Spring break update

Spring break has come and gone and we're back into the swing of regular life again. We had a nice, relatively relaxing week. Alex ran a short race at the rodeo and was rewarded with a cow bell, t shirt and a free ticket to the Austin Aztex (minor league professional soccer team) game. Actually, we ended up with 3 bells, 3 t shirts and 4 tickets. After much begging, I decided to take the kids to the soccer game. I felt bad not using them, plus we have never been to a true soccer match. It was great to see how fast and strong the players are...so much better than watching on TV where they have trouble getting enough of the field on the TV without making the players look like ants. Our team beat the 2008 MLS champions 1-0.Our next adventure was out to the strawberry patch. As I seem to do every other year, I forgot to bring my camera. I would have loved to take pictures of the 9 baby goats. Benjamin had a great time and was really into "picking" the berries. Usually, I helped snap the stem first so he wouldn't completely smash the strawberry. That is trickier than it sounds when you are trying to help a three year old with a fierce independent streak. At Alex's suggestion, we decided to make homemade strawberry ice cream. It tasted like sunshine on a spoon. SO GOOD! Sean said he would definitely enjoy more of that if we decide to make it again.

We also decided to buy another betta. Alex has been interested in getting a fish of his own, so we headed to the fish store. Before we walked in, I asked him if he had any names picked out. He said, "No, I have to see the fish first." That strategy must work for him because he chose a name within 2 minutes of picking his fish. It is a dark blue fish with red spiky fins and his name is River. Now we have River and Rocks. A nice combination, I think. River and Rocks each have their own bowls in separate locations because they would fight if housed together. In fact, we put the bowls next to each other briefly and they both prepared to fight - puffing out their gills and showing the fins.

After sprinkling in a few play dates, a birthday party, and Benjamin's therapy appointments, that was our spring break. Some year, we may be ambitious and try going somewhere, especially since I'm not in the middle of busy season. That wouldn't have worked this year, though, because Sean was in the middle of his own busy season. He has 2 graduate students that are completing their dissertations right now. Sean is in the midst of reading one of the dissertations in preparation for his student's dissertation defense in April. Rewiewing the dissertation is quite a project considering it is almost 200 pages long and Sean is the primary advisor which means he needs to review it very carefully.

Benjamin had his regular check-up with his kidney doctor on Monday. His labs all looked good, so no changes to his medications. Amazingly, Benjamin has grown 1 1/2 inches since December. He is continuing along the 25 percentile for height and about 50th for weight. Now we don't have to have another round of appointments for a few months. Yeah!