Things to look forward to...

May 20 - We fly home to Dallas (for good!)

May 26 - Madeline graduates from Hockaday

Week of May 28 - maybe a trip to Houston (you'll be around, Samantha?)

June 3 - Frank and I will be in San Diego for a 1/2 marathon run

June 17 - Frog Camp/orientation week for Madeline at TCU!!

June 22 - A weekend in New Jersey mountains (who knew they had mountains?) with the ND Lewis Hall Chickens

June 25 - A week in Canada

July 1 - Frank runs the St Petersburg marathon (wish I could be there)

July 20-something - Cruise from New Orleans around the Carribbean and all the girls have friends along to entertain them

Mid-Aug - Olivia starts soph year at Ursuline and Emily (7th grade) and Marcy (4th grade) start at St. Monica.  (And maybe I'll start a new library job somewhere!)

Somehow I thought this would not be a busy summer.  I'll try to convince myself now that since we'll be settled in Dallas we will not have a busy first 1/2 of the school year.  But, it's inevitable - soccer practices, soccer games, dance classes, ice skating lessons, an occasional trip because can't just stop traveling cold turkey - it will be crazy as usual

A new sport

In the fall and spring a group runs a rugby club for kids.  Last year Emily participated but it was either a older group of rough boys or the girls playing with a bunch of little kids.  This year, to give the girls a new option they started a girls only field hockey.  We convinced Emily and Marcy to give it a try.  Emily was disappointed because none of her friends joined in (they stayed with rugby) and there were no left sticks.  Marcy was just grumpy because it was cold and she likes to pick and choose her physical activity.  But, I thought it was successful.  Marcy says she might try again.  Unfortunately, Emily soccer season has started and she has games on Sundays during the scheduled time.

Easter 2012

I know, I know...Easter was a long time ago but I'm a very busy person.  Better late than never, right?

Given that we live in a Muslim country, Easter is not widely celebrated (and celebrated by the Russian Orthodox on another day) so it was much like a normal day.  We had rugby practice in the morning and dance in the afternoon, church at 3pm, and then we celebrated with some friends for dinner.  Dinner was great - we had ham and turkey which are very rare meats to find around here!

Easter morning egg hunt

Olivia really getting into the action



Look where that funny bunny put Marcy's basket



We had another egg hunt at our friends house.  There were 12 kids and even though we had 150+ eggs they were finished in about 5 minutes.  And that was with the older kids mostly just helping the younger kids.