It’s springtime, and after a rather soggy and chilly winter here in northern California, it actually feels like we’re coming out of a winter for once. The flowers in our gardens are blooming, and our adventures lately have been rather spring themed.
First up was a trip down to Ardenwood Historic Farm. I’ve been wanting to go for a long time because they have a vintage train there you can ride, but what brought us down this time was their annual sheep shearing event. I wasn’t sure how the boys would feel about it, but they definitely had an interest. Aside from some timing issues and a much more crowded event than I expected, it was a good time. We got to wander around the farm and see lots of old farming equipment and animals, and then made our way over to the sheep shearing area where Aaron got to pet some sheep.
If we go again, it seems like going after noon is best for avoiding the crowds. And the train has been put away for maintenance, so hopefully next time we’ll have an opportunity to ride on that too.
Last weekend we made our way over to a book sale by our local library book organization and plant sale put on by our local garden club. The book sale is always a hit, though I didn’t come out with as many treasures as I had hoped. The plant sale was a lot of fun though. We aren’t the best at keeping plants alive, but the boys love gardening, so I’ve been setting plant watering reminders and trying to come up with strategies to be more thoughtful about plant care. We’ll see how it goes, we picked up five plants: rainbow cherry tomato, raspberry, Celosia Flamingo Feather, spider plant, and a geranium. I think most of them will do OK, but I am worried about the fragile little tomato plant.
We observed Passover recently with a Seder at home. It’s been an interesting time marker and opportunity to see how much the boys have matured, as we’ve never really managed to make our way through the Haggadah since we had kids. Last year Adam loved the search for the afikomen, but ignored most other things. This time I wouldn’t say they were fully engaged, but they did go through several of the seder activities with us and mostly stayed at the table during a seder that hit the important points. I’m really proud of them, and glad we can share this with them now. They still didn’t enjoy the brisket meal, but Aaron seems to love matzoh ball soup, even if he hasn’t quite figured out eating soup without wearing a good amount of it.
This spring has brought a several days of gloomy weather as well as new found sunshine and warmth. On one gloomy evening, we already had plans to take the boys to see their first movie in a theater. A Minecraft Movie was playing at our local one-screen, historic theater, and the elementary school booked a showing, and we figured it was a good opportunity in case the boys weren’t as quiet or settled as is appropriate for that setting. It was wild. Before it began there were kids literally climbing the walks, hopping on the stage, running around, and even during the movie it wasn’t exactly quiet in there. Aaron did talk a little during the movie to ask questions, but overall I was really happy with how it went. The movie was fun for all of us too.
Another rainy weekend was spent changing light bulbs. It wasn’t planned like that exactly, we had a few things on our house list and light bulbs were an afterthought, but when we discovered that the recessed lighting were canned lights, it basically derailed everything. What’s a canned light? You have to replace the whole thing? The ones we had are nearly 20 years old and not made anymore?! Thankfully, the holes in the ceiling are standard size for canned lights, so it wasn’t hard to order a half dozen and do a big replacement project the next day. We also scoured the house for a bunch of others to replace, including the one in the bathroom the kids use. In that one, I also took down the entire lovely, art deco glass feature and cleaned it, which I’ve never done (we’ve lived here for 7 years, hah!). In the end, our house has much better lighting and Adam told us he never wants to change light bulbs again. I guess it wasn’t exactly an exciting weekend for him.
In between all this, April brought two vague illnesses through the house during which the boys had mild fevers and sore throats. I’m grateful that no one else got sick, but it did cause some missed school and swim classes, which is always a bummer. The recovery isn’t fun for anyone either, since they both want to go on grand adventures, but I know they need rest to recover, even if they refuse to accept that. This weekend is more of the same, probably no light bulbs this time but we do have some projects on our list and a kid recovering from the latest ailment.