March 2019

Weird that this was our last Blue & Gold banquet.

Porter earned his Bear and took 3rd place overall in the Pinewood Derby.

I pride myself in being able to find something cool or unique to see and do everyplace we visit.  I had never even heard of Joplin before a huge tornado put it in the news a few years ago.  So when we signed Gabe up for a Lego architecture class and it was in Joplin, I set out to find things to see and do while he was in class.

Gabe's creations from his class

One thing that was obvious to our kids on the trip was the difference between public school and private school.😂   While Gabe was seeing how the rich and famous our educated, here's what the rest of the family did.

 

Visited the Neosho Fish Hatchery.  Did you know there are National Fish Hatcheries?  I didn't.  We had a great time feeding the fish, but it was really windy.

 Did I mention it was windy?

We visited the George Washington Carver National Monument

 To wrap up a beautiful spring day in Joplin we sat in on a birds of prey lecture.  Once we got Gabe and were all back together we had a yummy dinner before heading home.  It was a much needed outing after a long winter!

The next weekend we were off to Murfreesboro, Arkansas to explore the Crater of Diamonds.  We met up with Rose and Wayne there and had a great day digging for diamonds!

 

 

 

Seeing hundreds of people digging in this big open field is a pretty strange sight, but we sure enjoyed our day there!

 

 It's all fun and games until the mud sucks you in and eats your shoes.😂

Somehow I didn't get a single picture of the kids on St. Patrick's Day,😱 but, I did get a picture of our green veggie tray and some of my St. Patrick's Day pups!

 Q working on some new tricks.

 Thanks for coming to visit us Grandma & Grandpa!

Quentin and his buddies after his first grade musical performance.

 

And finally, yellow belt testing!

You can't see Porter's face because he is dabbing.  Nice.