Ducks: Fowl and Softball

The girls were off school Monday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so we took advantage and visited Melanie, Heather and Sienna.

The girls had a good time playing together, and since my mom came along, she got to see Melanie's home for the first time. We enjoyed getting caught up on life.

Thankfully, Cora, the ALMOST-9-YEAR-OLD, was eventually able to extricate herself from the BABY swing.

On Tuesday night, we went with a big group of friends to Toppers for a pizza dinner, as a fundraiser for Pioneer Clubs. Since it was also cheap Baskin Robbins night, we went there afterwards. Liana had to battle Skippy for control of her ice cream.

During Pioneer Club the next night, Stace and I ran some errands and found these cardboard cat boxes on super clearance.

The girls loved helping decorate them, and enticing the boys inside.

After Stace got home from working a few hours Saturday morning, we found ourselves with a gloriously unscheduled weekend.

We took a walk at Bridgeport for the first time in ages, taking along the scope Stace gave me for Christmas. Violet had fun checking out some ducks and geese, and later we spotted a hawk in the air among a murder of crows.

(Yes, I've always hoped to be able to use the proper collective noun describing a group crows...)

Sure is pretty for a man-made lake and stream.

On Sunday afternoon, we took a short walk around the block, with we girls all in our roller blades. We stopped by a "little free library" set up in someone's front yard. Violet checked out a children's book on sea life.

On Sunday evening, we met up with Cora's new softball team. We were thrilled to find out that Cora was selected by Coach Kristin and Coach Cory, her coaches from fall ball.

This time, the team will be the Oregon Ducks; the softball teams all have the names and colors of college teams.

From now on into May, we won't have many empty weekends - Cora's team will practice twice a week (with an optional third fun practice) and have two games a week. Kids' sports are serious here in SClarita!