Spring Has Sprung!

Between conference sessions on Sunday we went to see the Azaleas. Tyler has an Azalea trail every spring. People come from all over to see it. There is an Azalea district and there are signs posted along the roads so you can follow the "Trail." On the weekends the "Belles" are out to greet the visitors. There are a few houses that invite you to walk in their gardens. The weekend we drove the trail and actually got out of the car to walk around was at the end of the season so lots of the Azaleas were already done blooming. (plus we'd had a lot of wind, which blew off the blossoms.) At their peak the Azalea bushes are truly breathtaking. The bushes are completely covered with flowers. If you happen to get the magazine "Southern Living" there is a mulitpage article in the April edition featuring the Azaleas and the gardens that we walked through.

Annie was the only one of my girls who would get out of the car to pose with these Belles.

The front of one of the houses. These Azalea bushes were still looking beautiful!

The family!

The girls!

When we were out of the car walking, Macey and Kambree decided they were brave enough to take pictures with the Belles too.

All the kids in one of the gardens

One of our two Azalea bushes. They are kind of sparse, but we do have some!

The girls by our other bush.



These next pictures are from April Fools Day. For lunch that day I sent the kids to school with a April Fools Day lunch. I put a gummy worm in their apple. I got whale crackers and animal crackers that were packaged individually and opened them from the bottom, exchanged their contents, and then taped them back up. I wondered if my kids would even notice, they did and thought it was a lot of fun. At dinner I served "Lemonade" which was really lemon jello and "Meatloaf" that was really a chocolaty Rice Krispie treat loaf. I really got them with the meatloaf. They all hate meatloaf and I told them that I had tried a new recipe. Brad sliced it up and put a piece on each of their plates. I told them they couldn't be done with their dinner until they tasted it. They figured out the "lemonade" pretty quickly, but we were probably half way through dinner before they figured out the "meatloaf." No one wanted to taste it! They really thought it was funny and of course for the first time ever, everyone finished up their meatloaf at dinner! Nelson took the last slice and put it in a napkin to take to cub scouts to show his friends. Fun stuff!! (thanks Familyfun.com for all the great ideas)

Lemonade

Meatloaf (not a great pic sorry!)

Dinner is served!