Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Spring 2017 Recap

Around these parts, Spring means "sports" which would explain this particular blog absence.  After Spring Break Little Miss' soccer season started up closely followed by Little Man's baseball season so if we're not at a soccer field, we're either at a baseball field, working in our yard/gardening, and/or taking a walk.

We did fit in a visit to the in-laws' lake house for a visit with my SIL and her family and at the same time, we met some of the hubby's relatives from the East Coast that he hasn't seen in more than 20 years and I had never met!  You'll have to check my SIL's blog for people photos but I did enjoy a couple lovely walks with Carolyn :)

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It's been a wet Spring so there have been more rain-outs than normal but Little Miss's soccer team is cruising right along.  She is enjoying herself quite a bit!

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Little Man was happy to find that his year off from baseball didn't hinder him as much as he thought it might.  He is enjoying playing Center Field and a bit of pitching now and again.


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I have kept up with my goal of walking at least 1 mile per day.  Right now I have gone over 300 miles since the start of the year.  It was fun watching one of my favorite walking paths change from it's Winter ensemble to a lush Summery one.

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Little man has accompanied me on most of the walks.  One of my new favorite pasttimes is embarrassing him by wearing the same shirt for our walks.  It's only happened 3 times now but he hates it and that brings me such joy ;)


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We have 1 week left of school (more or less) and today is Little Miss' graduation ceremony from Elementary School.  Where has the time gone?  Yesterday was her 5th Grade party - they chose to go to Adventureland where she was very daring and rode a lot of rides and even won herself a giant stuffed thing she named Felix.  Way to go, Little Miss!

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Little man had a ball game last night so I took the opportunity to snap a few photos.  She wasn't really  having it.

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There are a number of younger kiddos in our neighborhood these days and both Minions enjoy hanging out with them and helping out when they can.

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Remember my trashy buckets that housed my tomato and pepper plants for the past few years?  I decided to upgrade this year and made a few raised garden beds.  We're trying out some new veggies and seeing how the garden beds work out.  Right now things don't look too bad :)

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This was a week ago or 2 ago.
 
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Earlier this Spring, the Lueder Boys were able to get their picture taken with the Cubs World Series trophy :)
 
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The hubby.
 
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This past April, Little Miss was the only girl to make her Elementary School's relay team that went to the Drake Relays. I love the Relays and this was a special event for me because I used to work the Relays with my Grandpa and this was the first time the minions and the hubby have ever attended. The weather was cold and wet (as it usually is come Relays time) but it didn't bother me. We even got to watch one of the special events featuring Olympic Triple Jumpers. Hopefully the DiF household will be able to watch the Relays again in the future!
 
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Believe it or not, there has been some crafting going on in the in-between times. Little miss made a birdhouse for her teacher with my FIL's help.
 
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I finished a cross stitch family portrait for my SIL. (Fresh off the Q-snap)
 
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During one of my vendor gigs a woman asked me to make her a pair of coasters and I liked the pattern so I used it again for this purple set that was added to a basket for our Elementary School's Panther Dash this May.
 
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I've also been working on 4 samples for a knitting book :) I need to wash and block the hat/cowl but here are the socks.
 
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I have more WiP's right now than I would care to admit so with any luck I will have more FO photos soon :)

We have been doing quite a bit to the yard during these past weeks - trimming trees, getting rid of branch piles, gardening... Little man is working especially hard and hasn't let me even mow the yard - and I like to mow!  Our neighbors happened to have some free tickets to our zoo for an evening and they gave them to us after a particularly stressful day of limb removal. I have never gone to the zoo in the evening and it was so nice. The weather was perfect and the animals (most of them) were actually awake. I only had my phone but here are a few photos.

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Our Summer seems to be filling up already but I'm hoping for lots of crafting time and blog time so the next update should be a bit sooner!

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