Plural Trips

Doesn't feel too springy outside today, but it's been spring break for us. Alyssa, Tori and Oliver flew to WA State to visit Gabriel and family.  Oliver is a month away from turning 2 and Samuel is 2.5. They had a great time together! 

Toddler picture overload - 

Tori is an excellent photographer so I had to request a picture of her with the boys. Samuel fell asleep in the car on the way to this outing but it's finally a picture with Tori and Nathan along with Oliver. 

Gabriel and Alyssa in the beautiful northwest. Gabriel and Alayna love the area and it's not hard to see why. I'm anxious to make my trip out, which was delayed until May.

While they were gone, Elijah and I made a trip to Lynchburg, VA. His state basketball tournament was in Richmond two weekends ago, and only one parent was allowed in, so I did that one. We were hoping for two parent attendance at the Lynchburg tournament, but it was zero parents, only staff. I quickly assumed the role of "team manager" and was able to attend the three games. They came in second in state (homeschool teams) and we placed fifth in Lynchburg, but it also included NC and TN teams. 

The college we played at was about 30 minutes from Liberty U. but our hotel was right on the edge of the Liberty campus. Since three of us have attended Liberty online, I was pretty excited to see the campus. We saw three colleges that weekend of playing and Liberty is by far the most gorgeous campus, with the mountains and the buildings. We hit up the bookstore for some Liberty gear. 

Historic home that was on the property when it was bought and turned into the chapel. 

The sun was in Elijah's eyes, but here he is - 

 

The divinity tower was closed, but it has a platform to overlook the campus and far beyond. 

Being sports motivated, Elijah was excited to see the stadiums and the traveling team that got off the bus to play Liberty last Saturday.

When Alyssa dropped Tori off at 1:00 a.m. from the airport, Oliver was upset that he didn't get to come see everyone, so they came the next day. By afternoon, he was so tired that he was requesting to go to bed. He slept from 6 p.m. to 9:30 the next morning; jet lag is rough coast to coast on a toddler. It is good to have our baby goat visitor back to duty though. 

This is Gabriel and Elijah exactly 11 years ago - he looks a lot like Oliver to me. 

Oliver, Finneus and Fern

Storm, the goat, had the first two babies of the season on a cold, stormy night, true to her name and history. We are on the letter F, so these two are Finneus and Fern. They are about three weeks old now and Oliver loves them. 

Lady is the next due - in fact, we have been thinking any day now for about a week. Elijah and I are out of town this weekend for his basketball tournament, so Lady and I are discussing that she needs to go before or after! 

Oliver a farm boy through and through, as most boys would be if given the exposure. He loves the baby goats. Yesterday may be the last time he can hold these two, they are growing fast!

He's good about making sure they get equal attention! 

Oliver is heading across the country today with his momma and an aunt to visit his cousins. I'm excited to see if they enjoy playing yet. Hard to know with 2 year olds - Oliver will be two next month and Samuel is 2.5 already!

Baby on the Way

Moriah and Chris have a baby on the way - grandchild #4 for us! 

We had a super fun gender reveal - 

Here's a video of our reveal - 

We are abundantly blessed! 

Posting from Virginia

This post should have been written from Washington, as we all had tickets to go out for Gabriel's chief pinning. With Covid restrictions, we were told that we couldn't attend without a two week quarantine in a WA hotel, separate from Gabriel. There was about zero chance I was able to do that with the kids, or leave the kids for that long; so JD changed his plane ticket to leave two weeks earlier, and we would still return together several days after the ceremony. You may have guessed, but we had a Covid exposure only days before our departure, so were unable to leave at all. Our one Covid positive family member had zero symptoms and spent the time painting her house. The rest of us all tested negative, quarantined, and tested negative again, so resumed life in VA. The airlines graciously gave me a refund and I will need to rethink my visiting schedule, as I can't really take all the kids on my own without renting a van, etc. So, I will likely break them into two groups. It's hard to visit Gabriel now, as they require him to stay home for two weeks every time one of us arrives from out of state. 

The happy ending is Gabriel is now a pinned Chief - made it in less that eight years, which is about as fast as anyone ever! They gave him a red carpet. 

Thankful JD could be there, but stupid, stupid Covid is always messing with our lives! I'm way over it!

JD is heading home soon and we got the snowstorm that the kids have been hoping for. Since it is supposed to turn to freezing rain tonight, the kids and I are going to try to make it to a friends' huge sledding hill this afternoon. Moriah and Chris snowed in here with us and we have a large breakfast planned for online church time. 

I'm back to school for the spring semester; it is so pleasant, and so much easier, since I'm past the dreadful statistic classes. It's all psychology from here, which I enjoy. I need to have a summer internship lined up, but that is proving a bit challenging with Covid also! Of course, all the homeschoolers are back to work and our dining room looks like this more than it doesn't - 

Elijah is playing travel basketball with a homeschool team. Ignore the purple dragon that surfaced on Moriah's head in the only picture I took, but Moriah and Chris have joined me at several games. We are really loving it! 

I'll end with a few fun animal pictures - 

Happy Snow Day! 

White House

We were scheduled to visit the White House yesterday; thankfully they reopened after the chaos of DC the last several days. The streets were calm although nothing was open, even the food trucks were removed. 

The Jacqueline Kennedy rose garden - 

Today is a rather tough day for our family, but that will be the next post.