Mariasha's Spring Break

While we were in California for Easter, Mariasha was off on her first solo adventure. Spring break. She and her best friend Alyx Calderwood went to Northern California to visit Alyx's Aunt. They had a blast. While there Alyx's Aunt took amazing Senior pictures of the girls. It was a little strange to be on a vacation without her, and it was a little scary to let her drive so far without us, but she did great. It's exciting to see her growing up and becoming more independent. The candybars are in the vent because the car was hot and the chocolate melted, so this was how they got the candy to solidify so they could eat it.

A Different Kind of Easter

We decided last minute to take a family trip for Easter.

Thursday we went to Barstow, California and met my sister, Teri's family. We spent a couple of days camping and motorcycling. What a blast! On Saturday, about 20 of us rode about 25 miles out to the Slash X Ranch for some lunch. The line there was over an hour long, so we continued on to Barstow and ate at Tommy's. It was funny to see the look on the other customers' faces when we walked in wearing all of our motorcycling gear. Maybe we looked like a dirt bike gang! This was only my second experience driving a motorcycle. It was a bit more difficult than last time. We rode over lots of deep sand, and it was pretty scary. The tires would slip all over the place and I felt like I was falling over the whole time. I actually did fall over 4 times, but each time it was when I was almost stopped, so I didn't really get hurt, just a few bruises. I finally found out what my problem was. I was using my front brake. I guess that is a big no no, especially in sand. (David wants me to point out that he had told me about the front brake last time we went motorcycling, which is true, but I had forgotten.) I fell over once after that, but it wasn't the brake's fault, because I wasn't pushing on the brake that time. I was trying to turn a corner, going down hill, in deep sand, slowly, and it was just too many strikes against me. Oh well, I had fun any way. (I was having so much fun that I forgot to get the camera out!)

Saturday night we drove to my grandparents house in Saint George and stayed with them for the next few days. We got in late Saturday, so we think the Easter Bunny must have been confused about where we were staying, or he was just to tired, because there weren't any eggs waiting for us when we woke up Easter Morning. We told the kids maybe he would come the next day. We attended a lovely Sacrament Meeting with a beautiful choir, and an amazing speaker. My aunt, Karlene Young invited us over for Easter dinner, and we spent the day at their house. Karlene's husband Gary took us on a short hike up to "Devil's Hole", we watched movies, played games and had lots of fun.

We also went to see "The Family Tree". This tree was planted by my great (great?) grandfather about 250 years ago! It is huge! It has the biggest trunk I have ever seen that wasn't attached to a Redwood. Monday we spent the day exploring the natural wonders around Saint George. First, we had fun playing with the swans at my grandparents house. The male is VERY territorial. If you walk along the shore, he will follow you. If you run, he will fly to catch up. If you are too close to the fence when he catches up, he will attack! It's pretty funny.

Next we went to see the Little Black Mountain Petroglyphs. They were very cool. We told the kids that we could have a Petroglyph hunt instead of an egg hunt, but they weren't very hip on the idea. (The easter bunny didn't show that day either... oops!) We went to the Dinosaur museum which was a bit of a disappointment after having seen the Thanksgiving Point Museum. Then we went to Snow Canyon State Park and hiked around. We were going to hike to the top of a cinder cone, until we saw it. It was huge, with smooth straight sides that rose at about a 70 degree angle. I could just imagine Taliah losing her balance and tumbling all the way to the bottom. We decided it might be a bit too difficult for the little ones. Instead we hiked to some lava tubes and explored them. They were very cool!

By Tuesday the kids were SICK of nature, so we went to the Fiesta Fun Center and spent the day playing miniature golf and driving go karts. Later that day we drove home. It stormed the whole way. It rained so hard that we couldn't see out of the windshield when we passed other cars. We were grateful to reach home safe and sound. I think the Easter Bunny is "out of the bag" after this trip, because when we got home, the kids offered to hide the eggs so they could hunt for them. (Oops!) It was definitely a different kind of Easter, but it was fun!

Charlotte's web

Taliah's school class put on the play, Charlotte's Web. Taliah played the part of Clover the Sheep. She was originally supposed to be Clover the Horse, but the costume designer had cuter sheep ideas. Taliah really resisted being a sheep, but finally relented. I am glad, because her costume was really cute! She had two lines, well one line that she repeated twice. The other sheep, Clyde asked "Why why why do they have to say say say everything three times times times" and she replied, "Clyde my friend friend friend, I simply do not know know know."




The set was amazing thanks to my friend Sophie, the costumes were adorable. The music was great too! I was in charge of music. We sang "Must be love" and "Chin up" from the cartoon version. I accompanied the kids on the guitar. I was kind of worried about the songs, because I wasn't given a lot of time to work with the kids on them, but they turned out great! Taliah had a lot of fun!

Hooray for Kallai!

Just an update. Kallai won a 4th place medal and a check for $15 at the Central Utah Science and Engineering Fair at BYU for his science project, Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Way to go Kallai!