Spring has sprung!

As you can see by the photo, Spring has sprung in Las Vegas! Lauren enjoys all the beautiful flowers, especially on mommy's banks roses out front, and it is fun for all of us to watch our jalapenos, tomatoes, artichokes, kolrabi and cucumber sprout. Our dwarf grapefruit and guava trees seem to be doing awesome and our new cherry and apple trees have blossomed too! Hopefully the new ones will establish sufficiently to survive the summer.

Little "E" News and Notes

Little "E" had her big day at band festival this week. She had the solo in their big number and knocked it out of the park. Her band got superior ratings and wowed the judges. In other Little "E" news, we just found out she has been selected by the school district to be honored at a ceremony as an outstanding 8th grader. Pretty funny when you consider that she's been an 8th grader for all of about 3 weeks (they combined her 7th and 8th grade years into one year so she'll start high school next year). We also found out that each senator gets to appoint one kid to the state youth senate and Erin has been nominated to go to Carson City as our senator's representative. Takin' after her mother this one is...

Jimmy is top "Dragon"

Well, Jimmy pretty much cleaned house on awards at school. He was the top reader in addition to being the "Dragon of the Month" yet again. He officially holds the school record now for consecutive months as the top reader. The only bad thing is he doesn't have room on his desk anymore because of all his trophies.

Bridges, Races, Science Bowl and Pinewood Derby

Have to admit, I've got a smart little batch of kids. Erin was the captain of her magnet school's science bowl team last week. She did a wonderful job at their competition at UNLV and made her school proud. Lauren was in the annual Reading Week Race and took second place! This was a big accomplishment for her as she has been training to beat several of the girls who've consistently come in before her. She accomplished her goal and took a respectable second. Jimmy entered one of two pinewood derbies he will be competing in this month. His police car took fourth overall and third in the "coolest car" category. He is hoping for a better showing in the next race. All the kids took part in the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) annual bridge building competition last week at UNLV. They competed against all the other schools in the valley. They all did a great job and had a lot of fun watching their bridges be put to the test to see how much weight they could hold. We got a bit of a surprise on Tanner's bridge however. When the dust settled, we were informed that Tanner placed second in the valley and his bridge qualified for the international competition in April in Washington. He is pretty excited about it as they are flying him out to compete. He is also running track right now and doing well, except for his latest injury (dislocated rib) that he is trying to heal from. A good batch of kidlings if ever there was one!