P.G.E. Gets New Employees

With grapefruit the fun never ends--mostly because the citrus trees seem to never end! Here's part two of our grapefruit saga with new employees hard at work!

Partridge Grapefruit Extraction--2nd Generation

It comes around every year weather we want it to or not. Grapefruit picking time. This year the parents enlisted the help of the 4B's: Bradley, Bryson, Blake and Brock. The process has come a long way since the summer of over 3 tons of grapefruit (please correct me if I got that wrong)! Dad had very handy Home Depot bags to load up the fruit and then haul it to The Giant Box to be deposited--or thrown as the case might have been a few times. The kids had a good time. It's that whole spoonful of sugar thing. In honor of memories of the past I had to do a video of the 2nd Generation Grapefruit pickers.

Spring Break

This week was Spring Break for the kids although the 90 degree weather had us almost convinced it was really Summer Break! We started out by celebrating cute cousin Megan's 3rd birthday with a round of goofy golf at Golfland! 5 adults, 6 kids and we all made it out alive and well. Everyone had a great time and the only casualty was a ball Bryson hit waaayyy out of bounds. Lucky for us, Uncle Chase rescued the ball (or that's what he told Bryson) and maybe one or two extra just in case. . . After golfing we rounded the troops and headed to their favorite place to play--McDonalds. I know, it's so gross and germ infested but the peace and quiet is worth price of hand sanitizer! They were exhausted by the time we left so everyone had a great "quiet time" when we got home!

Unfortunately, I caught my annual winter sinus cold late and spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday trying to rid myself of it and at the same time keeping the kids entertained so their vacation wasn't a total disappointment. By Thursday I was feeling well enough to let the older boys invite some friends over and came up with a plan for Friday. WATER DAY--The Grande Finale for Spring Break.

I roped in Aunt Kaley and Uncle Chase to help with the fun and we had a blast! We even added in two more cousins of Katelyn and Megan's who came into town for the weekend. It was great to even out the boy/girl ratio a little bit! Thanks for coming Zoe & Emma! So without further ado, here's a little drizzle from Water Day!

Leprechaun Traps

In first grade at the kids' school there are a couple of teachers who have the misfortune every year of having leprechauns cause a lot of mischief in their classrooms looking for gold. Over-turned desks, green footprints everywhere, trash all over the floor. . . So the teachers send home an S.O.S. for the kids to build traps to catch the leprechauns.

Two years ago, Bradley's trap almost caught the little guy. Only his hat was left in Bradley's trap and the class decided to hold it hostage along with a note.

Bradley's trap was a Jelly Bean Glitter Island with honey and wads of gum to trap the leprechaun once he got inside.

This year another leprechaun found its way into Bryson's classroom. Bryson said he was lucky because his desk did not get dumped over! With Bradley and Blake's help, Bryson and I worked hard to finish his trap last night. We put some final touches on it this morning.

Complete with carmel stairway this Jello and Candy trap is sure to catch this year's culprit! (We hope Uncle Chase is proud of our construction work!)

Some features of this trap include: bright colored industrial strength jello cubes, mulit-colored licorice with Karo syrup to get leprechaun hands stuck, pennies inside some of the jello cubes to lure the leprechaun into the trap, glitter everywhere to entice him to explore the trap and glass jars laced with Karo syrup inside so he can't climb out once he's inside.

I think this would be the trap of Uncle Brett's (or any of the GEAR'S) dreams as it is a Leprechaun Pool of Jello! You have to know I'd be the first to build one! Ha Ha Ha!