Updates

Wow, Lots has happened since my last post! I guess things like that happen when you go a month between posts. So, I'll try to catch you up on what's going on.

A few weeks ago, we had a birthday party for Megan. She's 5 now, and we're gearing up for her to enter kindergarten. We invited a bunch of friends over for cake, icecream, and grilling. We were pretty excited, because this year, Megan opened her presents without any assistance. In the past, she has been a little afraid of what might be hiding under the wrapping paper, but this year, she really got what was going on, and tore into the presents. I think it was nice for the kids who came too, because she showed she was excited with each thing she got. It was a red letter day for me as well, as I didn't turn the burgers into charcoal this time. My grill skills are getting better!

Then, Lori and the girls left for 10 days to go down to Utah for spring break. We have a friend that is on the board of an autism school, as well as having a child with autism herself, so Lori went to observe in the classroom, and to get some pointers from our friend. I was a little nervous about her driving the whole 10 hours by herself, but aside from Megan having some stomach problems (and throwing up 3 times!) on the way down, the trip went well. They spent time with both sets of grandparents. For the first half of the trip, they stayed at Lori's parents house Orem. The cousins were out of school too, so they were able to spend a lot of time visiting and Grandpa Sampson took them all horseback riding. The girls also learned respect for kitties, as Lori's old (and cranky) cat, Tikka, lives at her parents house. That cat is psycho, not nearly as good natured as our cat. Showing how brave (or crazy) she is, Lori, her dad, and her sister Kiersten, took all the kids to Moab and went hiking up to the arches. I think this in particular had an effect on Sierra, as seeing the delicate arch (a mouthful for a 6 year old) was one of the highlights of the trip that she made sure to tell me about.

Later that week, Lori and the girls drove down to Delta and spent Easter weekend with my parents. The kids did easter egg hunts, and in what has become something of a family tradition, they went out to the sand dunes and rolled easter eggs down the dunes. I was a little worried about their visit to my parents house, because Megan had gotten attached to a kitten when we were there last summer. She dubbed the kitten "Sparkle," and talked constantly about seeing Sparkle on this trip. Unfortunately, Sparkle had died just a few weeks after we returned home from that summer trip. When one of her fish died recently, I took that opening to explain to her that Sparkle had died too, to which she responded matter of factly "No, Sparkle doesn't die." Well, when she got down to Delta, she seemed to take the fact that Sparkle wasn't around in stride, so I guess I was worried for no reason.

Lori's mother rode back up with her, for which I was grateful, and they returned earlier this week without incident. Her brother, Steven, who is preparing to take his first job after graduating, followed them up in his car, and they left today to return to Utah. Just in time to skip helping out with our huge project that we are working on this weekend.

Several months ago, the wooden terrace wall between our yard and our neighbors yard was pushed over by the roots of one of our trees. At the time, we sought a quote from a landscaper friend of ours. They sent out their estimator, and then never got back with us. Tired of waiting and asking for the quote, I've pretty much decided to do it myself. So, this weekend, I'm tearing out the remains of the old wall, and putting up a block wall, which will hopefully last longer than the last wall did. Included in that is killing the tree that did the damage in the first place. My neighbor has been kind enough to allow us to cut into a concrete pad that was poured next to the original wall to allow us enough room to put in the new wall. My original intent was to try to save the tree, but to do that, I would have had to cut nearly a foot into my neighbors pad. So, down comes the tree so that I can use the smaller blocks in the wall construction. I *hope* to be able to finish the entire thing tomorrow, but it is a big job. We're inviting a few friends over to help, with the bribe of steaks for dinner. I'll post pictures of the project once it's done.