February's Furlough Week

It was our week off of school and we enjoyed being home most of the week.
 Here are a few of the highlights.

Monday, Tyler had the day off too and we had planned on a hike, but the weather was a little cool so instead we tackled three pinterest-inspired projects!  First, Tyler made this awesome scooter stand.  Oh, how nice to be able to keep these scooters in one spot.  Even the kids cheered, they know how awesome their dad is!

While Tyler tackled the "honey-do" list, the kids and I made a HUGE chalkboard for the back yard.  We primed a large piece of birch (this is important and key for being outside) plywood (also has to be plywood not particle board). 

 Then we painted it with chalkboard paint.  We did a few coats, maybe three.

And then one more in the morning, just for good measure.  

It was hours and hours of fun this week.  The weather was perfect and they played "school" non-stop.  They would cover the entire board with chalk, spray it off with the hose, and start again.

It reads, "We love are chock burd", by Katelyn.  Love phonetic spelling...

In addition, Tyler made this fabulous shelf with five hooks for our bathroom.

It holds all five kid's towels, I love how it turned out!!

We invited a bunch of families one beautiful evening when it was 76 degrees outside and had a picnic potluck and kick-ball game.  That was a lot of fun.  Matthew found this (gross, moldy, green) baseball and he wasn't interested in playing kickball anymore.  Is he not the cutest thing ever?! 

Here's some of our friends, Devon and Braden, it was so cute watching them together.

We had lots of fun time at home, reading some of the 30+ library books we checked out,
playing play-dough, games, and watching movies.
Here is Katelyn with her American flag, pretty cool!

And I did a little remodel with a very talented girlfriend who is awesome at this sort of thing!
Long story short...I took everything off my walls and tables in my living room and we went shopping!!  It's still a work in progress, but it's coming.

Friday we all took off for Ripon to visit our dear friends that we met at Aspen Grove this summer.
It was the 50th Anniversary of Almond Blossom Days and boy were the blossoms A M A Z I N G!!

Check out the blossoms on the right, they went forever!

Saturday morning Brittany and I did the Ripon Almond Blossom 8K.  We had a great time and it was my personal best, but it was a hard run for me because cute Brittany is SO fast!! She was such a good sport chatting away the whole time!

We've been getting together almost every month, but I keep forgetting to get a photo, so I finally remembered and here we are!  They are such a fantastic family.
 We feel so blessed to have them as friends!