Hysterical

Zachary was playing Backgammon on my phone the other day and the opponent had no moves. He said, "when you have no moves, I smile and say to myself, all dressed up and no place to go!" Totally funny!

Elise's 8th Birthday

Happy Birthday, Elise! I hope you had a fun party and a good day. Did your balloons have an "8" on them? I think we will get your present and mail it soon. Thank you.

Your friend,
Zachary

Chess Birthday Party

We celebrated Zachary's birthday 9th at the bowling alley. Zachary wanted a chess birthday party, so we did the best we could with incorporating that at the bowling alley. I made chocolate chess pieces and picked up the cake for the party.

Attending the party: (left to right) Mallory & Kieren Pike, Joseph Otto, Nicholas Wilson, Brianna Harrelson, Katie Wilson, Layne McElveen, Aeryn Herbert, Madeline Burke, Bryan Tran, Joseph Shiflet, Shyanne Griffin, and Cole McElveen

Me and the birthday boy. I love this kid!

Austin Trip

We took a quick trip to Austin to see Aunt Ruth's new house and other family. Zachary's school had a few days off during February, so it was the perfect time.

Our first stop on Thursday was to see Traci and the kids. We visited and met their new dog that looks like a polar bear, hence the name Bear. Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures, but Zachary was very interested in Elise and getting to play Mario Cart with Jack.

On Friday, we went to Travis and Cassie's for dinner. It was a wonderful time to be in town because we celebrated Trav's birthday. We ate pizza and Aunt Ruth made a cake. We had Travis's favorite ice cream, Blue Bell Cookie Dough - yum! Zachary was well behaved and played pretty good with sweet, little Alex. I got one picture of Zachary reading Alex a book.

It was a low-key evening. My kind of night. Easy cooking, and easy eating for everyone.

Saturday, we hung out with Lauren and Aunt Kathy. Lauren is the mothering type and very patient with Zachary. I got a small glimpse of what I think it might be like for my son to be married. He will need a take charge kind of girl, but will be a good husband. Lauren was teaching Zachary dance lessons, and he was going right along with it. They played well together all day.

The time went by too fast, but we did a lot. Me and Aunt Ruth stayed in our p.j.'s till the afternoon one morning. We worked on tax returns and visited about family and friends. We even made a run to the outlet mall and I got a few things I needed. It was fun to visit without having an agenda to worry about. My kind of visit for sure. And Aunt Ruth was a great hostess, so we will be back if she will have us!

A new look

Another catastrophe occurred at home, or so in Zachary's mind. A piece of his face mask broke off Tuesday night. "No worries", I said, "we will get it fixed."

At the appointment the next day, they looked and said they felt he was done with the face mask and we could start braces. This was forthcoming at the end of February, only I thought he had to continue to wear the arch-expander. Since they would have to take out the arch-expander to fix it, they simply added the braces instead. Yahooo!!!

Isn't he cute! Two braces on the top with green rubber bands (his color choice) and spacers on the bottom. He has been a real trooper. Only had a little discomfort the next day. We will get the bottom four braces Wednesday, and I guess the other two top ones when those teeth grow in. So far the whole process has been short and painless, well sorta. And I finally get to kiss him good night without having to maneuver around a face mask. Whooohoo!