life is a rollercoaster: April 2012

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Pottery Garage

Grandma and Grandpa have had their own pottery studio in their garage for many years, but it took the upcoming sale of all their supplies to finally get us out there making our own pots.

It is not easy, but it is fun and messy. Everyone made their own piece (with some help from Grandma!)

Grandpa and the kids had fun pounding the clay to get it ready for us. We can't wait to see how they all turned out.

One of the things Dave's dad always tells us about when we visit is the Appalachian Highlands Trail. This trail goes all the way from Pittsburg to Washington, D.C. It took a little work to round up bikes for all of us (the rental place is closed on Mondays???). Grandpa drove us to Frostburg where we headed down the trail toward LaVale.

Mostly the trail follows railroad tracks, but we didn't see any trains. The weather was a little cool, which made it perfect. The trail was easy, fun and beautiful. We stopped for lunch at a spot over looking this pretty town.

We saw a waterfall, pretty streams, new spring blossoms...

The kids loved riding through the tunnel so much that they went back and did it again.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Spy School

I tried really hard to convince Brett that he did not need to invite friends over for a party. We could go do something really fun as a family, but he would not be swayed. So, we had a Spy School party.

There were bombs to find and diffuse, lasers to crawl through and avoid, fingerprinting, and code names were chosen.

There was soooo much red yarn in our backyard. The boys loved it and had a great time. They went back and forth through the lasers and found the bombs over and over. Code names were chosen by picking an adjective and a noun from a bowl, we came up with such titles as "Stinky Ninja", "Slippery Eagle", and "Hidden Ghost".