We had a very nice, low key Easter here in Eugene. The weather was terrible and rainy, but we stuck close to home and had some good family time together. The kids hunted for Easter eggs, we had a big brunch in the morning, and we snuck outside between rain showers to plant some flowers in the front yard.
As the weather has been getting nicer, we are slowly starting to get our yard into shape for spring and summer. We only moved into this house in last August, so it has been fun to see many blooming bushes and flowers that were already done flowering when we moved in last year. In addition, I've planted some flowers since we've been here, and we just recently installed some garden beds that Mario built. I planted most of my garden yesterday since the weather has been so nice, and the kids and I are excited to watch all of the plants grow (and get to eat some fruits and veggies!). We planted many of the same things from our old garden (tomatoes, peas, carrots, onions, zucchini, strawberries) and added beets, raspberries, and asparagus.
Around the time of Miriam's birthday in March, we got a new backyard playset delivered to our house. It came in a huge wooden crate (probably 5' x 10') and Mario spent two weeks unpacking it and putting it all together by himself. It fits perfectly into a space on the side of our yard, and between the 3 swings, rock wall, rope ladder and slide, has plenty to keep the kids entertained for hours playing outside. We are fortunate that they love to be outside playing, so we can spend lots of time outside in the yard. They also love to help us in the yard, and they especially loved shoveling dirt and wood chips into the wheelbarrow to be delivered to the back yard. (We had big piles of dirt and wood chips dumped into our driveway to put in the garden beds and underneath the playset.) They each have a pot of flowers in the front that they picked out and helped me plant, and Miriam helped me plant the garden as well.
Overall, things are going well here! We are working on getting our summer travel plans in place...we've already got two weeks in Europe planned for June, and the kids and I will be heading to the Midwest for a few weeks in July. We find out this week if Miriam got a spot in the Japanese immersion school, so we are looking forward to hearing about that. My new volleyball season starts in 2 weeks and runs through June. We are debating about sending Mathias to a (very) part time preschool in the fall, possibly 1-2 days a week. His birthday is the end of October and the cutoff here is September 1, so he won't start K until fall of 2019. So we may hold off on preschool one more year, although he loves Miriam's preschool and really loves the teachers there, so we are definitely considering that as an option.
Here are some pictures of Easter and other activities in recent weeks:
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| My little baking helpers! |
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| They each got swimsuits in their Easter baskets... |
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| Spray-able sidewalk chalk! |
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| Early morning sillies |
