Easter

First of all....I missed most of the Health and Wellness Week activities, but we did start scooting to school again.  I love that.  The weather is so fickle though! It's a hit or miss thing.

Our Fridays are crazy busy at the moment.  I am running back and forth here and there the whole afternoon so all our Easter Prep stuff had to happen on Saturday.  Lots of eggs, bacon, and fish. Always fish for Easter Sunday. We had our last quart of grape juice, and dates too (the dried fruit not the event, although Darin and I had one of those too)....but veered from authenticity with the broccoli salad. Just because broccoli salad makes me think of Spring.

We made the kids clean, a lot, and then dyed eggs.  Rubber cement style and Cool Whip style.  Honestly, I didn't love the Cool Whip way.  Fun to swirl the paint, but bleck...too messy and then I didn't dare hide the eggs around the house for fear they would stain my furniture. Rubber cement for the win!

They turned out great though!

Byron and Soren had a Minecrafting playdate thanks to Darin, they boys had to wait for a time he would be home to make this happen.  Miriam went to a surprise bowling party for a friend.  Darin and I had a date with delicious smelly cheese, cashew salsa, and I don't even remember what kind of meat that was but it was gooooood.  We went to a friends Racelette machine pop up at Amore Cafe. 

Then we stopped by Trader Joes for a Saturday night kid treat and an Easter Dessert for tomorrow.

Hooray for the outfits we wore to Mark's wedding! We have had our Spring ensemble all ready to go since September. 

Miriam and I sang in church. Hard beautiful songs that make the whole choir nervous to attempt, but our director is a man of great faith.

Small Easter hunt right after church.  

The boys got Sushi Go! and Flip City in their Easter baskets (thank you Mark for introducing us) so Darin took over in the game department while I got dinner ready.  Miriam and Soren came in to decorate after Sushi Go!  They did such a good job, using flowers from our blooming cheery tree.  Miriam is our resident napkin folder, and I loved the side flower Soren came up with. He said he saw it once on a magazine cover.

A walk, some football tossing, basketball shooting, we ended the night with a treat, reading a chapter of a simplified version of Ulysses, and a family mindfulness breathing activity.

Sweet day. We achieved that perfect balance of making things special and fun without me running around anxious and exhausted.

Sweet day.

P-Town Trippin' (with the rest of Davis and Utah Counties)

While the rest of the Spring Breakers in the state drove on through to Moab we stopped in Price.

Cirque du Soleil style dancing for Erik's birthday BBQ. It was warm when were were working in Grandma's yard all afternoon, but turned cold during the BBQ so we had to bring it inside. This dance had to be choreographed twice...once on the trampoline and once in Erik's basement.

Carbon County isn't on Spring Break at the moment, and none of the cousins could ditch school this week because they are all missing the end of the week for a dance competition. 

But Grandpa ditched work to come along for an adventure.  

We did the Wild Horse part of the Little Wild Horse/Bell Canyon loop.

There were parts where we had to take off our socks and wade through some freezing cold water.

It was an adventure for sure. 

 We decided to stop, and have a snack at this point. The water would have gone up to Soren's waist so we turned back...which was difficult at this point because it was getting so busy with other Spring Breaker hikers!!  I had thought coming on a Tuesday would help with the crowd control...and it probably did a bit, but I was still shocked with the number of people there.  The weekends must be a madhouse.

Goblin Valley is too close not to stop by even though it was windy (just like every other visit I have ever made in the Spring).

This guy was all alone in the middle of all the goblins....no other vegetation in sight.  

It just delighted me. 

Then the kids scampered around.  I say this EVERY time we go, but we really do need to remember to bring walkie talkies so I feel more comfortable letting the kids wonder to their hearts content while I find a nice soft Goblin for shade and a wind shield. 

Byron could have used a couple more hours there but the rest of us were tired and hungry.

Dad took us to Ray's Tavern in Green River for juicy cheese burgers.  I think they are legit good burgers but I can't tell you for sure because everything tastes so fantastic after hiking in the desert. 

(this selfie was me showing my friend Ris that we were hanging in her hometown...Ris and I are total small town girls)

I loved driving with my dad, listening to his stories about the area. 

My parents and I went to my niece Ali's choir concert that evening.  Lots of the teachers I had in Jr. High are still teaching, in fact the choir teacher Mr. Hoyt's first year was my first year at Mont Harmon.  It was also fun picking out some of my classmates children.  I spotted Mary's little girl right away, we made lunch plans for lunch the next day.  So fun to hang out with my bestie from jr high/high school.  We were 40 going on 16 for the day.  

This girl is a determined little bugger when she wants to be. 

She spent the end of Wednesday, and half the day Thursday pulling out bushes in the back yard.

She is also taking care of a few neighbors pets for the weekend, and babysat for 3 hours.  If she decides she wants something there is no stopping her.  I forgot to mention that she made both the Musical Theatre class and Concert Choir before Spring Break while healing from hand foot and mouth, and then getting a cold.  She worked her tail off.

These boys did some work of their own.  My mom gave us a sifter while we were in Price so I put them to work.  They earned the shipping and handling to get ants for Byron's ant farm and a trip to Menchies that evening.

One of Byron's friends joined us for a hike up in the Centerville hills and then a whole afternoon of playing outside (with a bit of Minecraft thrown in). It looks like Thursday will be our last sunshine day of the break....so glad we took advantage of it!

We all came back a bit sun kissed. 

Spring Break Begins

First of all...this boy's Battle of the Books team "Minecraft Rainbow Kitty Book Squad" took third place so that was fantastic! Obviously, his team was made up of both girls and boys. 

Really proud of this guy for wanting to participate.  

The boys both earned their 3rd degree yellow belt in their karate class on Friday night.

Saturday was our only clear, sunshiny day of the weekend so we ran up to Red Butte Gardens for the Orchid Festival.  The Orchids were so interesting and unique.  It was fun to see which ones received ribbons. 

We used our Utah Passports to go, but I can totally see the value in a year membership.  When we were there the Spring bulb flowers, and trees were in full bloom, but there would be different things blooming all year long.  There are also hikes up into the hills that would take more energy than we could muster in one day. I would love to go to an outdoor concert there....just waiting for the perfect band to come.  

I can't even remember last Sunday...it's already been too long ago. If there are no pictures on my phone its like the day didn't even happen.

Oh, except this showed up in my Instagram feed (good catch Alicia)

Date Night

Darin and I went on a date in the search of Mark and Esme's Korean Ramen.  We were planning on eating out during our search, but after loading up with fun treats from Ocean Mart we were anxious to get home and dig in!

We couldn't find the exact ramen we were looking for so Darin jumped on theramenrater.com (not even joking) and we found some of the top ten suggestions.  The cheesy version was NOT listed but we thought the kids would like it....and they do!  Imagine a spicy watery mac & cheese, it wouldn't make my top ten list either, but Byron would eat it every day.

We grabbed some mochi, green tea Kit Kat, lumpia, other treats, and then since we were going back home to eat we picked up Ube/Coconut ice cream.  A fun treat Darin use to splurge on in the Philippines. 

Ube is a purple starchy root.  Really great mild flavor, we decided to warm the kids up on this and get the halo/halo flavor next time. 

MONDAY FAMILY FOLDING PARTY!!
No school on a raining Monday.  We got the Monday Einstein Bagels deal and then worked on chores and homework till we needed to get Miriam to Weber State. Miriam's singing teacher is getting a degree in music pedagogy (just looked that one up folks;) and needed to teach in front of her college class.

The boys and I hung out at the Union.  There was a senior poster project going on so we walked around glancing at things...mainly to weave our way to the refreshment table where they were offering pretzels and trail mix to anyone who came in. 

These guys ended the night with Beauty and the Beast.

*Correction...Cheesy Raman IS on the top ten list!