End of School

Well, I officially have a 7th grader, 6th grader, 4th grader and 2nd grader as of Wednesday.  The last month we finished out the school year with the annual band concert, cub scout crossover, school field days and picnic.

Sara enjoying a spring day with a good book

With their awards...Sara also received her 1st place solo and ensemble medal

Sara and her friend Rachel worked on this castle together for a project at school

John is now a WEBELOS

Nathan is now a Wolf

John and Nathan at their end of the school picnic.  This was John's last South School picnic.  Next year he will join the girls at CEC.

She's 40!

I turned 40 on May 3 and was tremendously blessed to get to spend my birthday with family.  Joe and I also ran the Indianapolis Mini Marathon that weekend. It is a half marathon (13.1 miles!)  Here are some pictures....

 We were just a couple of blocks from the Colts stadium when we picked up our race packets so we had to take the kids by it.

To quote Nathan "I can't believe I'm standing in the parking lot of the stadium where the Colts play!"  He was so excited!

 35,000 people run the mini-marathon in Indy every year.  It is the largest half marathon in the country.  You really can't have a feel for that many people until you actually run it.  One of the highlights of running the mini is you get to run on the Indianapolis 500 race track (which is not a track that many people are allowed on).  It is also a fun race as they have battles of the bands along the route.  And with that many people if you get bored running you can simply people watch.

In the corrals

 It was a perfect day for a race.  The temperatures were in the 50s and it was cloudy.

Here we are before the race...wouldn't you know it is the one picture that turned out blurry.....

Mushroom hunting

We made an attempt at mushroom hunting again this year.  And once again, we came up empty.  So I decided to make the most of our hike and take some pictures.

for some reason I really was fascinated by this tree; it was a huge, old maple tree

this is how much John enjoys hiking ;)

Spring catch up

We had so much happen this spring.  It is time to catch a little bit on the blog with some pictures.

We had a group of bunnies that decided our backyard would be a fun place to have a nest.  I have a love/hate relationship with rabbits.  Love that they are one of God's creations.  Hate that they eat my garden.  One of the kids noticed the mommy nursing one evening.  I don't think I've ever seen this with a rabbit before.

four baby bunnies...I haven't seen them much lately.  My fear is that a local hawk found them.

 You may have heard about our area on the news this spring.  We received about 5-7 inches of rain in just a couple of days and it turned into record flooding.  This is a picture of the Illinois river at its record stage.

 

 Mulch, mulch and more mulch.  We hadn't seriously spread mulch since we moved 6 years ago.  So, in what was a family effort, we spread two truck loads and our house looks brand new.

 Joe and Nathan were able to have a Father/Son project one afternoon.  We have outgrown our van on family vacation, so Joe and Nathan put a hitch on the van and put together a carrier so we can travel with much greater ease this summer.