I’m going to indulge a bit a share lots of pictures of the garden. After years of work, it’s finally grown into something I’m quite happy about. There are always children playing, and lots of fruits and vegetables coming up as well.

Things will often take longer than we want. Life is slow. I plant an apple tree, and I won’t get fruit for a few years. I make plans that only exist on paper for a long time, but eventually with gradual work. they start to take shape. Life is slow in a very good way that teaches us patience and teaches us to appreciate what we have.

We took a short camping trip to Capitol Reef. The camping was cold, but it made the hiking the next day rather nice.

We went on one long hike, The Capitol Gorge trail. Everyone had a great time, it was rated an 8/10…and that’s the only hike we did. My children don’t always like hiking, so one good hike was enough.

We finished up another season of soccer. Peter excelled and was a star player. Curtis did quite well for being the youngest person on his team, and Henry….he got better at running after the ball and not just looking at the dogs on the sideline.

Also a few pictures of Henry doing a giant, foamy volcano.

First up is the pinewood derby.

Peter took third place. I would say I was proud of him for working so hard on his car, but his dad made it and Peter had to be coerced to help. They had a lot of fun at the actual race though. 

This is Curtis doing one of the things he likes most. He loves video games, which is sometimes a challenge. He also loves playing outside with friends and reading, so it’s okay.

And this is Henry’s favorite thing in the whole world. “Flower” (his flower blanket) ranks above Mommy sometimes.

We went to the park on the first of May. It was great fun, but I did not expect to be having a snowball fight.

In other weather-related news, we had our nearly annual hail storm and got to test out the new drain by the garage. It prevented some, but not all of the flooding. The kids loved watching the storm roll in. The weather has been perfectly normal in spring: wildly unpredictable.

On a good weather day, we got the canoe out. I drive by the lake when I go up to school and I had been itching to get out on the water.

Finally a little belated Valentine from Henry. He comes up with the cutest things. 

Joe and I have been to Twin Falls twice without our children. We had false memories of bringing our children there: mostly we were thinking about how much fun they would have to when we were there without them. For spring break, we packed up and took them on a mini-vacation.

I love mini-vacations. We leisurely left when we wanted to and didn’t have far to drive. We spent the day exploring cool waterfalls and went out for dinner. The kids love staying at hotels with pools. We were home the next day, still had plenty of time to do chores and catch up on homework. Short vacations are just so much less stress than long ones.

I have a little over four weeks left of school, and then I will be halfway through my graduate degree program. (Sidenote: it’s a three-year program, I’ve been going two years in, and I still have three years left. That’s how it’s worked out with balancing my school on top of my family schedule. And it’s okay. I”m making up for getting through my undergraduate degree in three years.)

I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned how to make fancy graphics pretty quickly. Example:

I’ve also learned how to meet deadlines without staying up late or letting school take over my life. My tips are don’t procrastinate, and be okay with work that isn’t perfect or even the best you can do. Good enough usually is just fine. I actually had one assignment with two parts. I loved the first part, hated the second. The second one got me a better grade. My perfect is different than someone else’s and trying to spend all that time to reach that perfection level is a waste.

One of the most interesting things I learned is sometimes less instruction and guidance is better, especially when it is mirrored with high expectation. It’s super annoying: I would rather a nice rubric with all the instruction on how to get there. But sometimes without that, it forces you to try harder, motivates you to learn how to teach yourself things, and helps promote creativity. Grading rubrics don’t exist in the real world.

I’ve learned it’s important to segment my time and not let any one thing take over my life. It’s good to have a lot going on: school work, home, self-care, family responsibilities. And it’s good to sit down and just focus on one of those things instead of worrying about everything at once.

First up, Curtis had a birthday. We had two parties, one for friends and one for family, and probably the highlight of everything was the Creeper pinata that Joe made.

He asked for one thing: he wanted an Alexa. So we have one. It’s kind of annoying most of the time, sometimes useful.

At school, we sometimes learn about things like adventure playgrounds. And unlike most of my classmates, I get to home and do it.

Finally, we took a spring break trip to Moab.