There will be sun!

The sun came out and we all went home red.  the end.  Ella played three games over the weekend and was part of the teams first win in over 1178 days.  Should have been two in the win column but the reffs looked as wore out as the teams in the first heat that spring has provided this year.  Ella played great and we are getting to know the game rules enough to mutter under our breath at poor calls.  Ron and Jan made the trip up for the Saturday morning game while Grace was traipsing around Bay beach with a friend instead.  Ella did have a busy day...so busy that after the games she would show up to work late but freshly showered and wearing her swim suit under her work clothes so she could meet her friends in the pool as quickly as possible.  Youth wears me out.  Sunday was thirty degrees cooler and a constant mist, but we did have a late meal with Ron to celebrate his birthday in TR.

a little woods time prep

We hit the woods a bit for some fall prep even though spring is only but a fetus.  Merrick is planning on joining us the gun deer season this year and wanted to get some shooting practice.  Ammo is tight but practice is required. He was consistent with his shots and feel good about his handling of the gun and the marksmanship for clean kills.  Also figured as long as we are on miles of dirt roads that there is really no reason that I need to drive so he took the wheel and I scanned the woods for mushrooms.  I did have him drive me to area that I like for oyster mushrooms but we only found one tiny 'pinning' oyster.  A little rain and a little time and the area will be flush again with fungi.  We did score more bear ticks than I would have preferred having forgotten to spray down with permethrin.  Spent a lot of time tossing knives in the backyard and chalked it up to a pretty good weekend.  Ella had some friends stay over and Sophia went to Milwaukee for an IKEA trip with a friend.  Grace stayed over at friends house and everyone is really just ready for summer!

 

A night like the Before times

 

It was Ella's birthday and we packed it all in!  It was as busy as a pre-CoVid times and Amy and I were exhausted by the next morning.  Grandparents met us all after school and we made an early reservation at A' Bravo for dinner. It was a great meal and the four different cars headed out to go to their respective places.  A post surgery Sophia took Grace back home.  Grandprize and Merrick headed there too to unload some fire wood quick before heading to black strip testing at Karate.  Ella was already dressed for her band concert and headed off to get tuned up for the last performance, and first, of the year.  Jan, Nancy and I chilled a little longer before setting off to watch the band.  The acoustics in the gym were poor, as expected and the seating was limited but it was great to see some normalcy as the various bands worked through their pieces.  With the final applauses dying off Ella was off for a wardrobe change and donned her Lacrosse gear and trotted across the parking lot to join the scrum already playing.    She banged it out on the turf in a close game before we made it back to the house about 9:30 for some birthday cake.  Of course it was a Grace classic, lemon cake.  17 isn't the the most exciting birthday in terms of rites of passage, but we sure made the most of the performance angle either way!

The Spring Dances and the Sun appears

 

Ella spent a night at Prom after a close call with contact tracing and a rapid negative test.  She did get pulled from her LaX games but the dance went on.  Friday night she gathered with about a half dozen of her friends and they all made a big lasagna dinner together and topped it off with some poker and a some of them were still around in the morning.  Ella is spending plenty of time playing "wall ball" to practice for LaCrosse and Grace tags along to shoot buckets on the asphalt at FoxView. Sophia spent another night on the dance floor for her Senior ball.  Her and her friends played the black/jack tables and started to realize the senior year was coming to an end.  The girls all had fun and it was great to see some the 'important' aspects of high school get to come back.  The sun poked its heated head out for a single day and pushed the temps 30 degrees higher than the 50 degree temps that had bookended the day.  Merrick and I tossed some knives and we put the garden plants in before the rains came.  The bikes are getting tuned up

Snow?

 

A fool's spring indeed, we awoke to snow this morning and the brief 70 degree temperatures from weeks ago are now only a tormented memory.  Alas, hope springs eternal and we wait for warmer days. Merrick is back in school after his school imposed hiatus.  Virtual learning has made his shop class a little more difficult, but he says at least when he is working in the garage there are no lines at the power tools and the safety test wasn't an requirement.  He is putting together a nice trebuchet for his project and we were able to use some .357 cartridges for spacers...also likely not allowed in 'real' school.  Sophia finally got her prom after the shutdown last year and had a great time with a big dinner, plenty of pictures and some dancing too.  Ella brought us back to some normalcy with a full music production of the school Jam band.  There was dancing, singing and sweet tunes echoing through a gymnasium of socially distant and emotionally close parents eager to see the hard work that kids' had been putting into the performance.  Ella playing the piano is all the more cool when I remember she is self-taught.  Pictures still aren't allowed (by Grace) for the archery club, but that wrapped up with a pizza party and she enjoyed it all enough to give it a go next year as well.  She plans on recruiting some friends in the off season to join her.

Wise for their years

The younger two and I were able to get a jump on the Frolf season and for the first time, I lost to Merrick.  ah, they grow up so fast, but not fast enough to buy their own Uncle Mike's on the way home.  That is still my job apparently.  It is the birthday season as well so we spent time eating out. Merrick wanted take out from 5 guys (only took two days to air out the truck from driving it home) and Grace wanted to make a sushi run.  Ella, was not interested in either one having just had her wisdom teeth yanked out.  Sophia, Grace, Amy and I split several different rolls and Merrick and Ella nursed some soup...because one could not eat and the other wasn't about to eat sushi.  Easter has come and gone complete with eggs and chocolate rabbits.

 

Smiles in Stanley

It was a forced trip for Merrick but he had fun in the end and a good time was had by all.  We headed out early and meet in the Stanley woods a little after 9 in the morning.  The goal was to find some diamond willow and after pounding the swamps for awhile B-rad took home enough to keep him busy in the new hobby.  By luck it was Grandprize's Bday and we had some shooting to do and even had him set of a big chunk of tannerite...to the amusement and even shock of us all.  The weather was amazing the sky was the bluebird sky you can only get in early spring.