Boys Trip Back East...

Merril bought a Jeep for a guy in Japan and it had to be picked up back East and driven here (this is the reason the garage shelves started this weekend).  Merril took Jack and Ryan R. and they headed off on an adventure!  They picked up the Jeep in Philadelphia.

 They decided to drive around to some cool spot and went up to New York City.  I tried to convince Jack that it was going to be cold but he didn't believe me.  This is the top of the World Trade Center Tower.

He kept stealing Merril's hat because he was cold.

Breezed past Washington D.C. and the Washington Monument and met up with Dan Moore, who lives there.

The Besens were the big reason that Jack went with Merril.  They were our neighbors for a while and Jack and their son, James, were good friends.  Sharon is about the nicest person you will ever meet and Ted is great!  Their son, Lance, has grown up a ton!

Mikayla Moo...

 A little about Mikayla:  She looks good in hats.  So cute.

She's started writing her name well.  She draws cute stick figures with the legs coming right out of the head, one of my favorite stages.  

She hums her own made-up tunes, especially when she's daydreaming or studying something.  She likes to make up dances and sing.

She's a great climber!  We'll go to the park or to hike and I get comments like, "Are you worried about her climbing like that??"  And the truth is, I'm not.  She's good at finding a way out of a sticky situation and if she needs help, just asks for it.  Mostly, she can downclimb anything she climbs up to.

She's independent but still likes to have Mom around.

The older kids have nicknamed her Bobo, or Bo for short.  It evolved from calling her baby which turned to Bobo which turned to Bo.  Love that girl!

Jack's basketball camp...

Jack really likes basketball but we haven't really signed him up to play for city leagues or anything.  The high school was offering a basketball skills class and he wanted to do it.  They still played some games, of which I didn't get a single good picture.  Even this one is sub par.

He hustles pretty well and can make good foul line shots and he improved on things like dribbling and lay ups.  Good job Jack!

Yearbook push...

At the beginning of the year, I signed up to do the yearbook for the PTA at the elementary school.  I really thought it would a simple project that I could do while Mark napped and so I wouldn't have to be at the school so much.  It.was.not.a.simple.project.

I've been pulling my hair out for 2 months, making my family crazy.  I would spend hours pouring over the program.  It was due yesterday and Merril did the saintly husband thing and took all the kids to work with him.  It took me 3 more hours to finish and submit the yearbook and then I was done!  I binge watched some shows on Netflix. cleaned up, and started dinner.  The afternoon was all mine at the house and it was so delightful!  I was able to recharge and feel sane again!  Thanks Merril!

Easter Sunday!!

They seem a little nervous for Easter Sunday. 

Mark was given a head start.  I asked him to smile.  Yep.

Everyone else waited patiently.

Mikayla had a bit of a head start as well and then everyone took off.  Maxine seemed to follow behind Jack and he got all the eggs.  She couldn't seem to break off from him and find her own and as a result, was super mad that she wasn't getting any eggs.  She pushed, Jack yelled.  Not super happiness.

We reset for the basement search and Mark and Mikayla were given another head start, followed by the 13-year-old.  Then Jack and Juliet.  Notice Mark's smile again!  What a crack up.

Maxine was feeling better by then.

Ready, set, GO!

Eggs were found and traded so peeps could get their favorites back.

And easy brekky follows.  Love Easter Sunday!

Women's Conference...

In the Fall, I took my girls to the General Women's Meeting in Salt Lake.  That was a blast but I thought it would be fun to invite my Mom and sister, Jeannie, to this one.  I asked my girls where they wanted to eat and they said Pasta Factory.  Everyone was able to meet there before the conference.  We ate pasta and bread sticks until we were stuffed.  Then we were off to be inspired!

Jeannie's stake center was pretty close so we headed there.  And of course I needed a selfie.

Service was the resounding theme.  I enjoyed the girlie time.  Jeannie wants to do it again in October!!

Egg hunts...

We woke up early so we could be on time to the Winchester Hills Ward (Grandma C.'s ward) Easter Egg Hunt.  

Plenty of shenanigans in the car on the way up.

We didn't realize it started at 10 a.m. this year instead of 9:00.  So we were an hour early.  We went to Grammy's for a bit.

At 9:45 we headed down and played with my camera in the car because it was so windy and cold outside.

This is how Mark smiles at the camera lately.  Maybe he anticipates the flash and squeezes his eyes tight.  Anyway, it's super cute.

Mark was so excited to get a picture with the Easter bunny but he laughed and squealed with excitement from a distance.  Merril ended up picking him up and standing next to the bunny, which Mark found hysterical.

Everyone was freezing.

Maxine graduated to the 13+ division, in which she actually had to search for the eggs in the desert wilderness.

It was all worth it to be able to race down the grass and pick up eggs.

Numbered eggs=prizes.  Jack found 5 numbered eggs, Mikayla and Maxine both found 3 each.  Julie didn't get any this year.  Jack shared a prize with her.  Maxine scored 2 Menchies gift cards.  Wahoo!

Maxine in Hurricane Idol...

The High School here puts on a singing contest called Hurricane Idol.  It's a fundraiser for Grad Night and Maxine wanted to compete this year.  She picked Centuries by Fall Out Boy and we practiced and she did pretty great!

Unfortunately, she didn't move on to the next round but said she had a really great time performing anyway.  She said she didn't really want to move on to the finals because she'd have to prepare another song and get stressed out again.  We're proud of her being brave enough to try in the first place!

Hike to Babylon Arch...

Darryl Zitting invited our family on a little hike to Babylon Arch.  It starts in Leeds and hikes south to the Virgin River.  It's mostly sandstone and sand but was a fun little hike.  Jack was digging it.

Check out Julie:  She's totally annoyed with me.

Merril had some work to do afterwards so he met us to hike and then drove a the truck back to work and I took the kids home.  They all crashed on the way home.  Except for me.  Because I was driving.  #iwassleepytoo 

Disneyland...Oi

Merril totally surprised me and said he wanted to take the family to Disneyland over Spring Break.  Totally uncharacteristic of him.  We rented a little casita called The Mouse House.  We've decided it's the only way to go when you have a family of seven.  A little house was located near Disneyland and rented by biggest Disney nut I have ever met, and the sweetest woman.  She wanted names and ages of all our kids before we arrived.  As she showed us around the casita, she presented all of my children with gifts: little plush minnie and mickey mouse dolls and a minnie mouse tote for Maxine.  Then she gave a sign to us that read "Happily Ever After."  Then she took us into the kitchen and she had hot chocolate, mini donuts, and whipped cream stocked in the fridge.  Totally amazed by her.  Thumbs up!

We got there late and went to bed.  The next morning, Julie and Mikayla were soaking up the sun in the courtyard.  

We decided it would be better to split up and have the older kids go to Disneland and Merril and Mark stay back at The Mouse House.  It was a less busy Tuesday but that place was still a zoo. 

Took a picture and were off!

Maxine and Jack took off to go HyperSpace Mountain.  Julie, Mikayla and I waited in line for a ride called Astro Orbiter.  It was pretty long.  

Maxine and Jack weren't finished with Space Mountain so we wandered down Main Street and ran into Daisy Duck.  Mikayla totallly wanted her picture taken and was over the moon excited!

Then we ditched our stroller and headed back up on a carriage to see if we could find Maxine and Jack.  I guess the phone quit working and they were panicked they wouldn't be able to find us.  They ended up getting the phone to work and calling us to meet up but Jack was kinda mad. 

Somewhere in there, our fast passes for Space Tours was ready so we headed over and checked it out.  Jack really liked it.  Then we had lunch, and went on Pirates of the Caribbean.   Then we rode a carriage back to get our stroller.  It'd be a few hours and I was a little worried about it.  

Turns out my worrying was justified because someone took it.  :(  There wasn't anything in it and it was a crappy, half busted up cheap-O umbrella stroller so maybe they thought no one would miss it.  They thought wrong.  I was cheezed.  Mikayla was getting tired and wanted to ride around.  We checked out guest services, thinking it had been picked up, no dice.  So we got ice cream to feel better and I quietly scanned every red stroller that went by.

After that, Jack wanted to see the Superhero HQ.  We wanted over to Tomorrowland and I kept looking for our stroller.  I found a similar one and even asked a nice lady were she got it but upon closer inspection, knew it wasn't ours.  Inside Superhero HQ, there were lifesize Ironman suits, something Maxine and Jack were so jazzed about!

Coming out of Superhero HQ, Jack wanted to go to a Jedi training thing.  It was there that I spotted another stroller that could possibly be ours, parked and empty.  We ran down and it looked just like ours but I couldn't be 100% sure.  I didn't want to steal someone else's stroller and do to them what had been done to us.  Then I remembered that I had taken a picture of all the kids with Mikayla in the stroller at the beginning of the day.  We pulled it up on my phone and zoomed way in.  Our scratched stickers on the bars were an exact match. 

I totally loaded up Mikayla and high tailed it out of there.  I can just imagine the people coming back and saying, "Someone stole the stroller that we stole today!!"  What are the odds of finding our stolen stroller in Disneyland?

By then, it was time to meet up with Merril at the IHOP across the street for dinner.  We figured Mikayla would head back with Merril and I'd take the older 3 back into the park for last rides and fireworks.  After dinner, Juliet decided she was too tired to go back and I just took Jack and Max.

We rode It's a Small World and the Indiana Jones ride.  We watched the light parade and the fireworks and then were ready for Merril to come get us.  We were bushed.  We were there from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The next day we went to the beach but I didn't snap any pics and I was grumpy and tired from being at Disneyland.  We played, everyone got sunburned but me, and then we came home.

Dr. Seuss week...

It was crazy hair day at school for Dr. Seuss week!  Juliet wanted this fun do.  There's a plastic cup in that ponytail.  And then leftover Halloween spray.  

We did another crazy hairdo the next day but I neglected to snap any pics.  She had tons of little twists that remind me of snakes.  When we took them out, she had crazy frizzy hair with tons of body.

And it's Leap Day!  I wish I could say that I took full advantage of an extra day in the year but it silently slipped away without any sort of spectacle or notice.  Sometimes that's just how it is.

It feels like Spring...

We are loving the warmer weather!  Mark and Mikayla want to play outside all day!

It feels like Spring because my apricot tree is starting to bloom!

We've also been doing yard work to get everything ready for Spring.  :)