April and May Highlights

Including track, which will get a post all by itself, we have had a busy April and May.  Besides his regular church study/visitation and track coaching, Russ also officiated two funerals.  I kept busy carting kids to track practice, music lessons, library, etc.  Lydia also had testing and interviews at Cole Valley for her high school enrollment for next year.  (She did great and is officially enrolled for next year!)

One Saturday morning in April the youth group hosted a pancake breakfast fundraiser for RYS convention at Dordt this summer.  We have a great bunch of kids and had tons of fun working in the kitchen with them!

Seth came down with strep throat twice in about three weeks.  He also broke out in the "scarlet fever" rash both times which was absolutely miserable for him.  This called for lots of ibuprofen, Benadryl, and antibiotics.

What do you do when your spring days get a little warm--close to 90 degrees?  You take a break from school work and go to the Boise River. It is flowing pretty good this time of year with freezing cold snow melt!

While at the river, you also enjoy the wildlife:  osprey, snake, and heron.

We also enjoyed some of the music opportunities Boise had to offer.  I took the kids to a free concert put on by the Piatigorsky Foundation.  The fact that it was held in an old Jewish synagogue in downtown Boise was almost as cool as the concert itself.  An amazing tenor was accompanied by an extremely talented pianist.  The pianist had recently given a concert featuring all of Scott Joplin's music and treated us to the "Maple Leaf Rag".   Later in the month Seth's cello teacher, who plays for the Boise Philharmonic, gave us tickets to their concert that featured a cello soloist.  We stayed for a short interview with Mr. Bailey after the concert and realized by some of the things he said that he was the same cellist that Nicolas saw in Sioux City for a master cello class last fall!  Just this week, I picked Anna up from school and drove her downtown for an organ concert.  Every year Boise Music Week sponsors organ concerts over the noon hour at old churches that have pretty amazing pipe organs.  We briefly chatted with the organist after the concert.  He was thrilled that Anna was taking organ lessons and offered that she was more than welcome to arrange to play on the pipe organ.  He said the organists in the churches downtown love to encourage aspiring organists!

We are working super hard in homeschool so we can finish up with Iowa Tests of Basic Skills the week before Memorial Day--the same week Anna has finals.  Seth's curriculum this semester included a study of astronomy, so we had fun building a Mars colony, especially after watching The Martian (ClearPlay version 😉).

In all his free time (?), Russ built me new garden boxes.  They are currently all planted and seem to be doing great!

Seth and boredom do not mix well.  He has kept busy doing some painting outside for us, helping Russ with the garden boxes, mowing the lawn, and another one of his loves...baking.  He checks recipe books out from the library all the time.  One of the latest featured all kinds of breads.  I thought, "Yeah, right, he will never attempt to make yeast bread.  That book will never get looked at."  He proved me wrong by making these yummy rolls.  He only asked me to look at the dough to make sure it was the right consistency or if it had risen enough.  Otherwise, it was completely his project.  I'm thinking of handing the kitchen over to him...

Our busyness became even more complicated when the same week that our Ford Expedition died, Anna was rear-ended on Eagle Road on the way to school, totaling our Ford Fusion.  I hate that phone call in the morning. "Mom, I was in a car crash."  Thankfully, it was close to home and Russ was there within minutes.  That day Anna never cried; she spoke to the police like a trooper and insisted on getting to school quickly so she could still take her English and chemistry quizzes.  The next day, however, she was incredibly weepy and had a knot in her stomach.  Cole Valley had a special spiritual emphasis day that day so we let her stay home.  Incredibly, she never had stiffness or pain.  I'm pretty sure the car absorbed most of the impact.  Anyway, we went from three cars down to one.  We were able to juggle schedules with one car for a few days before we agreed to borrow two vehicles from church members who offered them to us.  We are currently looking for two used vehicles to replace those we lost.