Spring Surprises (and an engagement!)

Spring brought a few expected surprises.

First was Philip's surprise visit. With his airline job, he flies for free, so he can pop in anytime. We took him and Lorelei to the zoo. Buying a grandparents Zoo membership has already paid for itself. We love going to the zoo whenever we feel like it.

We ate lunch next to the giraffe enclosure. Philip wanted to put a piece of lettuce on top of his head, walk close to the giraffe, and see if he would eat it. I talked him out of doing that. 

After the zoo, we visited Jessica in her classroom at nearby Poe Elementary.

This daughter is an amazing kindergarten teacher.

Philip loves seeing his nieces and nephews. We had dinner at Lauren and Dan's home at the end of our zoo day, and Philip flew back to Utah the next morning.

The grandchildren always look forward to surprises from the Easter

Bunny, including the usual Easter egg hunt on Saturday. 

The babies, Rae and Ben, were more active participants this year.

They both needed a little help from their parents.

Dan and Brian do a good job hiding all the eggs in our backyard each year.

Since General Conference  fell on Easter weekend, all the men went to the  Priesthood session. Dario, who is now 12 years old, attended his first Priesthood Conference with his dad, grandpa, and uncles. Going to Diary Queen afterwards is a tradition.

Our final Spring surprise (an expected one ) was Jessica's engagement to Cameron in April. He joined Jessica on her trip to Utah, where she was running a marathon, and proposed to her on a hike up to

Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. 

Since the engagement, Cameron has graduated from medical school, and is in his first year of residency in Dallas as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. 

He is a very fine young man whom we already love, and we are looking forward to the wedding in early November.

Home Renovation and Rodeo Run -- February 2015

In February, we ordered  boxes of engineered hardwood flooring and tore up the old carpeting in the living room/dining areas and old wood laminate in the hallway. We also said goodbye to the tile in the entry way.

The next step was painting all wall, ceilings, and moldings.

Carl used the 32 ft. Ladder for the very high entry way.

The next step was to level the concrete slab. This was a frustrating nightmare that took several weeks. We could make a U Tube video of what not to do. 

After doing many things, including laying

precise  wooden "tracks" to guide the leveling compound in the most uneven areas (learned this trick from a "This Old House" video), the floor was level and ready to install the waterproof  plastic and felt underlayment.

Row by row, it was exciting to see the new floor emerging.

Jeremy helped one Saturday, which helped speed up the work.

Anything is more fun than leveling a floor!

It was a nice break (yes we are crazy!) to run the Houston Livestock- Rodeo 5K Race. Jessica and her beau Cameron were our running buddies. (They left us behind in the dust!)

After the race, we met up with Elayna, who was there with her track team running buddies.

Carl and I didn't do too bad for two old fogies!