Miles's birthday

Miles turned 13 this year, which means we now have 4 teenagers. Fortunately, he's a pretty nice teenager to have around. He had to wait for Amber to finish helping with Shrek costumes at ESE before opening his presents in the evening.

He got a lot of cello-themed presents, like cello music, a cello shirt, and a miniature cello (which Olivia improbably guessed before he even opened it).

He has also gotten deep into cubing lately, so of course he got some new twisty puzzles, like a gigaminx and a square one.

And I couldn't not get him this Lego set, since he already has the plushie version (and it looks just like him).

And Miles's birthday would not be complete without his name spelled out in strawberries. Happy birthday Miles!

Miles's soccer season

Miles signed up to do soccer again this year. This time he got to be back on a team with more of his old teammates, plus some of his school friends that used to be on other teams.

The team was pretty good and won most of their games.

He missed out on several games, either because they got rained out, or because of other activities like Academic UIL and a school trip to Six Flags.

But he still had fun, and he's been getting better and better.

He even tried out for the school team. He didn't make it, but I was proud of him for trying.

Damon's and Miles's track season

Damon transitioned to the track team after cross country, joining the freshman boys team.

He mainly did the 1600m, except for one meet where he did the 3200m. He improved every week and was very happy to hit his goal time by the last meet.

Miles wanted to do track also, but the middle school meets had limits on how many 7th graders could run per school, so he only made it to one meet.

Carmen volunteering at assisted living facility

A few weeks ago, Carmen needed some service hours, so she got some friends together and they played music at an assisted living facility.

She thought it was fun, so she went back again a week or so afterwards to do it again, this time bringing the accordion and some games.

The director of the facility contacted her recently and asked if she would be interested in making Easter baskets for the residents. She agreed, and she dropped them off Easter Sunday, bringing along her brothers and the Goldrup bunnies.

Easter

The kids are getting older, but they still want to do all the Easter traditions.

After church, they found their Easter baskets in the backyard and had fun with the candy, toys, and confetti.

And of course, we dyed eggs in the evening and afterwards I hid them in the backyard for an Easter egg hunt.

Back to the Future: The Musical

I saw some advertisements for Back to the Future: The Musical and it looked entertaining, so Amber and I went on Saturday.

The music was good, but not super memorable. The writing was great, with lots of tongue-in-cheek references, and the stage production was incredible. There were a lot of really cool effects, culminating with the Delorean actually flying at the end.

Overall, it was a fun performance and we went away happy.