The Bunch Enjoyed the Nice Weather

We were gifted a portable fire pit for Christmas, the solo stove, and it is designed to greatly reduce the amount of smoke from a fire. It worked well. Now we can have a fire wherever we want while we camp.

Texas is wonderful sometimes in winter. We had a great stretch of nice 70 degree days. Unfortunately, we also had 25-30 mph sustained winds on a couple of those days, but windy days still beat cold wet ones! D and I used the nice weather to our advantage. We reorganized our shed and D tilled up the gardens. We also planted our onion sets. Spring is almost here. Unfortunately, that also means 100+ degree days will be here soon too, but we're Texans. We know how to handle hot weather. Basically, you just get your entire day done by 10am and then stay indoors until the sun goes down. D has a lot of training coming up later this month so we got somethings done that I have to have his help with. 

T made breakfast calzones. They were yummy!

D tilled T's little garden out front.

And the bigger garden in the back. It took awhile, but since it had already been tilled it definitely was not as hard as the first time he tilled it.

We also decided to try getting the kids back in sports. So far T is the only one with an option to play anything. The rec center is offering flag football since it is outdoors and easy to social distance from others. A is super excited that for two hours each week we will have something to do. A year in isolation for our normally active family has been challenging at times. I am grateful for the forced slow down though. I had thought we did a good job of not over scheduling the kids, and compared to most families we did, but we were still always doing things. Mostly because I love to create new experiences and memories, especially for the kids. Our time together is relatively short before they start their own lives and I want them to fondly remember all the fun experiences we had when they were little. Now, I love to see new things because I get bored easily when we always do the somethings repeatedly. I am already counting down the 7 years D has left before he retires from the force and we can start our rv adventure across the United States. I can hardly wait! 

The kitten is growing like crazy! She is already almost as big as my last cat, though to be fair my last cat was the runt of the litter and stayed a very small 5.6 lbs for her entire life. This cat I think will be about 12-15 lbs. She is going to be huge! It will be like having a small dog. Only we won't have to get up at 6am on vacations to take her for a walk! Maisy still mostly just tries to ignore her. She can be quite playful. I will be glad when she gets a little older and some of her friskiness calms down. We have introduced her to the camper, but haven't actually gone camping yet. This month is pretty busy with appointments. We might try to go at the end of the month.

Our baby, Noelle. She is 4 months old now.

I hope everyone is doing well!