violin footage!

Here's some recent footage of our budding violinists.  I know three is kind of a lot all at once but I think they're all worth posting.

This first one is from the school talent show that ended the school year a couple of weeks ago.  They are playing a rousing gypsy piece called "The Basso."  Apologies for the first minute or so of footage; there's a baby crying among other things, but stick with it and things smooth out.


This second one is the group performances from their most recent recital, which happened just a week before the school talent show.  The first piece is "Bagpipe Rondo" then "Hatikvah" which is the Israeli national anthem played as a round, and last is "Devil's Dream" which is a real crowd pleaser!


This last one is from the winter recital which took place in February.  It is the Canon in D by Telemann, they do it as a three-part round and it sounds great.  This piece has tricky timing but these kids pulled it off with expert precision.  Take a listen, I think you'll be glad you did!

Children's Museum

We took an end-of-the-year field trip with Lucas' preschool group to the Portland Children's Museum.  We had a lovely time and made some good memories.  I got some fun pics and wanted to share them here!

Lucas is dressed as a prehistoric penguin (?) collecting dinosaur eggs in his cave:

 

I was rather charmed by this poster!

Lacrosse

Daniel wanted to give lacrosse a try this season and I'm glad we went for it. He's had a fun time and it's been neat watching him try something new.

There he is on the left:

Right in the center there.  He'd been tagged by one of the coaches in a game similar to freeze tag:

Easter 2013

Easter Sunday fell at the very end of our spring break. Jake and I had returned from our getaway Saturday evening to pick up the boys and then try to get back into the swing of things and prepare for Easter the next day.  It involved a late night trip to Fred Meyer so I could pick up a few essentials and Easter basket items. I was pretty tired and you can imagine my joy at being yelled at by a lady for attempting to buy non-local produce. I wanted to tell her she needed to go home and shampoo her hair before she was allowed to lecture me (it was seriously so greasy!) but I restrained myself. I got the needed items (including the evil red grapes from Chile) and got home in time for Jake to assemble the baskets, I believe before midnight. Somehow we pulled it off and here's proof that the boys had a fun Easter 2013!

Cannon Beach Getaway

Jake and I were able to take a getaway to Cannon Beach at the end of spring break.  Our dear friends offered to watch the boys and helped them have the best time while we were gone.  They didn't even miss us ;)  We were so grateful for the opportunity and had a great time ourselves, just the two of us!

This was the view from our room, it was awesome.  I loved being this close to Haystack Rock:

During our sunset stroll we came across this picture someone had drawn in the sand.  For those like myself not entirely in the know, it's a creeper from Minecraft.  Jake knew the boys would get a kick out of it:

Rock Museum

I was able to take the boys on an outing to the Rock Museum during spring break. Every 2nd grade class visits for a field trip and when it was Daniel's class's turn a few weeks ago he came back raving about it. He even set up his own rock museum in our backyard. It turns out it is a real gem of a place (pun intended!) that is located only a few minutes from where we live. It was well worth the trip and would be a great place to take anyone who comes to visit us :)

The boys posing next to a Thunder Egg (I had to consult with Daniel to remember all the names of these things.  He totally remembers them all and is happy to be the resident expert :)

Daniel says he likes to call this one The Smiley Cyclops.  Love it!

These looked like peanut brittle!

A Mammoth Tusk on the bottom shelf there:

Petrified Dinosaur Eggs (Lucas is posing as a dinosaur):

Daniel with The Alma Rose.  He couldn't stop talking about this one:

Petrified Pinecones:

This one was so bright and pretty, so interesting:

These were amazing.  Click to try and catch some of that detail:

They have a rock pile outside that kids can sort through and choose a rock of their own.  It may not look like much but the kids loved it:

How about some blog catch up?

As you may have noticed, it's been awhile!  As you also may have noticed, I left off blogging during our March Madness birthday season.  I kind of lost steam but it was right when spring break started and we did lots of fun things.

I've tried instituting a "no backlog" policy here on the blog with some success.  It's mainly to help me not stress and feel obligated to go back into the archives and catch up on every single thing I've taken pictures of.  We're busy living life and time goes by whether or not I have the opportunity to post about it and that's the way it should be.

But I think I'll make an exception here because I got some great pictures that I want to share and I want to preserve these memories.  Well, that and I'm having a bout of insomnia that I'm taking great advantage of.  My loss of sleep is your gain!  Without further ado...four posts headed your way!