Oh my, what happens when you get so behind?! 450 pictures to go through! We have been riding a roller coaster from the lows of colds, ear infections, and stuffy noses to highs of excellent adventures. We are trying to make the most of our beautiful weather before the summer grilling starts. I narrowed it down to just 93 pics and 2 videos. This should have been at least 10 different posts!

Sub-post #1:
We have a lifetime membership at the Odyssey Aquarium, and we are getting our money’s worth in the first year. We like to spend time there! There are sharks in the bathrooms!

Trevor like the large catfish

Stingrays are his favorite though

Touch pools – he is petting a sea slug

They will spend a lot of time playing with this water table.

There is a new over-sized lite-brite

They have some new Hawaiian stingrays that are really large. This is with the fish the boys call BFG. Like Big Friendly Giant, but instead it is Big Fat Grouper.

With a diver for scale

More sharks

When you come on Wednesday mornings, it is like having the place all to yourself. On the weekends, you can hardly get through this tunnel because of shoulder to shoulder people!

Sub-post #2:
Trevor is continuing to do his swimming lessons. Swimming is right near the big aquarium on Wednesdays, it works out great.

No hands on this boy, he is really swimming himself! He made it about half the width of the pool.

Then he waits for the rest of his classmates to make it.

Brendan keeps me company in the parent area. He looks forward to swimming some day.

The school treats Trevor to a free popcorn after the lesson. He orders an ICEE too because they always overfill it and it erupts like a volcano.

Sub-post #3:

One Saturday, I was feeling really sick so Bill and the boys took a trip to the mountains to meet some friends.

They took their Jeep.

There is so much funny about this picture

The boys each got to have a ride on a friend’s “real kid quad”

The destroyed a cardboard box with sticks in the wilderness. How much more fun can you have?

All the kids in camp took turns in the Jeep until they wore the battery out

Rocks in water!!! The best!

Sub-post #4:

The next day, we decided to take a drive up South Mountain. It is a nice place to go for views of the city

Sub-post #5:

Trevor continues to go to martial arts, but we have missed a lot due to illness and scheduling issues.

Brendan is almost done with his 12 week intensive feeding program. He has made some good progress and learned some skills, but he has a lot of practicing to do. We were able to eliminate one daily hour-stuck-to-the-feeding-pump from his day. It is a little extra freedom. I am glad to be done with the program for now, it was so much driving and extra time out of the day.
Trevor would spend the time in the lobby waiting for Brendan and making friends.

Now, Brendan is going to SCHOOL!! Three days a week for 2.5 hours, he is in a real classroom with about 14 other kids. So far he really likes it!

This past week, the boys were on Spring Break! We met one of Trevor’s school friends at LegoLand for the day on Wednesday.

The three boys had a blast for hours

Brendan likes all of the new Lego Batman Movie stuff that has been added.

We made a batwing in the free-build area

And raced it on the ramps

He was disappointed that we had to leave it there, so when we got home, we had to do it all again with our own Legos.

Sub-post #6:

It was time for the annual Chandler Ostrich Festival. Brendan had seen an ad for it months ago and was so excited! He love the show “Miles from Tomorrowland”. The boy, Miles, has a pet Robo-Ostrich named Merc that is one of Brendan’s all time favorite characters.

The Ostrich Festival had ostrich racing

Trevor made friends with an emu

The emu was very intrigued by something on Trevor’s shoes and it kept pecking them. The boys found this hilarious.

There was a petting zoo with tiny baby pigs.

A very hungry llama tried to steal the feeding shovels. The boys got to feed goats, llamas, pigs, and even a zebra.

We are waiting for pig races

I have a new phone that actually has a decent camera. The boys want to take selfies. We are silly in our hats, but it was already 90 degrees!!

And they are off! The winning pig gets an Oreo cookie

There was a cool STEM tent at the festival too. It was just nice to be in the shade.

Sub-post #7:

We didn’t get enough ostrich, so we had to make a trip down near Tuscon to the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch. This was such a fun place, I am not sure why we haven’t been before. It was a massive petting and feeding zoo.

They give you this 5-stage cup of chow and you head out to see all the animals. It starts with miniature donkeys. There was even a baby one.

There is a seed stick for the parakeets.

Then feeding the deer

The “Goat Penthouse” is hilarious. The boys sent the chow up the conveyor belts to dump in to their feeding cups.

This is actually a good way to keep the goats from crowding, pushing, and jumping on kids. It was also quite funny.

On to Brendan’s favorite. This ranch has a tremendous herd of ostriches. I am guessing easily in the hundreds that were visible.

We researched on youtube to find out what sound an ostrich makes. Brendan practiced. At the ostrich festival, he was making ostrich calls and they were actually coming over to him. I think here there were just too many of them!

Each one of these ostriches pecked Brendan right on the head. I think it kind of hurt, but he thought it was so hilarious, he was OK. Next time, we won’t get so close.

Feeding banana chips to bunnies

We saved some chow for the sheep

We each got a cup of nectar to feed the lorikeets.

They told us not to take the the lids off, the birds like to do it.

Birds on heads

Who knew that an ostrich ranch would have stingrays? Trevor’s favorite! These were captive bred and hand-fed from the time they were babies, so they were very friendly about being touched.

Trevor could have stayed all day right here.

We will go back for sure!

Brendan bought this t-shirt and he asks to wear it every day.

Sub-post #8:

LegoLand opened a new exhibit during spring break – all about space! We went on Thursday right when they opened. The line of people queued up at the door was insane and we almost turned around. But we were members and did not have to wait. A very awesome employee helped us go in through the exit and bypass all of the welcome movie and ride line that would hold up the crowds. We went straight for the new room and had it all to ourselves for at least 30 minutes! AWESOME!

There were so many free-build stations full of buckets of space themed Lego bricks.

Launch!

Many different models to admire

Control center

Mini master builders getting to work!

We watched some of the 4D movies.

Sub-post #9:

Thursday night, we were invited to watch Trevor’s karate instructor test for his brown belt. He had a lot of support. After two exhausting hours of demonstration and sparring, he got his belt. Congrats Mr. Nick!

Sub-post #10:

The whole family is mostly healthy. I am not sure with all of the orange trees blooming and grasses changing, we may be dealing with some allergies too. Other than Trevor’s quick ER trip, we have actually done well this winter. Zero admissions for Brendan!!

We want to wish a super happy sweet-16 birthday to Kayla!! (on the 16th) It’s your golden birthday too!

We wish to send healing thoughts to a good family friend, Marsha, who is having a difficult battle with a rare disease called aHUS. https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/atypical-hemolytic-uremic-syndrome It is a good time to ask everyone we know to donate blood and/or plasma whenever you can. Marsha has required numerous plasma exchanges to keep her alive. Plasma donations do take some time, but you can be compensated.
http://donatingplasma.org/donation/find-a-donor-center
Marsha is in our thoughts every day.

We are experiencing record breaking high temperatures this week, but we send well wishes to our families back east dealing with massive snowfall. Stay safe!

I will try to not let this go for a month again!!