Spring is in the Air

Without even trying, I tricked my neighbor into taking 4 extra kids this afternoon! We had two extras after school and when the neighbor boy came over to invite my girls to jump on the trampoline, I got to send all four! Now Gunnar is napping and, other than the squeals and yells I can hear coming from the neighbor's yard, it is very quiet around here. I decided to take the opportunity to catch up on blogs--reading others and posting on my own.

Springtime has finally come to White Salmon with daffodils now nearly on the way out, tulips up, and the first blooming dogwood sighted just today! I missed a bit of all the lovely weather when I flew to Denver last weekend, arriving just a few hours before a snow storm. Luckily it warmed up before I left and my visit to my brother Jed and his family ended on a sunny note. Many thanks go to my wonderful husband for taking over in full here at home so that I could make the 4-day solo trip to Colorado.

With all of this sunnier and warmer weather has come lots of outside time for my kids. Maggie and Gunnar enjoyed the new patio just after our visit to Utah.

While I was gone, Damon hung a swing from one of our front-yard trees. This tree was host to one end of our zipline last year. The zipline will need some redesigning this year since the other end was attached to our shed which will finally get siding; we'll need a new anchor. Maybe I can "trick" my neighbor into taking that to his house, too!

Adah's Cirque du Soleil routine. Neighbor Claire looks on. Gunnar is unimpressed.

Maggie loves swinging, dislikes wearing shoes.

Yesterday after picking up Adah from school, we decided to stay and play on the school playground. Gunnar loves going down this tunnel slide . . .

... head first! (We have to catch him. It's really fast.)

Kid Update: Before I was able to finish composing this post, all 4 kids returned, Adah in tears. She tripped and landed face-first in the gravel driveway! She got some nice scratches near her left eye and on the bridge of her nose, and may end up with a nice bruise above her eyebrow tomorrow. Poor kid.