Spring has Sprung!

Visits to the zoo, cherry blossoms, bike rides, the park - Spring is awesome!

I've had two visits to the zoo in the past two weeks - one with the Hickmans and Strattons and one with my buddy Christine. Christine is the best. She chased me around, made sure I didn't get eaten by lions or sneak under the fence with the llamas, and played all day.

We also took our annual bike ride to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. We take the scenic route and it's about a 20 mile ride round trip (my dad calls that "junk mileage," my mom calls it a workout). The ride was fun, and the blossoms looked like popcorn had exploded on all of the trees.

On the way back, about 5 miles from home, my dad got a little wobbly and quickly got to the side of the trail...his bike pedal had fallen off! Yes, the WHOLE left peddle. The bolt dropped out - somewhere - and now he had no way to connect it to his bike. Think quick dad, what should we do?

"I'm pretty sure I can still ride home like this" he confidently said. My mom smiled and said, "Sure, you want to pull Bodie in a bike trailer up hill for five miles while using only one pedal. Okay, give it a try Superman." (Who's Superman by the way?) Splat. It did not go well. One rotation and my dad conceded. So he hopped on my mom's bike and took off - zoom! While he was headed home to get the Jeep, my mom and I played at Gravely Point and watched the airplanes land until he came back to pick us - and the one pedal bike - up!

What's Crafty, Wet, and Green...ME!

My cousin Francesca slept over last weekend and we did lots of fun stuff - made pizza for dinner, bunny-shaped rice krispie treats for her basketball team, and cooked homemade play dough. Lots of mess and lots of fun. Lucky me for having such a great cousin.

As the weather continued to play tricks on us - 35 degrees one day, 70 degrees the next - we caught a sunny day and headed two blocks down the street from our house to the creek on Four Mile Run. It's moving pretty fast these days but there are still enough shallow spots that I can stand in the water without floating away. I could throw rocks for hours. This one made a huge splash.

We kicked off the St. Patrick's Day month with the annual Brien Bash in Old Town Alexandria. Our friends the Briens host a party every year at a fun Irish pub on the same day as the Old Town St. Patrick's Day parade. So we got to hang out with fun people AND watch a cool parade.

Snow Way!

Yep, it's true, I snow skied. I just piled on ten pounds of clothes, strapped on a helmet wider than my shoulders, secured goggles over my eyes, put on giant hard plastic boots, and clicked into skis that were a few inches longer than the bindings and off I went. Sounds pretty simple, huh!?!?!?

It really was a blast and I yelled, "faster, faster" the whole way down. I got in 6-8 runs a day and never complained once. I did, however, fall asleep WHILE SKIING on one of the runs. My dad skied up with me in between his legs and my mom said, "Is he okay, he looks kind of limp?" My dad's reply, "He sure is heavy this run, I'm doing all of the work." My mom, "Um, maybe it's because he's completely asleep." Oops, guess I was tired. So they took me in for a break and I napped in the lodge with my Grandma.

That's me on the lift with my Grandpa (can you see my tiny skis in between his knees?)

My Grandma and Grandpa tried to teach me good form - I just wanted to go fast.

Here's me and my cousins right before Mallory and I raced down the hill (she won).

We also had an awesome snowball fight and made snow angels. Mine kind of looked like a snow blob, oh well, it was fun.

Nothing Normal

The other day a woman asked to see a picture of my son. I proudly pulled out my phone, clicked on the pictures in my phone, then began to laugh. I didn't have a single "normal" photo of Bodie in my phone, not one. So I showed the nice stranger these pictures...I wonder what she thought of me? Oh well, who needs normal anyway.

Life's a Ball, Even When You Drop One

January 16th was my dad's birthday. My mom was sneaky and called a bunch of my dad's buddies to meet up for a surprise game of basketball. My dad thought we were all headed to the gym - with a quick stop by the church to drop off a case of water for a service project (nice decoy mom!).

When we got to the church, my dad walked in the gym to drop off the case of water and "Surprise!" Except my dad was so confused it was somewhat anticlimactic. He saw some of the guys and said, "Hey, you guys are here for the service project?" They started to laugh and my dad got more confused. Then they tossed him the basketball and he got even more confused. It took him about 5 minutes to grasp that my mom had told him a giant lie about the service project. Happy birthday dad!

Next came the big day - the 49er/Giants game. I wore my helmet to breakfast to show how committed I was to the game. After church it was all 49er gear all day long. I went to sleep at half time and my mom said she could hear me on the monitor saying, "hut one, hut two, hut three," until finally at "hut six" my room got quiet and I fell asleep. I awoke the next morning and my parents broke the news to me. Williams had touched a ball with his knee and then fumbled a ball in overtime - 49ers lost. I understood the magnitude of this loss immediately and have been walking around ever since saying, "Niners sad, niners sad." Maybe next year Niners.

Lastly, I had a ball with my Grandpa who popped into DC for a last-minute business trip. Poor Grandma missed the fun, but I'll see her in a few weeks. Grandpa gave me fudgsicles, played baseball with me, and let me stay up late to watch a movie and eat popcorn with him. We also visited the MLK memorial and took a trip to the car wash. Seriously, does it get any better than that!?! What a ball!