Week Ten: 3/9-3/15

This week, thankfully, was a fairly calm week. We had our normal karate/swim activities and school. It was also Serve Week through our Church. I was able to serve breakfast at a Soup Kitchen early one morning and then Eli & I did seed packing for GAIN Ministries on Saturday. We also went shopping for food pantry donations. Love sharing service opportunities with the boys. 

 Tuesday, Eli ran to Harris Teeter with me to pick up a few things. He actually found this OCTOPUS packaged in the seafood department. Does not look tasty to me. =) 

Wednesday night, the boys had swim lessons. Eli's instructor challenged them to swim a bunch of "laps" - it's a shorter course at lessons. He did awesome and swam 44. Apparently more than anyone else has done. We've definitely got a little fish on our hands! 

 Friday, I went ahead and picked up my race package for the Tobacco Road Marathon. Must admit I was emotionally conflicted. I was disappointed to not be able to run the marathon this weekend. But in many ways, I was also relieved. God has a plan and apparently a marathon was not in it for this year. 

 Saturday = 3/14/15 = Pi Day. Love this Pi display of Carolina Panthers jerseys. 

 Seed packing on Saturday. It was so cool to hear how much people's lives can be impacted with seeds. They are able to grow their own food but also able to grow food to sell / trade and fill other needs for their families. 

Food pantry shopping. This was a little dangerous with each boy having a cart. They got a little crazy at times but did really well. 

Week Nine: 3/2-3/8

Only in North Carolina do we go from snow, ice and missing 8 of the last 10 days of school to 76 degrees! This has been a crazy week!!

Thankfully the boys went back to school on Monday. I think we were all ready for our routine back. There was a lot of hubbub and drama this week about how the school system was going to handle make up days. They totally didn't go by what the school calendar said would be policy. Options ranged from making the kids go on Good Friday and some Saturdays (ugh) to adding days to the school year to using Spring Break. I was in favor of Spring Break...I mean shoot, they just had almost two weeks off! And besides, that is what the calendar said would happen. So they ended up using a combination of "comping" days due to how many banked hours of instruction there were and taking a few days of Spring Break. 

Coral pants Wednesday on 76 degree day. Have never worn coral pants in my life but they make me so happy. =) 

As March rolled around, and funny enough warmer weather too, it's time to register for Summer Camps. I tried to get Eli and Cole to agree to go to a sleep away camp. But they were not interested. Eli's response was "No, I want to stay with my sweet and precious Mom." Um yeah, I think he just wants to drive me crazy. =) On the good side though, it saves us a lot of money. Sleep away camp is expensive! I did manage to get them registered this weekend for all their summer camps. 

Friday night we had the Annual School Silent Auction. It was a fun time and I snagged a week at Camp Kanata for less than it would have cost me otherwise so that was pretty cool. Lots of neat stuff but some of the bidding just went too high. There were some cool trips (think tropical destinations) but we don't have any of those in our future. While the parents walked around and spent money, the kids got to watch a movie so that was fun. 

Saturday, the boys (and Tim!) worked on their spear throwing skills in the back yard. Got to get ready for Spartan Season! 

 Cole Ninja

 Eli Ninja

Spartan Daddy - he definitely does not want that 30 burpee penalty this year! 

Sunday after church, we loaded up for a family bike ride on the Neuse River Greenway. It was super nice and so fun to do. I pulled Cole on the trail-a-bike, he's getting much better at helping pedal. Soon he'll be on his own bike without a tow from Mommy! 

Strong boys!

My little cyclists - love them. 

My riding partner

The view behind

Daddy's teaching Eli how to lead a pace line. 

Break / Snack time near Uncle Mike's bridge

Hey Uncle Mike!!

The family that rides together......

Riding with the Big Dawgs - you go Cole!

Post ride G2. That's what they work for. 

Week Eight: 2/23-3/1

Another week filled with Snow Days! 

Monday: The boys went back to school. It ended up being the only day of school this week. 

Tuesday: Snow Day #5. The boys and I took a trip to my office because I was not prepared for the weather and needed to grab a few things to work on. It ended up being an semi-slippery drive and made me VERY thankful to just stay home. 

Wednesday: Snow Day #6. Last week I was really good about doing school stuff every day with the boys. This week.....pretty open to letting them watch tv. ;-) We played with the Webbs today and then had afternoon excitement when the crew came to bore under our driveway for a new waterline. We noticed that for the past few months our water bill was crazy high but could not figure out why. Then Tim noticed that we had water running beside our driveway. Turns out, the line is broken under the driveway, or at least near it. The line does run under the driveway so we were waiting for weather to clear to get it done. The running water has not been good with the weather as we've been creating our own ice rink at the bottom of our driveway. Anyway, the crew asked if they could bore under the driveway to get the line in....at no extra charge. Of course you can!! They got the line bored and then the pipe crew came. All was well and good, got the new line in until.......the very very end. They cut the AT&T line to our house. I was working on line and then all of a sudden, I couldn't access my work site. I started asking questions and they figured out they cut the line. NOOOOOO!! I told Tim that they had to figure something out because we were about to get another snowstorm and I couldn't handle the boys for multiple days inside with no tv or internet. And I needed to get some work stuff finished. Thankfully a neighbor works for AT&T and helped do a temporary splice. Mommy melt-down averted. 

 Time for some pre-snowstorm fun!

 Eli & Cole sat at the window with popcorn watching the show. Fun stuff!!

 And this was the scene just a few hours after they finished. Seriously!

Thursday: Snow Day #7. Home again....played with the Webbs. Good fun! We walked around the neighborhood checking our the scenery and played outside for a while.

 Thankfully this branch just missed Daddy's truck.

 House looks so pretty in the snow.

 This was pretty. Eli shook the tree limb and snow fell all over both of them.

 Mr. Cute and his rosy cheeks.

 So pretty.

 Sledding at the Webbs

 So much fun. They've got a great hill, I even had to get in on the action!

 Do you want to build a snowman?????

 Eli's the Muscle of the group

Friday: Snow Day #8. Number EIGHT of the past 10 school days. We played with the Webbs more, Tim took the boys to the Y to swim while I ran to my office to do a little work. I was thrilled when I got the mail that afternoon and my 1/2 Trail Marathon Medal came.

My Facebook post from that day: Look what I got today!!

The great folks at Charlotte Running Company ordered additional medals and mailed them to those of us who didn't get one at the Trail Half Marathon in January. (I think some folks in shorter distances picked them up so they ran out of medals.) I'm very excited b/c after getting hurt this might be the only one I earn this year!

Saturday: Not a school day but a messy day. I was supposed to have a PT appointment at 12:30 but still couldn't get out of our driveway so ended up missing it. =(  There were lots of weather warnings and even church was cancelled for Sunday!

Sunday: still cold, rainy and icy. Church was cancelled. We were able to get out later in the day for swim fun time at the Y. I also discovered today that you can look up Lego instruction manuals online, save them in iBooks and use the iPad. Who knew?! Ok, I'm sure a lot of people knew but I didn't and it was a cool discovery. The boys thought so too and had fun building Legos. 

We have our fingers crossed hoping for a regular week of school ahead. 

Don't you have a Matchbox Shark Ship for when you go swim?