We’ve been reading and gardening and watching birds. In the past few weeks in the yard we’ve spotted hummingbirds, bullocks orioles, ruby crowned kinglets, robins, lazuli buntings, finches, hawks, chickadees, wood peckers and blue gray gnat catchers.

We went to the trampoline park with friends and Lilah made it across the slack line.

We celebrated May Day with friends. Lilah and I made flower crowns.

We’ve been playing games like Hero Realms, 5 Minute Dungeon, Power Grid at home.

We’ve spent Sunday’s with my parents chatting and playing games. So enjoyable to spend time with family.

We went out to some springs in the Tooele desert looking for a ghost town but the road was being dozed so we stopped at the springs instead.

Lilah’s been doing some drawing and practicing French. Gavin’s been practicing German and Manga drawing.

We’ve begun a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for the kids and their friends (and some of us parents too!) at our place. It’s a big project but really fun and so good to see them all enjoying it together. Chris is running the game and has been putting a lot of effort into that planning and preparation with enthusiasm which I appreciate so much! We’ve met twice and the kids have so much fun. They defeated a giant and acquired weapons in this latest session which was a huge excitement!

Lilah started a cross stitch project- her first. It’s going to be a butterfly. She’s enjoying it so far.

We had a lovely Mothers’ Day celebrating with family. Lilah wrote me a poem and Gavin made me magical potions. I also got a picture of the three of us!

Gavin’s been mowing my parents’ lawn for them this season. This is his first go at the grass. He’s been very happy to help and to earn some money. Currently he’s saving for a Nintendo Switch game system to play Legends of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

We are planning some rock hounding trips in the near future, when it’s less rainy.

It’s raining again today, like so many days lately. The kids are playing a made up game where Gavin is creating a character (like in a computer game) with Lilah listing the choices available and explaining how they work.

Gavin: “What are the available iris colors for eyes?”

Lilah: “Pretty much anything you can imagine.”

Gavin: “Okay, how about blue violet with green to contrast? Then I select “next”.”

Lilah: “So, next is body composition, like body shape and size.”

When they finished with this part they started telling a story with Lilah speaking for the world and Gavin speaking for the character he just created!

Lilah: “He tosses the collar that was around his neck for you to look at.”

Gavin: “I look at it.”

Lilah: “It’s one of those collars that’s made you know in the red maze to keep shape shifters from shape shifting.”

Gavin: “Or looks like that?”

Lilah: “No it is and then he turns into a bird, flies over to you, lands next to you and shape shifts back.”

Gavin: “I throw it down, I place it down in a spot where the dragon wouldn’t see, search for any more children.”

Lilah: “Uh, you see the girl again and another boy.”

Gavin: “Where’s the boy?”

Lilah: “The boy is climbing on the dragons back.”

Gavin: “Oh, then I….”