this is ELLA-ven

 Such an amazing week of celebrations!!


Els received AMAZING news last week - I'm an editor of the school yearbook and the yearbook chair person called me to take a look at the cover and I logged on to find this:

We knew Els was a finalist (the teachers voted on the top 4 cover submissions) and then the students voted for their favorite cover and Ella won!!!  Her art will be this year's yearbook cover!!  

Congrats Miss Ella Bean!!  We are so proud and head over heels with your creativity, talent and vision!  We are so so super excited for you!!!!

Max also received some good news!  His desert tortoise adoption application was approved (twice - by the Department of Game and Fish and then separately by the Desert Museum here in Tucson) and we are now awaiting for the tortoises to come out of brumation so he can go and pick his tortoise up!  

Funny Max story of the week - now that the kids are back full-time in school (knock on wood, we don't go remote again), I moved the kiddie table that he was working on out of his room and put his lego table back in.  Roger and I left the kiddie table pretty much in the middle of the walkway between the dining room table and kitchen island - totally in the way of everything.  At dinner, we asked Max if he would be okay with us getting rid of the table as they have outgrown it - without missing a beat, Max patted the table affectionately and said "okay, but we had good times together, me and Betsy."  We laughed as we had never heard him refer to the table as "Betsy."  Then the next morning, Max was standing at the kitchen island and Roger asked him to let Piper out.  Max was on his Kindle, so turned without looking, ran into the table and fell on it.  He stood up and went "Dammit, Betsy!!"  We could not stop laughing.

Happy birthday Ella!!!!!!  You are eleven and oh so grown up.  You are beautiful inside and out and just full of joy and love and compassion.  We love you so so much!!  Covid birthday number two, but we tried to make the best of it!

Excited to wear her outfit she picked out while shopping with Nana.

Then we organized a virtual sleepover - I put together kits for the girls (her besties, Hailey and Mia) with crafts, games, Lou Malnati's pizza, cupcakes, and waffles then delivered them to the girls' houses.  At 5:00 p.m., they started their sleepover via FaceTime!

The girls talked and played games until late into the night and I was super impressed that she was up by 7:00 a.m. the next morning and on the phone already!  

Meanwhile, we found a fun event by the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series - he created a drive-through haunted house in celebration of his newest scary stories book, so Roger took Max.

And at the end, the author himself handed Max an autographed copy of the book through the window on a shovel and posed for a picture!!

Saturday morning, we hosted a hydro-dipping party with the Cotters!  The kiddos hydro-dipped water bottles together and they turned out super cool!

Finally, to round out Ella's 36-hour straight birthday celebration, we had our family dinner!!

Then after a relaxing weekend, we celebrated Miss Piper turning two!

A walk during Roger's lunchtime.

Followed by a pup birthday party with her sister, Zoey!

Ohmigod, these cakes were huge and the girls finished them!!  

Happy birthday, sweet Piper!!!  We love you!

spring forward

 We enjoyed a great Spring Break - which was basically a culmination of last year's Spring Break, since that ended up being extended for a full year.  Before we returned to full-time in-person school, we had ourselves a few fun little adventures.

We hiked the one-mile Freeman-Homestead Trail twice with Max's friend, Addy, and her mom and sister.  These two have been sweet friends since kindergarten and we had an awesome afternoon with them!

On Wednesday, we met up with the Cotters at the zoo.  

Then the craziest thing happened - while we were waiting in line for churros (and Nana stopped by the zoo to get Els for her birthday shopping trip), Jenny ran into her friend who is a zoo ambassador (remember when he got Max in to feed the giraffes for half an hour on his birthday???).  She commented that we had seen guests petting the rhinoceros and how could we get that experience because Max LOVES rhinos.  A few minutes later he came back, and said that he was starting a VIP tour that we could crash.  Ahhh!!  A crazy behind the scenes tour that was so awesome!

The kiddos saw the elephant trainers up close - they showed how they aren't teaching the elephants "tricks" to perform, but rather to perform daily health checks on them.  They are such beautiful animals and so cool to see them up close.  

Feeding the ostrich (who lives with 2 zebras named Ben and Anna - Banana!!  Ha!).

So, super sad, because the whole reason for begging to be on this tour was for Max to pet the rhino and she was too comfy in her shady spot to move.  However...

The highlight for Max ended up being able to go INTO the Aldabra tortoise habitat to meet Herbie!

I was so impressed with all the zoo does with its conservation efforts and that reducing our carbon footprint and living more sustainably was a theme in the discussions of all of the animals and how to help the future of these species.  

Thursday, we embarked on a day trip to Chiricahua National Monument (about two hours from here).  We started up at the top and did a short little nature trail and enjoyed some amazing vistas.

Then we hiked the Natural Bridge Trail - an out and back for a total of 5 miles.  

The kids VERY happy to reach the end of the trail (and the turnaround point and lunch spot).  They did very well considering we were met with "Are we there yet?" and "My legs are tired!" and "I'm hungry" and "I'm hot" all within the first 40 seconds of the hike.

Ohmigod...when did you two get so big????????

After a delightful weekend, we were ready to start school (it's like the twelfth "first day of school" this year).  

One quarter to go.  We cautiously begin to plan more for the future.  Love you two. 

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow...and tomorrow's just a dream away.