Easter Sunday

On Easter Sunday, after church, we headed out to Joe and Lynnaes for a family easter party. My mom had a really good idea, so she set out eggs filled with a special surprise. Here's Trent on the prowl again.

Laycee and Logan
Haylee, Regean, and Emma.

Logan

So after the hunt, they opened all the eggs and inside they found dimes! They then took their dimes and paid them to the toll taker (me) and they were able to play their easter basket fish game!

Logan is all ready to go fishing (above).

Laycee waits patiently for a bite (below)

Laycee, Regean, Logan... they all have their goodies!

Trent laughed the whole time. He loved this idea.

Haylee was a bit unsure about her find, but after much pulling and effort, she finally received her goodies.

Oh what fun when they could all open their gifts. The best part... they were not stuffed with candy! Mom had been thoughtful and really tried to fill the bags with treasures that children love.

Afterwards, the kids were able to make a craft. They made birds nests out of marshmellow, chinese noodles, peeps and chocolate eggs.

Trent enjoyed eating more than crafting lol.

It turned out to be one great Easter Sunday. The kids had so much fun being together and there were so many activities to do. I loved the fish bag idea and the craft just topped it all off. It was an amazing day.

In-law Easter Egg Hunt

So this year, the kids started off their Easter fun with a party at Grandma and Grandpas. They had a great setup this year. With over 40 grandchildren, it is hard to accomidate that many people. So, they used Brians yard for kids ages 4-8. They used their front yard for children under age 4. And they used Chappy's yard for children over age 8. Here is Logan off and running.

My niece Addy, so cute!
Laycee still wants to open each egg to see what is in it before finding another one.

Trent found the secret front! He spent several minutes up here all alone until I directed some more kids to give him some competition.

Haylee was patient and her and I went back through Chappy's yard to garantee there were no spare eggs remaining. She found like 10 that way!

It was a realy great hunt and the kids enjoyed themselves. I cannot wait until next year!

Egg Coloring

Yes I know Easter was weeks ago, but I am finally getting around to posting pictures. This year we decided that we would try out hands at coloring eggs. I do not recall a time that we have decorated eggs although Haylee remembers a time in Italy that we did it, so who knows. Anyway, I felt like this year all of the kids were old enough to decorate so we tried.

We are all getting ready.
So we had a system where Dave helped them color the eggs and I helped them decorate the eggs.

This was my egg.

Logan was so proud of all of his eggs.

Trent worked busily to decorate.

The little ones admiring their eggs

It was a really fun experience! I think next year I will set out a tarp in the backyard and let them go to town. I hate messy crafts, so this was a big deal for us. But they all did great and we had a good time. Plus we had eggs for WEEKS.

Paint

Hmm, what to chose? Shortly before Dave left, we looked at every home improvement store scouring the paint to settle on a few ideas we had for the new house. Oh the decisions were hard. Shortly, I will finally show some of the chosen colors!

Salt Lake City Marathon

So we get to the real reason we all came together to visit in Salt Lake. Back on October, Mark (my brother in law) asked if anyone wanted to run in the marathon with him. Plans were made and plans were changed. Dave and I intended on running the full marathon and between life and well more life (funny how it can change so much in just a few short months) we changed our plans. The Salt Lake Marathon was an amazing day of accomplishments for the whole family.

Here are Amy and I before the 5k race. It was an amazing race! I have ran several 5ks, but they were all on post in Italy. This was a neat experience and so motivating to run right past temple square, past a restaurant that smelled amazing and then the turn around back up a HUGE hill. It was a challenge but so fun. This was Amy's first race and man did the race bug bite her!

My dear sweet husband decided the day before the race to run the half marathon. It was a debate because he had no training, but I knew he could. He has ran that distance before and with the experience of his present company (mark and I) he was able to use some techniques to make it through the long distance. He has little time here in the United States and really needed this to officially complete one of his goals. He nearly died at the finish line lol, but he made it the whole race running (again with a huge uphill at the end) and he made a very decent time of just over 2 hrs!
Pictured here is one of the greatest accomplishments of the day. Mark completed his first marathon. Dave met up with him the last .5-.25 mile and ran the end with him. He was injured and debated about running the long distance, but again pulled out the strength to completed the race.

Not only did the fun stop there, but all of the kids ran a 1k. Not sure it was really 1k, but they all participated. They got a shirt and medal. It was a great way to spark the need for exercise and the internal accomplishment of a race. My kids have all participated in 5k races, so for them, this felt like another opportunity of great fun!

I was so thankful we all ran a portion of this race. The atomosphere was amazing and really we all accomplished great things. There was fun and a huge sense of pride in doing new things. I cannot wait for the next race and hopefully won't be too far off. I am not the greatest runner but I love doing it and I am amazed at how the body can endure so much and recover so well. How empowering it can be!

Down Town Salt Lake

Our second day in Utah, we went down to Salt Lake. First stop was the Salt Lake Marathon Race Expo. We picked up bibs and got us all registered for our respective races. Then we headed over to Temple Square. This was very fun for us because our children have never been there. This is the Salt Lake Temple.

I loved this statue. It reminded me of the physical effort it took for the early Latter Day Saint to trek across the US and finally settle in Utah.

Most of the kids L-R... Trent, Ethan, Collin, Contessa, Haylee, Laycee, Logan

The Tabernacle. I was surprised at how small it was! When I was a child on TV, it always looked HUGE! It is rather small which most likely greatly reduced the number of people that could actually attend Conference.

Steps of the temple with all of the children

Another temple view

After the temple grounds, we walked across the street to tour the Conference Center. It was amazing! This replaced the Tabernacle.

Our families on the opposite side of mirrors

Top view of the Conference Center. One neat fact, it has no obstructed views. The technology used made it possible to allow every seat proper viewing.

Outside upper deck view of the temple from the conference center.

The kids.

The tour was a bit long for the children really, but it was a rather enjoyable experience. There was so much to see in downtown that I really wish we could go back one day and view some of the other sites. Next up on our adventure was the Salt Lake Marathon. Stay tuned!

Wheeler Farm, UT

Our first day in Utah, we had a few errands to run and then we went to this really neat farm. The Wheeler Farm was a largely free farm where you could go and just explore the property. They had some of the original buildings still up.

We were able to learn about different types of eggs.

Dave had to use the outhouse (man men are gross!)

Haylee is trying out the saddle with Callie on the end.

The kids gathered around to watch the ducks

I never get pictures of Trent and I LOVE this one.

They all were excited to see the cows.

And we all had the opportunity to milk the cows. This was a first time for many of us and definately a different experience.

Logan got in there and tried hard.

And we took a little tractor ride around the property to see what else was out there.

Sweet huh?

Running to the sheep

It was really fun! It was a nice "kill a couple hours" location. The weather was beautiful. The property was amazing. All in all, we were really happy to have headed over there!