Today was the Village of West Clay Criterium. Sierra and Allie lead most of the laps after Katie and another broke away. The field raced for 3rd place. Sierra's team mate won the sprint and Sierra got 4th. Tonight, was Marian's Sports award banquet for Cycling and Softball. Kristin and I went along with Sierra. The year, Sierra received the Women's Leadership award!

After breakfast with Kristin, I headed out to Sierra's school to deliver the cricut machine that I had found at a clearance sale. I got the machine set up, we tried it out, and made one of the students animal letters for the Mother's Day card he was making. He loved it! Then, we went outside for a bike ride. This student hadn't gotten his spelling lesson in for the day, so Sierra taped the word cards to the pavement, he rode over them with his bike, and then she held them up for him to chose the correctly spelled word. Everyone had so much fun laughing, spelling, and exercising!

OOPS! Kristin, Tyler, and I were unloading the slat wall that I brought over today. We stood it up next to this refrigerator and the next thing we knew - a hole in the wall! It wasn't too bad though and Tyler was pretty sure he was going to cover that wall anyway.

It is that time of year! I was happy to find these little goslings with both their parents. There were 6 of them and in this photo, one parent is keeping a watchful eye on me.

I don't know if this is Mom or Dad but it doesn't matter. The foxes are so beautiful! I'm afraid since the family is small this year that I won't be seeing much of them.

Waiting to see the foxes.............

Momma Fox was teasing Charlie again this afternoon. Rich and I watched for a bit and then she left. I snuck around and was able to get this photo of 2 kits outside their den. I was upwind from them and I could tell they could smell me. I'm sure they saw me but I tried to stay mostly behind a big tree and move slowly.

Journaling reads: I was inside the house this morning and could hear Charlie barking outside. I went out to see what was bothering him and I see Momma Fox teasing him from a distance. I brought him in, waited awhile and then went out to see what I could see from my hiding place. I was able to get a few photos of Momma Fox outside in the nice sun with her 2 kits. I’ll have to wait to see if there are more members in this year’s family. Credits: blended template by Rosey Posey

Sierra raced again today at the Mitchell Memorial Road Race in Cleves, OH. She got 4th place, missed the podium by 1 today! Photo by Jeffrey Jakucyk

Egg Hunt! One of Sierra's students enjoys some fun hunting for surprises the Easter Bunny left. Love those bunny ears!

It seems like winter isn't really over yet and Rich has already started building up the wood pile!

I love these photos of Sierra and her student! How lucky she is to have a job like this. Today, she was teaching lines, line segments, points, rays and in the pictures they are doing perimeters, measuring with centimeters, and estimating.

Today, Julie came in to help Lisa with some quarterly reports. So here they are together - my former office mate and my present office mate!

Today, I purchased this image from Jeffrey Jakucyk. Sierra is racing in Ohio at the Spring Valley Road Race held April 17. I'm so glad that someone is taking photos so they are available if I want them! At this race, she stayed with the break away of 3 until the last lap. She got on the podium again in 3rd place and now is in 2nd place for the series. Take a look: http://teamindiebike.blogspot.com

I really really want to buy something out of these machines when I see them at the airport!

Here's some beautiful orchids growing outside here. Someday, I will have them growing at my house outside in the winter! I flew home today. My plane was just beginning to board when alarms started sounding and there was a security breach somewhere. They shut everything down; no boarding or unboarding and no security checks. They wouldn't let you wander from the area you were already in. It took about 30 minutes before it was clear. Then after we backed away from the gate, the pilot announced that we had a problem with a cooling fan and had to go back to have maintenance look at the problem. That put us 2 hours behind by the time the problem was fixed. I missed my connecting flight and finally made it home 5 hours later than planned.

After class ended today, Julie and Lori from Ohio were determined to go to the beach, rented a car, and invited me along. We went to Balboa island and walked around the cottages and shops. Then, we went to Huntington Beach State Park and walked until sunset.

Windi, one of my instructors at training, saw that I like to drink diet mtn dew so she brought me this can of Sun Drop. She thought that it tasted almost like mtn dew. I had to do my own taste test and she was right. Sun Drop tastes very similar but I doubt that it is available in my area!

I see these small lizards everyday as I've been walking from the hotel to the training facility. Today was cloudy and they seemed more willing to let me get closer before they ran away.

I purchase these flowers to plant in my garden every year. Here, they grow like dandelions, covering the ground like a thick carpet!

Here I am in California for the week receiving training on new equipment for work!

Yesterday morning when I looked in the garden to see if these daffodils were blooming and they were not even showing yellow. Today, several are in full bloom. They will probably all be done blooming by the time I get home next Saturday.

I decided to get a few garden items in today. Rich suggested putting down landscaping fabric first to help with the weeds so I'm giving that a try this year. I put in a row of green onions and 4 cabbage plants in this planter box with the help of Miss Kittie, thanks a lot! I also put in one green pepper plant and one sweet red pepper plant in another box. I'll be gone all next week so we'll see what happens.

This photo was also on Kristin's facebook page. They look like they are having a lot of fun 4-wheeling somewhere in Mexico.

I found this photo on Kristin's facebook page. She's been uploading last week's Cancun trip pics a little each day. I thought this one was nice of the two of them, I'll have to find out exactly where this was taken.

On Saturday morning while I was driving through the Flint Hills on the Kansas Turnpike, I could see embers glowing from the road and could smell the remains of the yearly burn. I asked Mother to send me photos when they burned at the lake so here is one of them from today. In just a few days, all the beautiful rolling hills will be green. Ahhhh, home sweet home..............

Here is Miss Kittie finally out of the house enjoying the beautiful spring weather on the deck that Rich built for her highness..........

Mother sent me this photo today of the storms that rolled through Kansas last night. It wasn't too severe and later in the night, some of the remnants of this storm made it into our territory. The ground was a little dry so we welcomed the rain.

Our last day of vacation brought around 87 degree weather, I guess maybe we brought it home with us from Texas! Rich decided to treat the deck. I unwrapped the pots that we had covered for the winter. We enjoyed the weather and tried to prepare ourselves for going back to work tomorrow! I also was glad to hear from Kristin that she and Tyler had returned safely from Cancun. I'm hoping to hear all about their trip in the next few days.

WOW, we were home today at 10:30 AM after dropping G'ma off at her house around 5:30 AM. She commented on what a fast trip that was for her since she slept most of the way. Rich drove from Corpus Christi to Oklahoma City, I drove from Oklahoma City to the lake, and Rich drove from there the rest of the way home. We had a good audiobook playing and it was easy to stay awake. We spent the day unpacking wet suits, water shoes, bikes, tents, sleeping bags, etc. Laundry was also a big chore of the day. Needless to say, when evening arrived, we were pretty much worn out!

This morning after breakfast, we packed up the truck, checked out of the hotel and headed to the beach for one last playtime for the dogs. It was supposed to be windy today, so next we went to Bird Island where Rich rented a rig and sailed for about 2 hours. We went to Snoopy's for lunch one last time, washed the salt off the truck, filled up with gasoline and headed for home at 4:00.