunch of baptisms. We went with both sets of parents and my grandma. Afterwards, we ate at the Olive Garden in Meridian. Since Alice isn't old enough to go to the temple yet, she got to hang out with her older cousins, Ellie and Livvie. She had a lot of fun spending time with baby Evelyn, baking cinnamon rolls and going out for a special drink. Ellie was kind enough to send me pictures.

Cousins baking cinnamon rolls! (And they were delicious!)

Alice and Evelyn

So that was what we did early in the day. In the evening we met up with Ricky's family at the Majestic Theater in Meridian to see the new Super Mario Bros movie. We all enjoyed it.

Jack's friend, Porter, tagged along with us as well.

Friday was our Wahooz day where we stayed from open to nearly close doing all kinds of things like laser tag, mini golf, go carts, arcade, bowling, etc. Ricky's family joined us the 2nd half of the day and Porter came again.

Mini golf

Go carts. I was pretty happy that Jack wanted me to ride with him.

Pizza for lunch

Wall climbing

Once again we saw a friend from Kennewick. We saw her the last time we went to Silverwood. Neither time did we know that she would be there. So fun that we happened to go on the exact same day!

The Twister ride. I rode once without the extra spinning but that was enough. Mine and Curtis's stomachs can't handle it anymore.

When we did our first round of bowling, the computer had a fun option that put silly faces on our pictures.

Curtis went on this ride once also and that was enough for him.

The Dark Ride. We shoot things like robots or zombies or something like that to get points. I won this round!

I did pretty well on our 2nd game of bowling with Ricky's family, with a score of 122!

Inside the Dark Ride (this is what we saw on a tv screen)

Go carts

Garrett won this round.

Saturday morning, we went over to my in-laws' house where they served us a yummy breakfast of French toast, sausage and fruit. Then they had gifts for us to open from Christmas and missed birthdays. 

This was not necessarily a gift, but it came in a package of miscellaneous items that Gaya thought the girls might like. Alice had fun with this dog costume.

Saturday evening, we went over to Ricky and Jenna's house for dinner and then walked to the park to play some games. Curtis's brother Nic and our nephew, Andrew, were also there. We played Frisbee 500 and then some Bocci Ball. It was a beautiful day for it, and everyone had a good time. Afterwards, I set up an egg hunt in the back yard for the 4 youngest kids while the guys were inside playing video games. 

I think the name of this game was Rock Band. These 3 were singing and Ricky was playing the guitar (you can't see him in the shot though)

Sunday morning was Easter. It was fun for the kids to have a new big house to search in for their baskets. However, the only kid I got a picture of with their basket was Alice. Since it was also conference weekend, we didn't go to church that day. After the 1st session of conference, we ate our Easter lunch/dinner and then hit the road for home since the kids had school the next day. 

It was a fun filled Spring break and I'm glad we made the trip again. 

Archway and Concerts

You know that archway we built to separate our dining room and living room that we started last November? I finally got it painted in March and we're pretty pleased with how it turned out!

A reminder of what it looked like last Fall.

This is pretty much how the arch looked all winter.

By the end of March, this is what it looked like! I still have a little touching up to do on the edges, but it's mostly done and we love it!

I did most of the painting at the beginning of March, but we didn't get the keystones up until the end of March.

After Jack acquired his own French horn back in November, he was able to join a community band in January at no extra cost. Most people in this band are adults. Jack is one of the youngest. The band was directed by Phillip Simpson, who recently retired from teaching in the Kennewick School District. In fact, he was the girl's music teacher at Sage Crest and then he long term subbed for Jack's band class when the band director and his wife had a baby. So, Jack got to know him then. He had his first concert with this band on March 10th. They sounded so good! It's fun to see him playing in a band again since he couldn't fit it in his school schedule anymore. And since it's with seasoned instrumentalists, he's going to learn a lot from them. They meet once a week on Tuesday evenings to practice over in Pasco. The concert was held at the Columbia Basin College Auditorium, also in Pasco.

Charlotte also had another band concert at her school on March 19th. If you're not on time, you'll miss the performance because they are very punctual and 6th graders perform first.

Curtis made it this time!

Brother and Sister Gale bought her some flowers after the performance and brought them over. That was so sweet of them. They are like adopted grandparents.

Our New Pool Liner

It was exciting to see the process of getting a new pool liner this early spring. Leisure Pool and Spa came out in early March to empty the pool, remove the old liner, and take measurements for a new liner. After they took measurements, we waited a little over a month before they came to install the new liner because it had to be ordered, made and shipped to their store. I was amazed at how fast it actually went when they installed it. They came on a Thursday to do some prep work and then on Friday they installed the liner and started filling it with our hose that was connected to the house. They had these two big fans that would suck out all the air around the pool so it would stay flat. At one point, Curtis hooked up another hose around at the front of our house so that we could speed up the filling process. We had very low pressure for a couple of days. When the pool got filled high enough, they took the fans out and installed the new ring for the light. Then they continued to fill it. I think it was done by Sunday evening. We love the new color!

After uncovering the pool.

They used a hose and pump to pump the old water out to the gutter by the road.

Nearly empty.

Tearing it out.

Standing in it after school.

Our new liner! You can see the two fans, one on each side.

Having a little fun while the pool fills up.

The guy installing the ring for the light. They also installed new hardware for the skimmer box and the return jets. I don't know if they gave us a new drain cover, but probably.

All filled up!

The pool guy also asked if we wanted to make the 3rd hole in the wall another return jet. We said yes because that will help circulate the water better. I don't know why that hole wasn't being used before and we were wondering what it was for, but the guy hooked up all the pipes, so Curtis didn't have to. And they got the pool pump going and added chemicals. If we take good care of it, this liner should last 10-15 years. I sure hope so because it cost around $11,000 to get it done. And we haven't even seen our water bill yet from filling it up. I wonder what that will look like!

A Slower 2nd Half of Our February

The 2nd half of February did not go how I thought it would. On President's Day I woke up with a sore throat and not feeling good. I had to reschedule my dentist appointment that was scheduled for that morning. Thankfully, the kids did not have school, so I didn't have to wake up early for that and was able to do a lot of resting. The next day I was feeling fine, until the end of the day when my throat started to hurt again. Then it turned into a cold by Wednesday. I was tired, stuffy and had a dull pain in my throat for several days. Sometimes I would feel better and then I didn't feel good again. I was sick for about 2 weeks total. I can't complain though, because I have been much sicker than this before and I was just counting my blessings that I wasn't terribly sick. That Saturday was Charlotte's last basketball game and I'm glad I felt good enough to go see her play again. I honestly don't remember now if they won that game, but overall, I believe they won 4 out of 6 games, which is pretty good. Charlotte loved playing and didn't want the season to end, so I think that means she'll play for her school next year. She might even do both. I came to find out that the 7th grader on their team was playing for their team and her school. She was able to do that because she was still 12 years old when signing up and that's the cut off age for the city league. 

I decided that during the time I was sick, and trying not to do too much, that I would work on the owl puzzle I started on Feb 13th. It was a 1000-piece puzzle but had lots of colors. I was able to do this one without looking at the letters on the back of each piece. I may have looked at a handful of them, but that was it. 

The girls came in to put the last two pieces in for me.

It sure is handy to have this puzzle board with drawers that my dad gave me. 

I'm thinking that A.I. must have been used to make this picture because sometimes you get weird things that don't make sense when using A.I.

Just when we thought we weren't going to get even one snowflake this fall or winter, we woke up to a light layer on the 20th. Alice went out and played with it as much as she could before going to school because she knew it would be gone by the time she got home.

I like to call this a Frosted Mini Wheats type of snow because that's what the grass looks like to me.

We also had our 2nd annual ward "No Holds Pinewood Derby" on the 20th. There are basically no rules, except no combustion and your car must stay on the track (last year there was a bungee cord involved for somebody's car). This year we actually did some planning on our car and came up with a Harry Potter themed car.  Charlotte donated her Buckbeak and Harry Lego characters to ride on top of the car. Curtis bought a motorized fan to attach to the back. Each time our car was up on the track, I would play Buckbeak's flight music from the 3rd movie on a small portable speaker that I brought.  It was fun. Our car won 2nd place for fastest car, although it would have won 1st place had Buckbeak not fallen off on the very last race. 

We named our car "Buckbeak's Flight"

Working on the car. Charlotte helped with sanding and painting. Curtis took pictures of her but never sent them to me.

The very next week, Charlotte came home with a fever and cough on Tuesday. She missed school on Wednesday but was able to go back on Thursday. Then Thursday night (early Friday morning), Alice woke me up in the middle of the night with an upset stomach and a mess to clean. After that she developed a fever and cough. The fever lasted for 4 days, and I was beginning to wonder if I should take her in. I called the doctor's office, and the nurse was gone that day and there weren't any openings either. I decided to wait another day before deciding if I should take her to a quick care. Thankfully, her fever broke the next morning. She only missed one day of school because there wasn't any school on that Friday (the first day she got sick). I also had to reschedule Alice's dentist appointment. The girls both had coughs and they slowly got better over time, as coughs usually do. Jack started to get sick not long after all of the girls but thankfully he never had a fever and chills like the girls did. He basically had the same type of cold I did. Now everyone is feeling better. There were a few days where it was warm, and I opened the windows for several hours to air out our house. Then it got cold again. It will be nice when we can do it again and more regularly. Bring on Spring and warmer weather!