~The month of April= stir crazy

So April has been cold. Cloudy. WINDY. Rainy. Dreary. One day of sun in every 10 day forecast. Tornado season. And even some snow. We are definitely ready for some May flowers  🌸 

We had our first tornado actually roll through Mason City.  we’ve had plenty of tornado warnings. Several tornado watches. And a couple that have hit close by, narrowly missing Mason; however, this one rolled not only through our town, but just 500ft from my front door. 

We had just put the girls to bed when the warnings starting beeping on our phones. We gathered downstairs. I put chairs in front of the doors, made sure all the blinds and curtains were drawn, gathered things I wouldn’t want to lose if it did roll through, and we watched Goofy Movie. Aaron doesn’t do well in storms, so I sat by him and held his hand while he hid in a blanket fort. The power kept blipping in and out and the warning kept extending, but eventually we put the kids to bed and stayed up, just in case. I’ve never seen a sky light up the way it did. And as the power continued to blip in and out, we began to hear a loud banging noise against the dining room windows. It was the trampoline. It had yanked free from the stakes, blown into the side of our house, was stuck on the pitch, and was now trying to break through our house! Against my wishes, Travis went out into the storm and messed with the trampoline… while the lightening just struck everywhere. But eventually he re-staked the tramp and dismantled it the best he could do it could stop trying to blow away. The next few days were incredibly windy and stormy, and I felt bad for anyone out trying to cleanup after the storm. The tornado was an EF1 and traveled through Willowbrook, came through our neighborhood and wrecked the cul-de-sac behind us, then continued through the farmers field in front of us and continued on through Eastbrook. Definitely a scary storm! 

Easter 🐣 

We hosted an Easter egg hunt at the church because it was too cold to go outside, but it was a pretty fun time! 

The Easter bunny came to our house and we hunted for baskets in the morning, ate our bunny pancakes, sang at church, and then had the kids settle in for 3 1/2hrs of The Ten Commandments (tradition) while we cooked Easter dinner and prepared for the missionaries to join us for dinner. 

At school Maddix won their March Madness brackets and was super excited to bring home an awesome new basketball. 

We’ve been getting together for some play dates to get out of the house. Sports are starting back up and after color coordinating our calendars/schedules I can just feel we are teetering on edge of being stuck at home all the time and NEVER being home; it’s really just when the weather decides to clear up for the kiddos to get outside and get going!! 

 

Biking in Bentonville

Our biking trip this year was shorter because this time we decided to bring the girls with us. Adeline had been excited since Christmas when she received her big girl bike and has literally counted down days until the “big kid” biking trip. She even broke out of her never eat dinner stage and began eating dinners because we told her she’d have be to willing to eat whatever we gave her to prove she was big enough for the trip. She had done amazingly! 

This year my brother, Colton was able to join us, however the night before we almost thought he wouldn’t be able to come because of some last minute military training. Thankfully it worked out and he joined us! 

We also had a last minute change the day of. After waiting since September when we ordered Maddix’s bike (and it not even showing up in time for Christmas!), we figured we were going to have rent a bike for him. As a surprise the bike decided to make it to the store before we left and then was in Rochester if Travis wanted to drive up and get it, which he did. So we left almost 5 hrs late and ended up only making it to Des Moines before having to get a hotel as a snow storm passed through. 

Arkansas was warm and Sunny for our biking days. Colton was a natural. The girls could have bike those pump tracks ALL DAY LONG, even after significant crashes. They were so brave. Between all of us we were able to tire travis out, who was like an energetic mountain goat! 

We enjoyed conference and biked in between the sessions. 

We made it to the trampoline park and Avery lost her sock in the first 5 mins of being there. So travis ended up finding a random sock buried in a foam pit and put it on her; I was SO GROSSED OUT! But she obviously survived and everyone had a good time. And at Aaron’s request we made it to Golden coral (part of the annual tradition) and for Maddix we made it to Abuelas (also part of the annual trip). 

Everyone traveled pretty well, but it wouldn’t be a road trip without Avery barfing due to car sickness. And when we came home, the pups were happy to see us, but over the moon to see Travis! I think they were glad Master came home on one piece!