Fun run and splash park

The kids fun run series has started again for this summer. We loved doing it last year and everyone was excited to do it again this year. 

Here is Lily at the start of the race: 

And they're off!

Jack found a buddy from school to run with

But Lily ended up smoking both boys and running ahead and finishing the race before everyone!

Jack and Tali after the race

Free ice cream!

Being silly

Both girls are exhausted after the race!

After the run we stopped by another festival where they were giving away free lunch and they had a mascot walking around:

Luke and I stayed to browse some of the booths, but the kids were so tired they both fell asleep right on the sidewalk... at 10:30 in the morning!

Finally the weather is a little better and we have made our first trip to our favorite splash park.

We are looking forward to summer!

Goodbye carpet (our memorial day project)

We signed another year lease at this house. I am happy to stay here and would even consider eventually buying this place. I am so sick of moving! 

However the one thing that has always bothered me about this house was the white carpet. I am disgusted by it every day. After a year of living here there were so many stains on the carpet from kids peeing, coffee spilling, blood and mud tracked through. I was embarrassed to even invite friends over because the carpet was so awful. So one condition of our renewal was that the owners would pay to have wood laminate installed. We agreed to do the work if they would pay for materials. They agreed. 

Who knew what a massive project we had just undertaken? We decided to do it over the 3 day memorial day weekend. We though "oh, it will be easy! We'll finish in three days, no problem" 

Ha ha ha ha ha.... 

It turned into a nightmare. 

First, there was all the prep work. Ripping out the carpets, removing tacks and staples:

Then cleaning the floors:

That took the entire first day. Then the second day we finally started laying the wood. But even after a full day we didn't get far:

We decided to work well into the night:

Monday morning we set to work again to try to finish:

Luke was able to install all the flooring right at 5pm. Then he jumped in the shower and we ran off to our home group which started at 5:30pm. Then we came back home and I stayed up to install all the baseboards... what a task

But we finished 90%. We still have to deal with all the transition pieces, but for now our house is livable and much more presentable:

I love the new floors!

 ....but what a mess was leftover. When we prepped the house we moved everything into the garage. Well, Luke rented a table saw to cut the laminate flooring and we didn't think to cover our stuff. Three days later, EVERYTHING was covered in dust. I had to go through piece by piece and clean the dust. It was awful.

Lily on her bike

Lily is learning to ride her big girl bike. She knows how to balance because she started on a strider bike. But she doesn't know how to pedal. So we gave her a month with training wheels to get down the pedaling. Then we'll take off the training wheels and set her free. 

Kite Festival and soccer

The city hosts a kite festival every year. This year we were worried that it would rain since it seems to rain nonstop now. But thankfully there was a break in the weather and we had a perfectly sunny and windy day for a kite festival:

Here is Lily on her bike:

 And Josie in my new Chariot that I got for mothers day:

 The kite festival was awesome! Jack had a blast flying his kite

 After the festival we had to head over to Jack and Lily's last soccer game of the season:





Jack had a great team this year and we became friends with many of the families. It is fun to watch the team play together, but Jack seemed to struggle to keep up with the other kids. He needs to work on his running so it is a good thing he is taking track this summer. We will try soccer again in the fall and see if he has improved. But we still had a great season and we made some good friends.

Most of Jack's games and practices were cancelled because of the rain. We tried to make up most of them but even the make ups got rained out. One of the make up practices was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon but it had been raining all day. We showed up for practice at 5pm and it was still raining and there was a river flowing through the field. The kids still wanted to play soccer in the rain so we all got out with our umbrellas. Then the sky cleared for an hour and the kids were able to get their practice in under a rainbow.

Rainy Days

We have had so much rain! The trail I run has been washed out for weeks and it seems to rain everyday. 

The kids don't seem to mind much. One of their favorite things to do is dance in the rain...in their undies

We are looking forward to going to the park one day, but as the rain continues we have to find activities to do inside. Such as making forts out of boxes:

And coloring the forts:

And hanging out together

Jack loves his baby sister!

And then rainy days also mean extra wii time:

We usually meet up with Lily's friends during the week while Jack is at school. We have had to think of indoor things to do because of all this rain. One fun day we took the girls to an indoor swimming pool and they had a blast!

Can't wait for the sun to come back!