We are just coming off of spring break. We had a great time! Next year hopefully we will be settled enough to have leftover brain power to plan family trips for the occasional school break. Jared was backed up at work with his own patients, the fired PA's patients, and the sick nurse practitioner's patients. Luckily we had some family come to us for some fun Spring Break cousin time to keep us busy. Early in the week Alice got a lot of face time with Aspen, then Jack had a day playing with his cousin Cole, and then Jordan and Amanda's family came for the last half of the week. And the cherry on top has been watching progress in our backyard. So far they have the lower retaining wall nearly finished, as well as the stone steps up to the second tier. I imagine this next week will be mostly grading and leveling of the remainder of the yard, and then later this month the rest of the retaining walls and eventually sod and patio.
A random health journal/update-- my POTS feels really well managed lately! I'll have the occasional flare, but I have the tools to get back on track. I think my cache of supplements is really helping. Something absolutely wild that I'm interested to keep an eye on this year has been the decline of my allergy symptoms. Last year I was down bad with allergies from March until November. REALLY down bad. This year, I had a random bad week in February, but not much since then. If I feel like there might be some allergy symptoms coming on I'll do a spray of flonase, but that's really the most I've needed. Maybe it's just too early in the season for my particular allergies, but I'm feeling hopeful. I do wonder if keeping my POTS well managed this year is helping with MCAS symptoms (which feel like allergy symptoms), or perhaps a big issue last year is that I was in a rental that previously housed a cat? Seems weird that would have affected me for so long when we had that house scrubbed from top to bottom many times. This is a mystery I may never solve, but for now I'm feeling hopeful that maybe I won't have to go down the path of allergy shots. Fingers crossed, knock on wood. Lots of spring left ahead of us.
And now for some pictures from our week:
^^Morningtime Jack. This guy has had a rough few weeks, but he woke up to a letter from Jared asking if they could play together when he got home from work, and Jack was all smiles after that❤️
^^Alice helping Grandma plant her herb garden. We were inspired and got some herbs of our own, but now we need to get some soil to pot them.
^^Checking out the new Lehi library.
^^Alice, Cole, and Jack watching the landscapers install our backyard, with their faces pressed up against the window and bowls of popcorn at the ready haha. Poor landscapers. Mostly I keep the curtains closed when they're here so it feels less invasive for everyone, but this kept the kids' attention for a solid hour. Worth it. It is fun to watch the excavator place all the giant boulders for the retaining wall.
^^Cousin time! Amanda is aunt of the year and brought "nail salon" supplies. The girls had so much fun. I didn't grow up with girl cousins close in age to me, and I didn't have any sisters, so this isn't an experience I ever had. I do think being around all these little ladies close in age to Alice is going to be so satisfying for my inner child.
^^Backyard progress
^^Tim and Abby's backyard bash! They recently put in a play set, gazebo with two bench swings, and umbrella for their mud kitchen/sandbox area. Combine this with Tim's really impressive detroit-style pizza skills and they truly have an impressive party pad.
^^Jack giving his standard, over-the-top goodbye hug to Asher. I love these two oldest cousins.
^^I did an AI crop on this picture and it added in the most random things. It's like one of those old "Spot 10 things wrong with this picture" activity books. Alice is so smitten with her "big cousin named Annie." She was excited to craft and play with her. This egg spinner was a hit. It's my favorite craft activity because it's such an easy, low-mess project. I don't even hard-boil the eggs ahead of time. We just grab a flat of eggs from the fridge, set them by the spinner, and the kids color them with markers. It's truly not that exciting, but feels novel to most kids because, how random. 10/10, would recommend. And it's so fun to use colorful eggs for breakfast the rest of the week. Would NOT recommend keeping lifesaver mints in your powder bathroom though. Poor Annie nearly choked when one get lodged sideways in her throat. Some hot cocoa helped it dissolve quicker, but not fun.
^^Lovely sunrise view from our front porch this morning. Our view will be obstructed by the end of the summer so I'm really making the most of it while we still can!
