Springtime in February

This may have been the strangest February weather-wise that I can remember having in Michigan. Normally, January and February are when we are slammed with winter weather. But this winter has been so mild. Way more so than last year and I thought that winter wasn't so bad. But we had several days in February where we didn't even need a jacket, much less a coat. Our grass is getting green and we have flowers coming up already and some of the trees are budding.

We did have one good snow fall though that allowed the youth from church to come to Albion and go sledding. They had a great time. Kendall is thankful that he listened to his mother. Just before he was leaving I saw that he was wearing his new glasses and I told him that I thought he should go put on his old pair just in case. He didn't want to but I insisted especially based on some of his past sledding "incidents". So he finally swapped glasses. Sure enough, there was another incident where he basically was plowed over completely by another kid and wound up totally breaking his glasses and scraping up his face. I did have a nice moment of satisfaction as he thanked me for making him switch glasses and admitted that I know some things!

Have I mentioned before how much I love having a son who loves to cook? I will never ever be able to lose the weight I need to but it's almost okay when we get to eat things like mouthwatering crepes!

The kids had a great time one day when the weather was being awesome and there was a half day of school so they dragged out their bikes to ride. Except for Lynnsey who said her bike was wedged into the patio so far that it wasn't worth the effort to pull it out. So she made do with the little ride on car...

 Kendall participated this month with the regional high school solo and ensemble competition in Kalamazoo. It was the first time he did it and he did a clarinet ensemble with a few other kids from his band. They did a really great job and got some nice feedback from the judge. They wound up scoring a one which means they qualified for the state competition in March.

 Lynnsey had an 8th grade solo and ensemble competition just at her middle school. I think the purpose is to prepare them for the high school level stuff. Lynnsey chose to do a solo performance. She was super nervous beforehand and she looks it a bit in this picture but once she started playing, she was confident and sounded phenomenal. The judge actually said she had a hard time finding something to criticize because she had done such a lovely job so I think that made her feel really happy. And she was thrilled to score a one for her performance. I think she's really looking forward to continuing band in high school next year.