March 2022

Out to lunch after a ball game with the Lilly's and Hedges to celebrate Laura's birthday! (We had a group photo, but it seems to have disappeared!).

We celebrated Laura's birthday with our friends, and apparently she was very happy about a pour over coffee carafe! 

Wrestle mania with Walter!

 Baseball started up again! This season, Max is on the Mariner's.

Max participated in Science Olympiad at school this year, and the kids got to compete in a regional competition. Ms. Bhairavi was their teacher for the club - they had a blast! Max and his partner won fourth place in their competition for astronomy-related topics.

The competition was held at a high school and all the teams got to parade in with their school. It was really fun!

Birthday lunch for Laura with Grammie, Erich, and Heather!

We went out for pizza after Max's piano lesson on my birthday! The guys made me sweet cards.

Ben went out with a friend one evening, so Max and I went to dinner and the bookstore. We bumped in to one of his old teachers, so it was fun to catch up with her, too!

February 2022

Working on a research project about President Jimmy Carter

Playground time with Max's friends Yajur and Kai and their little brothers, Vidur and Ren

Celebrating birthdays for Grammie, Erich, and Heather!

Class presentations (sometimes the teachers send us photos!)

Third grade spelling bee - Max came in fourth place!

Celebrating Walter and Saskia's birthdays!

Valentine's day breakfast

Max's friend Rohan came over to play! (They were popping balloons in the air in this photo)

 

January 2022

DeAnne, Craig, and their two dogs, Lady Bones and Flossie Mae, stopped in Hiawassee on their way to Florida! We had a fun weekend catching up and playing with four white doggies. 

Belated Christmas celebration with the Winiarski's and Krueger's! (Delayed due to COVID - whomp!)

Built a cool Star Wars Lego set!

Southern snow day!

Another belated Christmas celebration (COVID delay!), this time with the Hedges except Valerie who is now in Norway for grad school! 

Funny story: Max participated in the Boulder Dash 5K race last fall. In early January, Ben received an email from the race organizer saying that they didn't have the winner medals at the race and would be sending them by mail. Lo and behold, Max won first place in his age group! The medal happened to arrive the day before our belated Christmas celebration with the Hedges, so we wrapped it up for him to open. A fun surprise!

Max had his first sleepover spending the night at his friend Connor's house! (A video game is on the TV which is what the boys are looking at in this photo -- also exhausted after staying up until after 10:00 and waking up at 5:00 to play - haha!)

Max loved Connor's cat, River! 

We all had COVID at the first of the year, so Max spent the first couple weeks doing virtual school.

My friend Renee (the mom of one of Max's friends) had a health emergency one Friday, so she dropped her middle schooler, Audrey, off at our house while she went to the hospital (Audrey is doing virtual school right now). Renee and her husband were still at the hospital when the afternoon rolled around, so I picked up her three other kids at school and took care of them through dinner then drove them home to put them all to bed! 

One of the older kids got picked up by his friend's mom just before dinnertime, so I/we had anywhere from 4-5 kids in our charge at any given time that afternoon/evening. Given that we're accustomed to our single calm child it was a wild time to say the least. Very glad to have had the opportunity to help out a friend in a time of need, but also happy to return to our simple little life! ;-)

Playing "lumberjack" in the woods!

Teaching Micky and his little sister Charlotte how to use the bow and arrow!