Jerseys and ice cream

The first day of soccer jerseys means ice cream at Gannons, even when it's snowing outside!

 

Right back into it

The spring soccer season has started, and it's been a cold and rainy season so far. Reed is known as the toughest and most hardworking player on our home backyard soccer field but something has intimidated him about playing in games with his team on the big field. Theo and Beckett were sweet trying to coax him into playing in his first game.

Spectators are finally allowed at Beckett's hockey games so we get to watch him play. He seems to get better every game, so it's really fun to watch him.

 

The last days before school resumed

When we got back from Florida, we were scheduled for three last remote learning days before they returned in person five days a week. It was not our most successful school week, counting down the Seesaw assignments and WCNY videos. But we got out to the park to clean up garbage and to a couple awesome playgrounds with our neighbor Kam. We all survived the week.

 

Bubbles

Theo is almost 10 and Reed is almost 6 and yet the bubble machine still enchants them for long stretches of time. I know these days will not last forever so I appreciate them now, when they enjoy such simple pleasures.

 

Easter

 

Nature

We had lots of opportunity to see our usual favorite spots (biking the Bailey Tract, biking/driving the Ding Darling Road, and kayaking Tarpon Bay) and also walked a few new trails. (We have to call them "walks" now because "hike" has taken on the status of a bad word in our house after a full year of quarantine forced hikes (AKA death marches). We saw a lot of great wildlife on most trips, including bald eagles, snakes, turtles, softshell tortoises, alligators, all manner of herons and egrets and the like). We also spotted a cool beehive, a green heron sitting on her nest, several yellow crowned night herons nesting, and the most up-close alligators from a safe vantage point. 

There were lots of points when I thought of my dad and wondered if he was proud of us for all of our great wildlife sightings, or shaking his head at all the great wildlife we missed or scared away. We think of him all the time, especially doing things like this that he loved to do with us.

 

Full moon on the beach

The photos don't really show the beach how it looked that night when we went out a little after dusk. It was much darker than the photos show, so we had flashlights. There were a ton of people on the beach enjoying the evening and the full moon over the Gulf.