Our first swim meet was so much fun!!

Casey was a little nervous before her first event.
But she started out with a great dive and did the
length in just over 26 seconds! Great job, Casey!

I took a shift as record keeper. Here I am apparently very concerned over someone's time.

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Alex thought this was all great fun. She also started out with a great dive and swam there and back without stopping. Go Alex!

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Now Casey is an old pro and showed nerves of steel before the backstroke began.

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And following a long standing tradition, we celebrate our accomplishments with a stop at the ice cream store. Even though it's 9:20 at night. We don't care.
Go Barracudas!

school's out!

Everyone is thrilled to be home from the last day of school!
There was cheering and fanfare, smiles all around. Casey danced off the bus, and later Alex burst in covered in red ink. This year we were prepared for the ritual signing of the shirts.

Not even a full weekend into summer break and Alex is already too hot. Dave took her out for haircut and she is much cooler and very happy with her new short look.

almost done...

Dave has nearly completed the Pergola Project, only railings and stain left to go. We can hardly wait to get the fire bowl set up and make some smores! We have some jasmine to plant on the corner and hopefully it will grow up and over the pergola quickly.

around our house last week...

... we welcomed Spring! Things are starting to look alive in our gardens.


The vegetables are getting settled in nicely, and I moved all of the daylilies up closer to the house in a new rock garden.









Our new plum trees even have plums in them!






And the deck is also growing by leaps and bounds. Dave and Alex have been hard at work getting it ready for summer.

A few volunteers look promising, hopefully I don't regret my decision to spare their lives. These blue flowers came up everywhere, and I think are seeds from something the girls picked out last year. We cut out all of these wild grape vines last year when we cleared around the lake, so I am letting a few of them come back to see what they do.

We've had a few visitors, too. One of them ate the bark off this tree, but the other one was kinda cute, even though she ate all the brownies...