Tulip Festival

This year my mom and dad came to see the tulips!

The main objective of the trip was for Andrew's baptism.

We got scones and ice cream in La Conner.

Dad taught Evan how to shoot this thingy. Whatever is it called? 

Easter

I went to the doctor today and got diagnosed with Strep Throat, 

so I'm home alone in bed while the rest of the family is out on a busy Wednesday evening doing busy life things. Andrew has soccer practice, Evan has a baseball game. Usually I would be at a YW activity.

I'm equal parts bummed that I am missing out on all of the good stuff in the sunshine, 

and stoked to have some down time in a dead silent house.  

Let's talk about Easter this year. 

In years past, Easter fell on the same week as spring break, so life wasn't so frantic. 

This year, I was literally like: "Ok we have 15 minutes before we need to leave for the soccer game, hurry and color the eggs!"

We even had our fun neighbors over to help color, but it had to happen at a break neck speed: "Ok, lovely, now everyone out the door!"

Saturday morning I cracked the speed-whip on the egg hunt. 

(you'll notice Avery didn't wear an Easter dress to hunt eggs? :(

The egg hunt had to be finished before 8:45 wherein I took Evan to baseball practice. 

And then I was outside all entire day until the sun went down. It went like this:

9:00 Evan baseball, me and Lisa do a track workout.

While we are at baseball, Avery and Andrew participate in a neighborhood egg hunt. 

At 10:30 we head to the soccer fields for Avery's game. The game the night before, we got slaughtered 10-1, 

but Saturday we won 6-0!

At 1:00 we head over to Andrew's field for his first soccer game.

It was really painful to watch. haha.

Straight from soccer we headed to Padden for the first of the year hike around the lake while the dads bike Galbraith. 

This is our fourth! year of the Padden experience. It's so funny how we have changed. 

There used to be babies and strollers involved.

See HERE

and HERE.

This was the first time we walked alll the way around the lake, back to the playground. Usually the dads meet us at the tennis courts.

There was this grassy field along the way full of dandelions and daisies. I gathered everyone up and told them the story of when I was living in Las Vegas and we had fake grass carpet in our tiny cinder block back yard that was surrounded by air conditioners running all day long. 

One day my dog Piper chewed up a yellow toy and there were little bits of debris spread around the fake carpet grass. When I looked out my kitchen window, it almost looked like dandelions, and I liked it. 

I blogged about that HERE.

Bailey made a crown and it reminded us of another spring when we had our first walk around Padden, and she put a wig of moss on her head.

Let me go dig up that picture. Here it is:

(way back in 2017)

After Padden, we were starving. 

We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and my hot plate of burrito swimming in rice and beans has never been more delicious. 

My face and especially forehead were so sunburned from spending the entire day out in the brand new spring sun. It was such a great day. 

The next day: Easter Sunday.

Lisa snapped an Easter family picture. 

Evan was over there to my left refusing to be in the picture. Eye rolllllll

After church, we went on a family drive to see the tulips. 

We only went to one field, so it was a little bit of an abbreviated Tulip Festival for us. 

But we have NO TIME! I'm not sure how to feel about it.

I guess I will just embrace it. It's the new place we are at in our lives.

Especially sitting here alone with my sore throat in the quiet house, I feel sad that I'm not out there, a part of the family things we have going on. 

But next year I think I will take the kids out of school to do a proper Tulip Fest. 

The tulip season is such a time stamp. 

Look how big these kids are. Compare it to our first Tulip Festival HERE.

Actually, do not even go look at that old tulip post. It will kill you. 

Tulip Festival

  This spring tradition is different every year as the kids get older. In ways it is easier, in ways more difficult.

*Easier because the kids just go out in the fields and explore and enjoy themselves. No baby backpacks, no naps to dodge, no bags of toddler supplies.  

*More difficult because school and extra curricular activities every day make it so that we really have to squeeze it into the schedule. Today the kids didn't have school, so even though Jim had to work, me and the kids went anyway. The bloom is almost over, so it was our last chance. 

It's just so beautiful and I love spring so much. 

Do you see all three kids over there?

Of course we ate at Olive Garden. Tradition. 

And La Conner for ice cream.

They added this cool time line to the cross section. The tree was 800 years old!

This was us eating our treats: Evan running up and down the ramp,

me and Avery sitting on the table, cuddling because she was cold,

and Andrew standing on the table bench. 

This ramp was made in good ol' Blaine.