Cincinnati Showcase

Owen and Pat went to another soccer showcase while Paige and I took a break from traveling. They left Thursday night because of an early game Friday morning so Owen got to miss another Friday of school. The first game was delayed because of frost but they didn't have to wait too long to play. Unfortunately they lost but they didn't have much time to dwell on it because Owen and three teammates had tickets for the aquarium at 1:15:) It sounds like the boys spent most of the time watching the penguins and then they got some food from the Hofbrauhaus. The rest of the night was spent relaxing because of another early game on Saturday. The boys played a great game and won Saturday morning! Then a lot of the team went bowling with parents participating too. Pat surprised himself by bowling a 200 game!! That night there was a team dinner at the hotel from Olive Garden. The team lost their Sunday morning game but at least with the timing Pat and Owen were home around 3 and we were so happy to be reunited!

Owen with Josh, Jackson and Josh

The boys watching the penguins

Noah and Owen classic victory pose (also seen here)

Bowlers

Pat posed with the bowling ball that made his 200 game happen

Proof!

 

KAR Competition

Another dance competition! This one was a little unusual with how Paige's schedule ended up. She had one dance early Saturday morning and then 11 dances the next day. We had a lot of time to use up on Saturday because of that which ended up being great! The place we were staying at was also the location of the competition so we could walk out of our room and just go down the hall to get to the stage. We spent Saturday watching dances, Paige swam for a little bit and played with friends and then we tried to get to bed early. We knew Sunday would be tough but we powered through! Paige started with her solo at 8:30 and ended with the last awards of the competition finishing up at 10pm. In between, Paige performed all of her dances and bonded with friends (me too!). All of her dances scored Elite Top First and for her solo she won 8th overall and fifth runner up for the title competition! 

Saturday's dance-Move It

Paige and Maeve got cut octopus stuffed animals

Paige and friends ready to perform their solos

Kids who placed for title from Paige's studio

Emma, Maya, Paige, Mikayla and Maeve

Ready for Bushel and a Peck

Pop, Drop and Roll ready to go on stage

Ready for the last dance of the day-trio

These two stuck it out until the end and had a blast!

 

Soccer Showcase

While Paige and I were at a dance competition near Columbus, Pat and Owen were at a soccer showcase in Indianapolis! They only had one game a day (unfortunately they lost all of them) so they had more time than usual to explore and do some team bonding, luckily they also had beautiful weather. They drove down Friday morning and played their first game. Afterward, they had a team dinner and then rented some scooters. Pat's scooter was out of battery so he had to operate it manually which is hilarious to hear and probably super disappointing for him:) Saturday they slept in, had some lunch and then had their second game before heading out for a team dinner at a Mexican restaurant owned by the coach's friend. Sunday they had an earlier game at noon and then had their long drive home! 

 

Miscellaneous

Paige facetimed me while I was on a walk and kept doing handstands!

Relaxing

Griffin in portrait mode

Owen and I in portrait mode

It is really hard to get action shots of basketball where their arms aren't in front of their faces

Pat and I were on a walk and Owen biked to meet us

Ice

 

BMX

We tried something very different for us and went to an indoor BMX park! I was looking for an indoor activity for the last day of Spring break because it was supposed to rain and I found this place 20 minutes away from our house. We brought helmets and rented bikes there because we weren't sure we had the right bikes for the kids and our bikes were in the shop getting tune-ups. This place was HUGE and there were a ton of different difficulty levels located throughout the place, it was overwhelming at times! We stayed for about 4 hours and I lasted about 1.5 hours. Everyone else biked for pretty much the whole time with just a short break to hydrate. I loved seeing how brave they all were and I wish I could figure out how to post videos on the blog but these pictures will have to do!

My favorite room-novice level:)

This was a giant room filled with a bunch of paths to choose from

Paige 

We originally thought the green path was a leisurely tour around the place but the difficulty level varied greatly as it continued

Pat

Owen

Paige was getting some advice on which path to take down

 

Easter!

This was probably the laziest/slowest holiday morning wakeup we've ever had. The kids didn't really wake us up right away. I think I knew one was up and then I fell back asleep and the next time I woke up they were both just sitting around waiting for us! The Easter Bunny didn't leave any directions for finding baskets so the kids set out scouring the house and had a lot of trouble locating the baskets! They searched and searched until Pat finally came across a special note the bunny had left (see below). It wasn't helpful so the kids kept looking until the baskets were finally found in Paige's room in her dream duffel! 

We stopped eating candy long enough to have some very sugary but delicious cinnamon rolls and then the kids had another basket search to complete courtesy of my parents! This time the baskets were outside in the trunk of the van. 

Picture before the search

The Easter bunny is getting pretty sassy!

Success!

Breakfast! 

Close up

Success for Easter basket #2!

 

So much candy!!

Sunshine and a Winner!

 

The kids are on Spring Break right now and the weather has been all over the place. One morning they woke up to snow on the ground and a day of snow and more recently it was hot outside and shorts weather! So crazy! 

Paige uses the hammock as she would aerial silks or a bar

The kids about to race somewhere

Griffin also enjoying the outdoors

Paige won our family March Madness bracket (again!) and chose Pulp as her celebratory meal

Paige's Birthday!

Paige requested a pink and yellow theme for her birthday so she woke up to 11 pink and yellow balloons and streamers decorating the kitchen and living room. Then we started the day with the traditional sprinkle pancakes and some screens before Grandma and Grandpa stopped by with a present! I let Paige open one of her presents early so she would have an art project to do. The project was a paint pouring kit where you fill a cup with different colors of paint and turn it upside down on a canvas and move the canvas to spread it. We left them out to dry for awhile because there was a lot of paint to dry and Griffin stepped through one of them. We had little blue paw prints across the kitchen! Later, Paige had an aerial class and then we picked up Dairy Queen on the way home. She's been waiting months to have a banana split and it wasn't all she hoped it would be but she ate most of it anyway:) We ended the night with presents but the big present is lost in the mail somewhere so we're still waiting!