A Blur

These days are a blur. Whether it's because of the explosion of pollen or the fact that we have so much going on -- in addition to all the regular activities, the 4 kids playing soccer and Ethan playing baseball and shuttling Taylor back and forth to work, it's kind of crazy around here -- I can't be sure. Olivia turned 2 on March 30 and she was going around the house in the days leading up to her birthday singing, "Happy day, happy day!" And she kept trying to show how old she was going to be by holding up two fingers but always had her thumb sticking out. The hand coordination thing is a work in progress. It was a grand birthday party and at some point we'll track down some photos of it. You see a couple of photos up there of some folks rather dressed up who appear to be "dancing." Several weeks ago we attended a "Sweet Sixteen" party for two local young ladies who are close friends of the family and someone caught some of us on camera in a "dancing" type of activity. Taylor and Claire were looking sharp, eh?

We went from winter to summer in about a day this year. It was a long, hard winter with record amounts of snowfall around Virginia -- parts of Northern Virginia had more than 5 feet this year -- and then one day it was 75 degrees. Then 85 degrees the next day and 91 the next day. It was crazy. The kids have been running through the sprinkler every day this week, the pollen was so thick I about needed a snow shovel to get it off the cars and the air conditioning units were roaring. Spring? A fleeting thought at this point. But I woke up this morning and it had rained all night and cooled things off. It's supposed to be upper 60s this weekend, which should make perfect soccer weather. Eli has proven to be a goal-scoring machine. He had another 2 goals last Saturday, the second time he's done that. Madeline is a crowd favorite and Gabe has shown amazing improvement on the pitch in just a few weeks. He's been playing a lot of soccer in the back yard and it's paying off. Abram scored a goal this year that was really cool. Usually he plays a lot of defense but when he got his chance he put one in the back of the net. It's great stuff.