The Oppenheimer Family Easter Egg Hunt

This week was a fun one for our family, highlighted by the 1st Annual Oppenheimer Family Easter Egg Hunt.
All of the pictures are from our little hunt.

The hunt happened at 10am today. We invited a few other families over to hunt for eggs in our back garden. Prior to everyone arriving, Marisa and I filled 150 eggs with jelly beans, gummie bears and other sugar snacks.

Once all of the families had arrived we opened our garage and let 8 children between the ages of 2 and 4 out with their basket to hunt for eggs.

Some were well hidden,


some were not so well hidden.


We were outside for only 15 minutes due to the fact that it was only 40 degrees Fahrenheit here this morning.

After all of the eggs had been successfully hunted, we went inside where we served coffee, orange juice, coffee cake, monkey bread, and some other treats.
 

A great time was had by both children and adults.





Other excitement this week has included my Under 12 Girls Football Team getting an 8-2 beating on Tuesday in the wind and rain.

Gemma's speech therapist met with Marisa and gave us a very positive update on her speech. She is going to continue to do therapy once a week, but is apparently progressing extremely well.

I am still on alert to be potentially sent to Cleveland for work some time soon for 3 weeks, but have not received the call yet.

We are hoping for some improved weather this week. It will give us a chance to use our newly fenced in yard more. Also, Marisa is starting playing in a sand volleyball league on Wednesday nights. That is outdoors, so will be a lot more pleasant if it's not cold and raining.

Tomorrow, we are driving to Luverne, Minnesota (about 30 minutes away) to celebrate Easter with Marisa's Uncle Amos, Aunt Jan and their kids Zach, Paige and Gunnar.

Have a great week

Back from Florida and peeling!

This was another fun week for the South Dakota Oppenheimers.

We had a great time in Florida. It was very nice to see Mum, Mark and James. We had some really fun days, which included the kids going on, "A Day Out With Thomas," a boat ride, and a trip to the aquarium with Nana. We also loved having the kids playing at the beach. While Henry destroyed sandcastles, Gemma made it her mission to empty the ocean taking bucket after bucket of water from the ocean to the sandcastle moat.
The kids were surprisingly well behaved both on the flights to and from Florida as well as during the time we were in Sarasota. Henry loved our last flight where he and I got to sit in the front row, so he could see the cockpit before take off and talk with the air hostess, as well as be the 1st person off the plane.




When we came back to Sioux Falls, the temperature was a beautiful 70 degrees at 9pm. 3 days later, we had snow, causing all of my Under 12 girls soccer to be canceled ! That is a testament to the crazy weather we get here !

The kids are slowly settling back into their routine, but continue to talk about days out with Thomas, and play with their new toys.

I had a surprise when I came back to work. I was told I was going to be sent to Cleveland for 3 weeks to be on the CAT (Catastrophe) team since there has been a lot of hail in the South and they need people. This is something I signed up for at the beginning of Spring. If you are deployed for 3 weeks, it is a considerable pay increase for those weeks. As I was making preparations, toward the end of the day, I was told plans had changed and I was no longer going. Made for a stressful day.


This week promises much of the same. I play soccer tonight then have girls soccer on Tuesday and Thursday, and we have a fence being put up in our back garden this week. Nothing new for the kids really.

Have a great week.

A week of sickness

This week was dominated by Henry being ill. He had a temperature between 103-106 between Saturday afternoon and Wednesday of this week. We treated him with various over the counter medications to control his temperature. Eventually, the Doctor, who thought he had mono initially told us they now thought it was just a bad virus. He is on antibiotics and is now back to normal.


This obviously changed all of our plans for the week. Marisa got to stay home for most of this week, Henry did not have any swimming, Marisa was supposed to take a 3 day trip to Minneapolis for work, but that was also cancelled because of Henry being ill.

In short, we spent a lot of time at home. Gemma is still getting better at talking day by day, coming up with all kinds of new things to say. Her vocabulary includes, "thank you," "Henry" , "yes" and "no"

On a personal note, I score 3 goals in the 1st 5 minutes of my football team's 4-1 win last night. That was a first for me, and something I am sure I will never repeat. I also found out that I came 20th out of 218 people in the 5k last week, and have immediately signed myself up for another one at the end of April.

My Under 12 girls team looks good, and is going to play their 1st 2 games this week in my absence. I will be in Florida enjoying our much anticipated vacation.

The weather is finally good enough to play outside here, so the kids are loving being outdoors. We have 1 open side to our back yard. We are getting that finished so we will have a totally private back yard, which will be nice.

Probably wont blog next week since we will be in Florida. Sorry it's not very exciting this week.