Happy Easter!

I love Easter. Not only do we get the chance to reflect on our Savior and His atonement, but it is also finally the time of year I can usually start to believe Spring has come! Well, reflecting on the Savior is always a great experience. Unfortunately, I am beginning to believe spring will never come as it was cold and raining for Easter weekend and has snowed since then! I'm beginning to believe spring is just a mirage that Mother Nature is taunting us with! See the spring blossoms budding out under all that snow?

Anyway...back to Easter. Every year my dear mother colors eggs (sometimes by herself if none of the grandchildren are there to help) and hides dozens and dozens of them for a big Easter egg hunt on Saturday for all her grandchildren. The event is complete with real eggs, plastic eggs filled with candy and money, and a big treat basket that is full of gift bags for each grandchild with special prizes and treats in them. She always makes everything extra special! The kids look forward to it each year almost as much as I do--you see, it means I never have to color eggs (unless we are there early to help mom) or hide the eggs!! It's great! Well, this year the egg hunt was the morning after the piano recital, so we spent the night, and I had (I mean got) to help color eggs and hide all 8 dozen inside her condo as the weather was too cold and rainy for any outside! That was amusing, trying to find enough "hiding" spots for them all! And then since we spent the night, the boys had a definitely unfair egg locating advantage over the girl cousins since they had a couple of morning hours before the official hunt began to scope out all the hiding spots!! Oh well. Everyone still had lots of fun. Thanks, Grandma!

Piano Recital

Another part of our weekend included the boys piano recital. My mom has been graciously teaching them all piano, as I am sure if I did it myself, it would be bad! Something about parents teaching their own kids anything always causing problems! Anyway...they are all doing great! Tyler really seems to be a natural and picks it up so easily. The others boys work really hard at it, and we were really proud of them. Jordan also played a couple of his violin pieces. He is really getting pretty good with that instrument also. Hopefully they will all continue to enjoy and be involved with music!

Here is my mom with all of her piano students! 7 of the 8 of them are grandchildren. She does 8 lessons a week for free!!! What a great mom and grandma!

Happy Birthday, Tyler

It was kind of a party week for us, but we will just start with Tyler's birthday. The kids were out of school early on Wednesday for spring break, so Tyler invited a few of his favorite peeps (along with his brothers) to head on over to the rec center for 2 hours of fun filled frolicking in the pool. (Now that I think about it, I'm not sure boys should be described as "frolicking," so let's go with "goofing around" instead!) They all had a fabulous time, and I think it ranks right up there with easiest parties EVER for me! We met there, played for a couple hours, and handed them a cupcake on their way out the door!! The best part was, they loved it!!!

Tyler's actual birthday was on Saturday. We celebrated that with his Grandma, Aunt and Uncle, and some cousins. All the kids and the 2 dads watched 2 movies on Uncle Todd's big screen tv and pigged out on pizza while Grandma and the mom's went to the BYU Ballroom Dance Concert and out to dinner! Fun for all!

9 Interesting Facts About Tyler:

1. Loves soccer, basketball, and golf

2. Plays the piano like a pro

3. Loves to build and draw things

4. Sings with perfect pitch

5. Great friend and helper to his little brother

6. Loves electronics of all kinds--his DS, Wii, Gamecube, etc....

7. Loves chocolate of any kind

8. Learns how to do almost anything he tries until he masters it
9. May break many bones before mastering his new heelys!

Happy birthday, Tyler! We love you!

Vay-Cay

So Paul and I just got back from our vay-cay...here we are, spending a little quality time on our African Safari hanging out with the Pride at their rock....

and catching up with a few of the giraffes having lunch....

Okay, so we were only on African Safari at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Oh well. Frankly, I think that is about as close to a safari as I really want to get. I'm more of the tropical beach kind of vay-cay gal! I was very happy to be able to tag along with Paul on his last travel itinery though. His company is a sponsor for Children's Miracle Network, and his district happened to raise the most donations for them this last year. As a reward, the company sent him to the annual Children's Miracle Network Celebration in Orlando, Florida. This is the 2nd year we have had the opportunity to attend the Celebration, and it was just as fun and exciting as last year. Every year, CMN chooses one "champion" child and their family from each state to attend convention. It is a full paid vacation for the family. They get to attend convention and share some of their amazing victory stories with all of us, and then they get a great Disney World vacation and a trip to Washington D.C. as well. This year, I understand President Obama was planning on greeting them in person. It's quite an event for them, and it is so neat to meet all of them and cheer them on. They have a medals ceremony for them where they introduce each of them and have them come out on stage to receive a medal. It makes me cry every time! They are so precious and have such amazing stories of overcoming some really incredible things. Many of them come out jumping and cheering like it is the Olymipic games. Last year one little boy came out just overcome with emotion...crying and hugging everyone. It was really touching. When the families walk with them at the champions parade, many of them are crying and thanking you as they walk by. It is such an incredible experience. It makes me so grateful for healthy children and for a 1st class facility like Primary Children's to take our children to when we need to. And in that regard, it is a little more personal for us since we spent a lot of time there with Justin and his club foot after he was born. Because of that, we are big supporters of CMN, and are glad that Paul has the opportunity to help in some way with his business being a sponsor.

As part of our trip, we were able to spend 2 days in the parks at DisneyWorld, and we had a great time! We enjoyed the beautiful weather, the pool, the hot tub, and all the fun events at Celebration!
This is a picture of Paul and one of his General Sales Managers with the Utah Champion and his family.

Thank you Golf Galaxy for another great trip!