It Only Took a Day

Well that sure went fast!

All of our hard work getting the house ready to sell certainly paid off.

It was on the market for about a day and we had 2 offers.

Guess it's goodbye to Gardiner Drive.

 

Still no place for us to go, but we are spending every possible moment looking.

We are hopeful that the right place will come on the market very soon!!!!

Yikes!!!!

Easter Sunday

The girls woke up to find that the Easter Bunny left a trail of jelly beans 

which led them to the first clue in the hunt for their Easter baskets!

They were pretty quick about it this year!

Maybe the Easter Bunny was a little too easy on them.

And the baskets were found in the shower.

Good job Easter Bunny!
Money for the big....

Pink mustache pack for the little....

We all wanted to get out the house and do something together, so we opted for an outing the bowling alley!
Annalise needed some help to get started....

But once she got the hang of it, she did great!

Love these girls....

It was fun to spend time together....

Avery and Joelle with the only STRIKES!
Oh...and LOOK who won!!!! 😀

Annalise was just as excited about spending some time after bowling to play video games!

Lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Soccer Saturdays

Well...here we go again!

Annalise is back in soccer.

Here's to hoping there are no tears this season.

She PROMISES she's older and more mature now.

No tears.

Luckily she has the same coach and some of the same girls she played with in Kindergarten.

Fingers Crossed.

 She's been working hard at practice....

She was ready for the game.
(It was a little cold!!!)

 

And the first game was a success!

Well...no tears anyway!!!

Lots of running around chasing the ball....maybe one of these games this season 

she'll touch the ball and SCORE!!!!

Skyline Skate Night

Skyline had a Friday night skate night at the Lynden roller rink.

Each of the girls brought a friend and I tagged along.

It was super fun!

Brought me back to my elementary school years!

Many, many, many nights spent skating at Pattison's North in Spokane!!!

Good times!

And here we are....just a few years later.

And these things....Calli had the "helper" the entire night!

Whoever thought of this....genius!

 

Had to stop for some cotton candy and a Milky Way!

SUGAR!!!!!

It was a fun way to spend a Friday night!

Orchestra

It was time for the combined middle school orchestra concert.

Both schools came together at Horizon Middle School on St. Patrick's Day.

Avery, Isa and Alexa would be performing the trio ensemble they 

performed at the San Juan Music Educators Contest.

They did a great job!

All of these new learning experiences for Avery....really stretching her comfort zone and trying new things.  She makes us so proud.

What a lovely young lady she's becoming.

 

A Time For Change

We've talked about it for a long time.
We thought for a while we might move to Spokane to be closer to our family.
We looked into job possibilities and there really weren't any options for Mark.
He loves what he does and has built an amazing program here in Ferndale.
We also knew that once Avery started middle school we wouldn't move away.

So, here we are.
We are staying in Ferndale.
And finally, my Dad has agreed to come join our family here!!!!!!
We've been looking at houses with acreage...a place to put an additional dwelling on property or a place that already has that.  No luck so far, but the market is HOT and we knew we needed to act quickly and get our house ready to sell.
It's been a LOT of work....but today it happened!

Our next big adventure begins......

The Young Americans

The Young Americans is a traveling group of college students 

who promote music education in the schools.  

One of Avery's teachers has a daughter who is a Young American 

and she was able to get the tour to come to Ferndale!

The program was open to any 3rd-12th grade student.

(Annalise and her buddy Calli were able to sneak in because of our connections! :) )

The girls were very excited about it!

Turns out there were 300 participants!!!!

The program was 3 days long.

They had workshops after school on Thursday and Friday, and worked all day Saturday 

with a culminating performance Saturday night.

The workshops were in voice, dance, song writing and performance. They focus on the idea of gaining confidence through music and really worked with the students to take risks. 

Grandma and Grandpa were able to be here for their performance on Saturday night, along with an audience of about 700 people!!!  It was PACKED!!!!!!!

The girls were excited and a little nervous!

(Here's a link to a video put together by the Ferndale School District with highlights from the show:

http://ferndalesd.org/young-americans-turn-up-the-music-march-5-2015/ )

It was a great experience...the girls had a blast!