It's a beautiful day!

What an amazingly beautiful weekend!  Entirely too beautiful for the end of March.  This could only mean that it will simultaneously snow and blow dirt for the next 7 weeks....most of it on Easter Sunday of course.  But in the meantime, I intend to enjoy the heck out of this perfect and temporary weather.  I got to sleep in this morning.  Freakin' yay!!  And when I finally rolled out of bed, I went on a happy little run.  Yes.  I said run.  Stop laughing.  It was a crisp 58 degrees, the birds were chirping, and when I reached the park, this was my view...

It was much lower to the ground than this pic shows....it looked like it was going to land in the park.  I called Matt to tell him it was headed toward the house and to send the boys out to see.  In my mind I'm thinking, "What a majestic and peaceful way to start our Saturday morning."  When I got home later, Matt said Grant covered his ears the whole time.  When he asked Grant what he was doing, Grant said, "I'm pretty sure it's gonna pop!"  Jaden's observation of this glorious and rare moment was, "Oh man....I sure wish I had my BB gun!"

Boys.

Once upon a time I got to ride in a hot-air balloon.  Dad got Mom a balloon ride for Mother's Day (I think?) in about 1987.  At that time in LRC, before the building invasion, there was a wide swath of land down by the lake, and in the spring, the local ballooners would come out almost weekly and take off from the spot.  So, early one morning we went down to the lake, Mom climbed into the basket of a red and white striped balloon, and off they went!  Dad and I followed the chase car which was of course in radio contact with the balloon crew.  Sometime into the ride, my mom talks the balloon driver (what do you call that guy anyway?) into trading herself out for me so I can have a ride.  At the opportune moment, the driver? starts bringing the balloon down as he approaches a fallow cotton field.  Dad stops the car and we both jump out and start sprinting across the rows trying to catch the balloon (those suckers move faster than you'd think).  The guy can't get it completely stopped so when he hits the ground the basket is dragging the field at a slight angle.  I finally get to the basket and jump on and Mom and the crew hoist me over the edge (I've lost Dad a half-mile back).  Of course, then we're too heavy so Mom has to get out.  Mind you, we're still blowing along, basket dragging across this dirt field at an angle....so the crew in the basket boost Mom up and over the edge.  Tumble, bump, splat!!  Mom hit dirt and the balloon took flight and all I could think about was how exhilarating the flight was!  To this day I have no idea how Mom made it back to Dad, or how they both made it back to the car to continue the chase.

Thanks Mom and Dad.  I didn't grasp the magnitude of that parenting sacrifice in 1987.  But I get it now :-)

And now back to the present...

Today we did a little skating...

And a little base balling...

and a little dribbling...

These boys are so good at the things they choose to do....I am utterly amazed by them every day.  I don't have an athletic bone in my body so I guess all their balance, speed, rhythm, and coordination must've come from Matt because it DANG sure wasn't me!


These last 4 aren't from today....I just like them.

I finally managed to take a pic of my tree in bloom!!  I want to plant one that blooms purple too!

The boys play basketball in every single spare moment over in the neighbors driveway...

Every once in a while I threaten all the boys with terrible consequences (hugs and kisses...though Matt is never as terrified by this as J & G are) in order to get a pic for posterity...

And the ever important self-portrait.  I wouldn't show up in scrapbooks or blogs at all without them...