evening trip to the playground!!!

so long with NO blogging

WE have been busy. SO busy. We have been having fun in the sun! Which leaves very little time to blog. But for all of you faithful followers.....a few pics from our recent travels...

 Celebrating Grandpa Molzen's 73rd birthday!!!

 Appomattox Court House

 President Lincoln statue at the Civil War Museum

 the "old" Molzen estate in Nothern Virginia!

 the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - changing of the guard

The Lincoln Memorial

Trip to AZ to see Dimitri graduate!!!

 The proud grandparents

 GORGEOUS flowers in Arizona! I was told that there is always something in bloom! I want to live there!

 yummy lunch at In-N-Out Burger. My first trip.....totally delicious! Probably NOT so nutritious!

 YAH Dimitri!!

 MY Arizona family -  Eli, Queena, Mark, Dimitri & Darius

CONGRATULATIONS Dimitri!

Hot enough for....

...I C E   C R E A M ? ! ? !

Well, I suppose that it was in the 70's and the boys did ride their bikes all the way home from school (1.81 miles) AND most of the homeward journey is infact, UPhill!!! So yes, they got to make their own icecream after school!!! So delicious!!!

Finally.......

Luke's tree has bloomed!!

I think this is the very latest his tree has ever bloomed. It usually is quite prompt and blooms right around his birthday!

* * *

And here are some pics of my little pansies. They are SO pretty. I love pansies.

Simon the swimmer

At the boys' school, 7 weeks of swimming lessons are included in their education! It is a totally awesome perk of them being enrolled at such a GREAT school!!! Today was Simon's last lesson. He has made a lot of improvement in his overall swimming abilities!

This picture of Simon floating on his back was taken a few weeks ago (notice the much longer hair), but I wanted to show off his great skill of back floating! He said that floating on his back is one of his favorite things to do. While all the other kids are jumping & splashing......amidst all of the chaos around him, there is Simon peacefully floating on his back.

 Super Swimmer Simey!!

Jumping into the DEEP end!!!

VERY FIRST solo trip down the water slide!!! Yay Simey!

"Phew! I lived through it!!!"

Now he's starting to get more daring & showing off!!!

we have....

...BIKE RIDERS!!!!

Boy, it has taken a long time! But we are finally there!! The boys are in LOVE with bike riding! There have been some bumps and bruises along the way.....and i am sure this is only the beginning. But they have been troopers and get back up on their bikes immediately after falling off!!! So proud and excited for them!

Bloomsday

Hey. Happy May! Can't believe it is actually May! Well, yesterday we joined +/- 50,000 other people in walking the Bloomsday 12k. The little boys have been participating in twice weekly "Fit for Bloomsday" afterschool running sessions. Our great friends from Oregon drove over to join us. We had a great time. The weather was fantastic, and we were all officially pooped out!

 The wheelchair racers were first

Aaron Gordian - Mexico - 28:03

 Followed by the Elite Women

Misiker Mekonnin - Ethiopia - 40:25

The Elite Men

Simon Ndirangu - Kenya - 33:58

That's him 5th runner from the right side of the picture! And strangely enough, as they whizzed by us, I decided that I was going to pick #107 to win. And he did. Maybe Mr. Simon Ndirangu ought to share some of his $7,000 dollar winnings with ME!!! :)

 The beginning of the rest.....

 And here was our group. The Lilac group. From where the previous pictures were taken, we had to walk 7.5 city blocks to almost the very back of the line-up. The announcer said as we FINALLY neared the starting line, "Okay, the Lilac group is not the fastest group, but they seem to be, by far, the happiest group!!" To which the many thousands of people in the Lilac group gave a fantastic cheer!!!!

Our lovely friends - Danna, Homero, Gio & Yaira Garcia.

Our littlest racers

Excellent pic of Austin & Lance

 I don't think you can even see the starting line in this pic. The clothes in the trees are a bloomsday tradition? I am under the assumption that they will all be donated to the homeless shelters in our city.

 Yay!! I think it took us 25+ minutes to get to the actual start line! When we arrived here, the little boys asked, "Did we make it? Are we all done?" Much to their disappointment.....we had only begun....

 Doomsday Hill

 crossing the finish line. Just over 3 hours....and that included a stop for a hot dog! :)

HOORAY!!!