Another quarantine activity that the girls did was paint rocks. We have plenty of rocks around, so they picked their favorites, grabbed the paint, and got to work. The girls did it all on their own and spent an afternoon in the backyard coming up with their painting creations. They all enjoyed it and now we have decorated rocks all around our house and yard.
Here is another group of puzzles that Tyler and I worked on during the month of May. We did all of our puzzles, all of my parents' puzzles, and all of the new puzzles that we've purchased since being stuck at home. I like this world map one of my mom's because it's one I remember putting together a lot as a child. It's also the map we'd put together as my brothers got their mission calls. We'd use the map to guess where they might get their mission call from. Lots of good memories.
My 40th birthday was on May 24th. The week before my birthday, Audrey planned a surprise dinner get together for me. I thought we were just going to pick up some food and eat together, but she ended up taking me to Kristina's house where they had the backyard deocrated and food waiting. It was a fun surprise. They all wore black in celebration of my over the hill birthday. It was a lot of fun. I loved the chalk decoration too!
We ate Olive Garden while visiting and social distanced as we ate. It was so fun to get together with friends again. It's been so long since we could just hang out.
They got dessert from La Madeleine - fruit tarts that were delicious. I really liked this picture. It took awhile to get all the candles lit with the breeze, but we finally managed it and got a quick picture before they started blowing out. I kept telling everyone how much I liked the picture, although the "over the hill" candles weren't my favorite. The decorations were really cute. The tables had jars of kisses with signs that said "kiss your 30s goodbye."
Over Memorial Weekend, we drove up to Ruidoso, NM to go fishing. We went to Grindstone lake after staying in a hotel the night before Memorial Day. It was pretty busy and we didn't get their early enough so we walked around for awhile trying to find somewhere to set up and fish. While we waited with the stuff while Tyler and my parents hiked to look for an open spot, I took some pictures of Tessa. It was a beautiful day.
We finally walked back around the lake and found a family that was leaving so we took their spot. It was a little circular alcove of the lake, so we took the whole circle and set up fishing poles. Tyler had to do all the work, but tiny fish were biting so the girls thought it was exciting to reel in the fish. The problem was Tyler was the only one who knew how to take the fish off and get it ready for the next cast, so he never had a moment to rest or fish for himself. Taryn caught the most fish. Here was her first and I was too far away to get a close up of Tessa's first catch, but she did want it documented that she caught one.
In between fishing turns and lunch, Taryn wanted her own photo shoot. She was cold so she wore Grandma's jacket, but I liked getting the pretty lake behind her.
There was a momma duck and her seven ducklings that kept swimming into our alcove. They would hang out on a floating branch or swim around the edge unless someone got too close. It was fun for the kids to watch the tiny little ducklings swim and play, so I tried to get a picture of them. This was the best I could get, but you can also see around the edge where we all set up so that we wouldn't be too close to other people fishing.
Aubrey caught some fish too and had fun trying different spots. She spent some time with Grandpa on one side of the alcove. They were hoping for bigger fish to bite, but we just kept losing our bait to the tiny fish.
After a couple of hours, Tyler finally found some time to sit with a fishing pole for himself. I didn't get a fishing license so I just watched and took pictures. The Kasallis family had camped and hiked the day before so they met up with us at the lake around lunch time. The kids were happy to have friends to hang out with. Abby and AJ watched Rosco when they weren't taking their turns with a fishing pole. The younger kids had fun trying to create their own homemade fishing poles from the stuff they found on the ground. They found old bobbers, hooks and fishing line and used that to create a "fishing pole" with a long stick. It kept them busy for hours. I just felt bad that I didn't get a picture of their creation.
On my actual birthday, I got to open presents from my family. For fun, Tyler decided to find 40 presents to wrap. This box was so full of wrapped gifts. Even some of the gifts were filled with other wrapped gifts. It was so fun. Tyler wanted to do something a little different since it was my 40th even though we were limited on ideas because of the quarantine.
I had to get a picture of all of the presents once they were all unwrapped. It was such a fun variety of gifts. They varied from clothes to kitchen gadgets to books and movies and games. I felt very loved. The girls had fun picking out some of the gifts or giving Tyler ideas of what to get. Like Taryn wanted to get me jewelry and Abby suggested a book and some of the kitchen and bathroom things.
I love lemon desserts so Tyler made a lemon trifle that was delicious even though it didn't quite fit in our overly large bowl. We did our first Kasibbons dinner since the middle of March, and we celebrated Teagan's 8th birthday too since his birthday is the day before mine, so we each had a candle to blow out. It was a fun weekend and a great birthday even though I'm now officially "over the hill." I really don't mind being 40, but the hardest part for me was thinking that I remember my dad's 40th birthday and how old I thought he was bak then, so having my own "over the hill" 40th birthday meant I'm old now too. :) But with four kids and two of them teenagers and being married for almost 20 years, I guess being 40 just makes sense.
One of the things I wanted to do for my birthday was a family painting session. I thought it would be a fun thing to do and to remember for my 40th birthday and for quarantine. I looked up picture ideas and decided on a sunset theme where we all painted the same sunset and then added our own mountains to make them unique. I took a few pictures as we worked. It was so fun to do.
And here's the final outcome. I added a little star to mine in honor of the El Paso star on the mountain, and we each signed the bottom right corner using a paint pen, and we hung it up over a couch in the front room. I love how it turned out and that we did it together. Now I keep thinking about what we would do for another one. Maybe a beach scene next time? I love my family! And it was a great birthday!
In May, Abby was finally rescheduled to get her braces taken off. She was supposed to have them taken off the beginning of April, but with the Coronavirus, everything was shut down. She had her braces on for an extra month but was one of the first ones in once the orthodontist started taking patients again. After she had her braces taken off, we had to do a photo shoot and these were some of our favorites.
We found an Oleander tree with the pretty pink flowers and took these pictures. Abby now has a retainer that she wears all the time unless she's eating or brushing her teeth, but eventually she'll switch to only wearing them at night. She had her braces on for about 22 months in all. We love her beautiful smile.
She was very happy to show all of her friends her new smile and to smile for a camera anytime one was near. I really liked this first picture although Abby didn't like the fact that you can see her retainers case that she's holding. She's been very into bucket hats lately, and she took this picture herself one day and I had to have it because it's just so cute. We love this adorable teenager!
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