Collin and the STATE Chess Tournament

Collin is a chess geek!  Yep, he's in Chess Club!  At the ripe old age of 6 and in kindergarden!

And then the club went to state tournaments.  Lucky for all of us, it was here this year!

So, of course, we had to go watch him.

This was a planning meeting - him and daddy.  They thought that maybe the kid he played in the round before maybe made two moves at once so Terry is helping him figure out how to score his card so he could make sure it was all equal.

I think Collin was more excited about getting his own can of Dr Pepper!

  

This was a SERIOUS thing, folks.  There were 563 participants!  K-12

There were chess tables set up ALL OVER the hotel - all the conference rooms! 

These were just for K-1.  I can't remember for sure but I think there were like 8 ?? rows of tables - all for the little kids!  It was ridiculous!  And there were like 10 boards set up in each row?  Crazy!

Here's Collin, all ready with his score card and his board....where's his opponet?  NOOOO where to be seen.  See the glass of water?  She brought that to the table, sat for a minute, put her head on the table like she didn't feel good then got up and went to her mom.  Turns out, she didn't want to play any more!  But Collin had to sit there, watching all the other kids playing while he waited for someone to determine if it was a forfeit or if she was going to come back and play.  She didn't so we didn't get to see him play!  Darn it!

I can't remember what the final results were - he had 4 matches on Saturday and 3 on Sunday.  But his team did well - they each got a participation trophy and Collin got a ribbon!  He was really excited.

We are really proud of him. 

(I wasn't there for the awards ceremony but this is a shot Terry took with his phone.  I should have left the camera with him!  The shot is really blurry but Collin is down in front!  Looking so proud!

But seriously?  Just between us?  Chess is one B.O.R.I.N.G. game! 

 All day long in a hotel lobby?

At age 6?

Who thinks up these things!?

Birds!

We had a nest up in the corner of our back patio. 

I climbed up (on a ladder) to get a picture  on a Saturday evening.  They were soooo cute!

Then Kimi said I was going to make them blind with my flash!  So that's all I took of them.

The next week, I looked and I could only see three and they had feathers and everything! 

When I climbed up to get a closer look, they took off!  They scared me so bad I nearly fell off the ladder.

And ladders are NOT my favorite thing to be on when birds fly at me!  I assume the other two had already flown away.  The next day, we saw one on the tree by the fence in back of our place and momma was feeding him.  Guess I scared them off!  Dang it!  The nest looks sad up there. 

All alone.... empty.

And filled with birdy poop!  Ewwww.....momma wasn't a very good housekeeper!

Easter

We had a fun Easter.  Even though Heidi and crew weren't here and Lawson and Phoebe were recouping from their Chicago trip.  We had a brunch here this year then Collin got to hunt Easter eggs.  He wanted to hide them then look for them.  We convinced him that wasn't how it worked and he had to stay in the house and away from windows while WE hid the eggs!  Silly kid!  He was pretty lonesome, doing this all alone......

We hid one in the green plants - a green one, of course!  It took him and Poppa looking to find it!
(Sorry this is in the middle of the pictures!  I have tried everything I could think of to get the words
UNDER the pictures!) Thanks Heidi!  It helped....... :)

Poppa is evil!  He has been the first to feed Liam all sorts of new stuff.  A cookie when he was just a few weeks old, pieces of popcorn, etc etc.  You get the idea.

Sooooo who gets to be the first to give him the first Peep?  You guessed it!

Poppa

Yep, he liked it!  Of course!  Who doesn't like Peeps?

After naps, we went over to Uncle Jason's parents home for a WONDERFUL dinner and another egg hunt.  Only this time, one of Aunt Kimi and Uncle Jason's friends and their kids were there....so Collin got to hunt eggs again but with other kids.  I think he had more fun doing that!

Collin was so busy running around, I didn't get a picture of him.  But these are the two little girls where were there.  They were so cute!  The youngest tried to wear her basket like a backpack!  It was cute. 

Then Jason's mom, Barb, came out with a big bottle of bubbles and a long bubble wand. 

And then I got distracted and forgot to get pictures of kids! 

These are sooooo cool!

The bubbles were HUGE and so beautiful!  And so relaxing for Barb and I! 

Who can resist bubbles blowing in the wind? 

If I had photoshop, maybe I could have figured out how to get the power lines out of the picture!

So we had a fun Easter with most of our family!  We hope you did too!

My trip to Spokane

As I said in an earlier post, I went to Spokane to spend time with my mom before she had an angiogram to find out what was wrong with her ticker.  We are so blessed that she only had one blockage.  And to make it more interesting, it was on one of the bypass arteries that was done several years ago!  So, they scheduled her to have a stent put in the original artery (the one they bypassed!).  They said that if they had had the technology 8 years ago that they have today, they would have done all stents, not the bypass surgery! 

When we got home from her angiogram, we wanted to get a group shot of those of us that were there.  There are seven of us kids and not everyone could be there. 

 We sure missed them but it was easier to get us all in the shot with two less! 

(Ahem...we aren't as small as we used to be!)

We took one shot where some of us were sitting down but we I didn't like how it turned out.  But I got a shot of Leora getting up off the rock!  She's so stinkin cute!  Love you Leora!

After we took the shots, Mom saw a weed ***GASP*** growing in her flower bed!
DIE WEED!

Remember, this is right after she came home from getting her angiogram.  I love her refusal to be down!

Before her angio, I managed to get a NASTY cold.  And of course, since mom taught me to always share,
I did!  And so her angioplasty to have the stent inserted, which was scheduled for the next Thursday, had to be postponed.  Yep, bad me.  I shared with mom.  But being the over-achiever that she is, she had to turn it into pneumonia!  grrrr.  So it was about two weeks later before she had the stent.  I was back in AZ by then but my sisters were there for her.  And she, naturally, pulled through with flying colors!  My sister Mindy was on spring break so she and her hubby were able to stay with her 24/7 until she was cleared to be alone. 
We are so greatful for them!  It amazes me how things always seem to work out so!  If she had the procedure when it was scheduled, no one would have been able to stay there with her!  Since I shared, it delayed it long enought that Mindy was free! 

Well, that's enough for now!  I will get Easter posted soon!

 So come on back, ya'll, ya hear?

Catching up!

I just downloaded my camera and can't believe how many pics I have and then I realize that I haven't posted in on here FOREVER. So this will be done in pieces so no one is overwhelmed! I apologize in advance!

Followup on our Anniversary

For our anniversary, we decided to buy us a TREE!  Sad, I know, that this made us so happy, but if you knew us BEFORE AZ, you would know that we had a LOT of trees in Idaho and I have missed them (And our space had NO trees!).  Soooo........ we bought us a tree!
It is called a Red Leaf Photinia.  The new foliage comes in red then turns dark-ish green.  It is an evergreen tree and it says it attracts birds.  It says (on the tag) that it can stand cold to 0 F... but not ME anymore so hopefully, we don't have to test that!  It also has a low water usage, a plus in AZ.  What better tree for us?!? 

It's not very big yet, but it will get there!  It is supposed to get up to 20' tall and 10' wide unless we trim it back.  There are mini-roses planted around the base but we need more of those!

Also for our anniversary, Collin made us this card! 

He was so proud because it has a part inside that pops up!

And of course we LOVE it!  He is so creative!

The strip says "Happy Annaversary" (spelling is direct!)