Another Busy Weekend

It's been another busy weekend and it's not slowing down anytime soon! We'll start with Friday and go from there. Greg took the afternoon off since he had worked so much the weekend before. He met up with our friend Rich at lunch time and took a long bike ride home. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon dropping of some forms to a couple schools for "Schools of Choice" for Evan and running errands. As you know Evan will be starting kindergarten in the fall and while we live in East Lansing, we're actually Lansing schools. That is not our first choice of schools for Evan which was one reason we moved almost four years ago. However when we built, we were told that more than likely when Evan was to start school we would probably be East Lansing schools by then. Well, that's not the case and while we knew that might happen we were hoping it wouldn't. The good part of it is that our taxes our cheaper since we're not East Lansing schools, but now we have to do schools of choice. We're keeping our fingers crossed that he gets into East Lansing which is our first choice, but it's a possibility that it won't so we're exploring our options. Public schools have a window of time by the state that they can announce and have an application period for schools of choice. Usually it's the end of May, beginning of June. I started looking on Thursday and to my surprise all the schools had just announced this past week the number of openings. East Lansing has 35 kindergarten openings, which is somewhat good, but last year they had 55 (quite unusual), but due to the Dec. 1 cut-off for birthday requirement Evan wasn't eligible. Some of the schools have started the application period so we dropped forms off at DeWitt and Haslett. East Lansing applications don't start until June 1st. We're keeping our fingers crossed for East Lansing so please do the same for us! We then ran some errands, and had dinner at Noodles & Co. for an early birthday celebration for Greg. He had a free birthday coupon, plus I had a buy one get one free so it was a cheap dinner for us.

Saturday was Greg's birthday and he turned 34. Now he can't say he's two years younger like he does for those two months between my birthday and his. Since it was his birthday he got to do what he wanted so he and Rich went for a mountain bike ride in Pinckney. That took up all the morning and early afternoon. The kids and I met my friend Marie on the other side of town in the morning to swap clothes for the kids and Marie bought Evan's old bike for her son Connor. It's nice to finally have that gone, and I'm glad it went to a good owner. It's was a really nice bike and I know Connor will get good use out of it. When Greg got back we went for a drink at Spartan Hall of Fame Cafe with our friend Brenda. Her birthday is Monday so we celebrated with a drink for both their birthdays. Then we had Greg's birthday dinner at Bravo with his mom and his aunt. After dinner we walked around Eastwood a little and then headed home. It was a nice day and I think Greg had a good birthday since he got to go bike riding.

Today we took Molly over to Greg's mom's to play with her two dogs. Greg's mom is watching Molly for us when we go to Arizona. We were going to put her in a kennel, but when we discovered the price which was going to be between $350-$400 we were shocked. We asked his mom and she said she would take Molly so we are so thankful. We really really appreciate it and are relieved to be saving $400. The dogs have played when Molly was a puppy, but really haven't been around each other for awhile. Greg took Molly last weekend to get reacquainted and we thought we should a few more times before we leave. Then we ended up going to lunch and the kids got taken to Children's Place afterward and ended up coming home with a bag full of clothes from their YaYa that will be perfect for our trip. Evan had to try all his stuff on the minute we got home. They both love everything and of course look adorable in them. So thanks YaYa from Evan and Em!

I finally got the grass cut late this afternoon and Greg did the trimming. It's been raining so much that it got so long again. The backyard was worse than I thought it was again! I definitely have to make sure it gets cut next weekend before we leave for vacation. Since we finally had a beautiful weekend weather wise we all went for a walk tonight. It was so nice to get out again. I asked Emmaline if she wanted to try riding her bike tonight on our walk and she was super excited and said yes. She told me she was going to pedal hard! So she and Evan rode bikes while we walked. She's only been trying to ride her bike a couple times and well, she too takes after her daddy. I think she's got the hang of it. Click on this video and check it out!



I am so extremely proud of how well she did on her first bike ride. She was trying so hard to keep up with her big brother and she was cruising right along. Evan of course was trying to get her to go over big bumps. If you listened carefully at the beginning of the video she says, "C'mon guys" referring to Greg and I walking because we were behind. Then she says, "Let's go this way" when we get to the corner and turns all by herself and keeps cruising. I'm just amazed at 2 1/2 how well she's doing! Way to go Emmaline! We are so proud of you on your bike. Awesome job!