The Midland Center for the Arts is pretty cool. We were able to really enjoy it this month! We saw a visiting Frog exhibit that was really neat, and also enjoyed the exhibits that stay here year round.
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Last weekend, Maryn, Avery, Mark, and I got to see Les Miserables, performed by a company of locals! I was so impressed! It was fantastic, and I couldn't believe the actors were all just regular old Midland-ites. The music was as wonderful as I remembered it, and it was a nice evening out with the "big girls". I am excited that Midland brings such quality theater to the area!
Avery finished up another season of basketball. This one was 6th grade girls 4 on 4. Because of the smaller team size, she got way more time to play, and really improved on her skills. It is so fun to watch her play. We get such a kick out of watching her spread her giant wings and really dominate her opponents.
She also competed in our school's version of scholastic bowl...they call it "head-to-head", and there are several categories. She competed in art: black and white still life. She did well, but didn't place overall. It was several weeks worth of practices and we are proud of her for being a good sport and doing her best.
She also participated in the 6th grade chorus, and had a spring concert this month. It's fun seeing our tall girl in the middle of the back row. We love our Avery Jane!
Maryn is doing well. She has been through a lot this past year with facing some challenges that have come her way in school/life. We are happy to say that we now have some answers we were looking for, and positive changes are happening that will hopefully make her life easier and happier. It's hard watching your children struggle, and this has been a real growing experience for all of us. Suffice it to say, she can still use your prayers and positive feedback to help her feel the love. Teenage girls are so fragile. I have to remind myself of this daily. I know this because I was one, and wouldn't want to repeat that period of my life for a million dollars! She has really been enjoying Young Women's and was able to go to a Stake Movie Night earlier this month. Picking her up after 10 pm was a surreal experience. She is definitely growing up! I just realized I don't have any pics of Maryn this month. Not sure how that happened...
Parker has been enjoying preschool, and made lots of masterpieces. She celebrated her half birthday (for those kids whose birthdays are during the summer...hers falls right around Labor Day and Michigan schools always start after Labor Day), and insisted we make blue cupcakes and have blue juice (her favorite color). Lucky for me, I was co-opping the same day, so I got to snap some pics of her in her element.
I took all the girls in for annual physicals this month, and was so amused to see that Parker is 43 inches tall, and weighs 43 lbs. The first and last time that will happen in her life!! She is in the 90th percentile for both, and is classic 4 year old, all the way!
She has also enjoyed her ballet class. This past week was her last week for the season. She has loved it, but we are going to be busy in the next few months so she will continue again sometime down the road.
I have been busy sending out resumes, teaching my primary class, and thinking about new furniture and paint colors. Not much else to say...
Mark had his spring break from Delta the first week of March. Needless to say, it's really lame that the public schools don't coincide their spring breaks with local colleges and universities. We stayed home, he graded papers, and we got lunch out...a lot. :)
We have been in full swing of looking for our new home! We found a great realtor named Denise, and she and Parker have become new best friends. It's so cute to see Parker run into her arms, and Denise be so excited to see her when we get together. It's been a fun, but difficult process. There are plenty of houses to choose from in Midland, and the market here is surprisingly great! We had a wish list, a price-range, and location perameters. We narrowed it down to two choices within all of those criteria. It was either a big house that needed lots of renovations, or a smaller house that was move-in ready, but because it was a tri-level, it really lacked storage that we need. We decided on the smaller, move-in ready house and were moving in the direction of writing up an offer when I woke up one morning and just didn't feel like it was the "one". I felt like we were settling with both options, and for comparisons sake, we needed to open up either our search location or our budget just to see what else was out there. I didn't feel confident, and figured that with this many choices why should we sacrifice?
Midland has school of choice, so we were assured that no matter where the house was, we could still continue to have the girls attend the school they started the year in. That left only one thing holding us back. The ward. We came to the difficult decision that we would be open to leaving the 2nd ward if necessary, and starting over in the 1st ward if it came down to it. There were two good options outside of our ward boundaries. I think Mark and I both knew when we walked into the first house, that this one was "the one". It was the exact layout and size we'd been looking for. It needed updates, but had good bones that we knew had a lot of potential. It fit into the same style and feel that our other homes have had. It was perfect! Just to compare it, we went ahead and visited the second on the list. This house was very similar, but had a super creepy unfinished basement, and a resident bat living in one of the upstairs window frames (between the screen and glass. Can you say, ewwwww!!!! I became more confident in our choice. It wasn't difficult after that. We knew having to move wards would be the only thing that would be a challenge. The rest is history...as they say.
We closed on our 4th house TODAY!! We are now home owners again! May I introduce you to 5201 Nakoma, our newest member of the family...for hopefully many, happy years to come!!
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