All Things...

I am so excited that our crape myrtle is blooming! We planted it in our backyard shortly after Caitlyn passed away. We wanted to have a reminder of her, something that was beautiful, vibrant, and growing. Like the rest of us, the tree has grown a lot since October, and it is now just starting to bloom. Soon the tree will explode with pretty pink flowers like these that have already appeared. I especially like that they are pink. We purposely put it almost squarely in the middle of our backyard, so we can see it even from the front of the house if we look out the window. Yay for pretty flowers!In other news, it was Aubrey's field day last week. I wanted to include this next picture, not because it looks like Andrew fell seconds after this picture was taken, but because it shows Aubrey's two best friends at school, Eisha (on the right) and Leila, (in the middle). These three girls have quite the adventures at school, judging by what Aubrey tells me. Aubrey is going to have a hard time this summer without these two girls attached at the hip. I ask Aubrey from time to time if she ever wants to have them over, and she says, "no," like it doesn't occur to her that friends from school would ever come to our house. Maybe we'll get their phone numbers, who knows. But it was fun to see these girls interact at field day. I don't know who the boys are in the picture, but Aubs doesn't care much for boys these days.
Aubrey was supposed to bring a towel, but oops, I forgot, but it's okay, Eisha shared her little hand towel with Aubrey and Leila. What a nice friend. This was some kind of weird four way tug-o-war, where they pulled and whoever touched the cone behind them first, won. I don't know what it is about kindergarteners yanking on a rope, but it was sure funny to watch. The teachers kind of got into competition with each other, and so Mrs. McCauley was really coaching her students to win. "If you fall down, don't let go of the rope! Keep pulling!" They had several rounds with Mrs. McCauley chanting "Pull! Pull! Pull!" Aubrey's class won once, and that was especially funny to see them all jumping up and down. They were excited. Aubrey is getting so long and leggy I don't think she knows what to do with herself sometimes, and she was having a hard time pulling on the rope and getting any leverage. Once in the clip, you can see, she looks behind her like, "how close are we, anyway?"


I also appreciated when all the children were running back to the hill and the coach (this is the one I held hands with at Rodeo Day) reminds a little too late, "remember, don't drop the rope!" And Aubrey looks down to where it is laying by her feet. I guess you can't expect celebrating Kindergarteners to remember every single detail.


Speaking of celebrating, last weekend, we took a trip to San Antonio, because my cousin Tyler was coming down from Utah to visit my sister and I. We were very excited because although we spent a lot of growing up time together and saw him a ton when we lived in Provo, we haven't seen him as much as we would like since we moved back to Texas. He is graduating from high school and decided to take a little trip to Texas to visit us. (which by the way is so weird that he is graduating because I distinctly remember being in Utah and holding him shortly after he came home from the hospital as a tiny newborn. I guess that means I'm getting old.) So anyway, we went to the Alamo...
... And the Riverwalk. I regret to say I never was in any pictures with Tyler. Oh well, next time... And Aubrey wasn't in any pictures with Tyler either, but she didn't want to be in pictures at all. This was her in protest. Just imagine her little voice, "I am NOT going to smile!" I actually love these pictures because it is Aubrey is a nutshell.
Sassy....


And sweet... Oh man, I love that girl.

We also stopped by this place in San Antonio... We had to have a Custard Smackdown, because Tyler works at Nielsen's Custard in Bountiful, which sells delicious concretes of all flavors. So we wanted to see how Freddy's stacked up. Freddy's used the same machine and same method as Nielsen's, and even called their creations Conretes like Nielsen's, but you can tell by Tyler's face that he didn't think Freddy's tasted the same as Nielsen's. I'm always up for ice cream though, and not too particular either. In fact, I ate most of mine, and then most of Aubrey's cone after she enjoyed about two licks. All in all, the whole weekend was fun. We're so glad you came, Tyler!!!

Now we're looking forward to the end of the school year. Chad will be done next week and Aubrey the week after. We have fun summertime plans ahead including another trip to San Antonio, and a trip to Lake Powell. I am so excited for summer and for the departure from the school year routine. Hopefully there will be lots of swimming and fun times ahead. I feel like I got a sneak preview of summer over the weekend and I am excited for more to come.