Spring Break, Nora's braces off, General Conference and Easter Sunday

On the first day of Spring Break Nora got her braces off!! The next day me and the kids all had dentist appointments! Great way to start off Spring Break!

 

We went rollerskating one day (we also invited Drew to join us), 

And another day we rented a Subaru Ascent and drove to Crystal Springs where we stayed for the night. We rented a car because this is the next car I'm considering buying. Our minivan has been good, it's lived a good, long life and has been quite reliable(it's a 2006, and we've owned it since 2008, so for the past 13 years). But it's getting to the point where every other year we have to make a pretty expensive fix and the sliding door has troubles and there's a couple other little things that have helped us decide that's it's almost time for something else. The subaru ascent is AWD, it's a 7 passenger (also have 8), it can tow up to 4000 lbs, and it's a little smaller than the mini van, which is something I wanted. It's still about as comfortable, leg room wise, as the mini van, but it doesn't have nearly as much storage in the back. So we'd for sure need a cartop storage for roadtrips. But most of the time, it's just me with maybe one or two others in the car so we'd probably only put it on top during trips. 

We stopped for dinner at Old Grist Mill in Honeyville/Brigham City area. We stayed at a kinda dumpy hotel across the street...if we ever go again we'll stay somewhere else, but this was the closest hotel to the hot springs. 

The hot springs were so relaxing. They had several hot springs, a couple at different temperatures, plus 2 water slides. The only issue was that the minerals in the water made us a little itchy until we rinsed off. The little girls really didn't like this. After our trip was over one of them said to me, "We should go to Crystal Hot Springs every year. But just not go to the hot springs." So what you're saying is, you just want to go stay in a hotel and eat out? Yep!

We dyed eggs the day before Easter. But our dye package we bought from the store didn't have any dye in it! So we ended up making our own with food coloring, hot water and vinegar. They turned out well. 

Elisabeth asked Tanner to the Morp Dance; Emma and I helped her put up the balloons and banner at his house. 

The kids got all their favorite treats and snacks in their Easter Baskets sunday morning, plus a John Bytheway cd with some of his best talks. I was the most excited for that gift. 

For dinner we had breakfast, like usual, but we did a couple of special things like added orange juice and we used bread to make french toast from Kneaders. 

Annabelle and her friend Sariah were kind enough to create an easter basket scavengar hunt for the girls (they did it Saturday night...I was grateful they were happy to do it, because I didn't have a lot of time to come up with clues and it's tradition). 

Easter Sunday, and the Saturday before was also General Conference. I love general conference weekend. I love all the talks and the spiritual high that follows. 

And yep, I'm still running. I run 3 days a week. Usually once with Penny (3 miles), once with my good friend Elisa L (4 miles) and once on the weekend with my good friend Kim J. The one on the weekend is a long run, usually anywhere between 8-13 miles...though when we're training for a marathon, which has happened a few times in the past 4 years that we've been running together, we'll go up to 18 miles. 

Jane turned 11!

Jane is 11! We are so grateful for our sweet and spunky Jane and we are grateful the Lord sent her to our family 11 years ago! 

She got her ears pierced for her birthday! And we went shopping for clothes and had lunch at Chipotle. 

That weekend we celebrated with some friends. We played three different games with balloons (I had each girls blow up 2 balloons at the beginning of the party and that's mostly all we used), 

We did face masks, they played the cottonball game, 

We ate pizza and krispy kreme donuts, 

And we had some trampoline time and played Just Dance on the switch. She had a great weekend!

 

Date night and the "little things" in marriage, protein bars, and Penny turned 1!

I love and look forward to our weekly date nights. I was listening to a talk on marriage recently by John Bytheway and he said something like, "Marriage isn't any big thing; it's a lot of little things." It's true. It's the little daily acts of kindess, the respectful and loving interactions, doing little things, like sending a quick text, that show you care for and are thinking of your spouse. It's the weekly date nights. The nightly pillow talk time. Praying together before bed. All these little things add up and build a great marriage over time. 

I don't make snacks and other foods as often as I used to. Partly because I work while the kids are at school so there's less time for it, and partly because when I do make it, I want to eat it and I have the personality type that likes to over indulge when it comes to food. So I like to eat a lot of these yummy things we make. So it's just better all around if I don't make them as often. But I did make a couple of batches of protein bars recently. They are delicious and I tried wrapping them up individually to help them last longer (so I wasn't always 'evening out the pan' if you know what I mean), but I found that it didn't help that much because I'd still just unwrap another protein bar as soon as I finished my last. So I won't be making them again for a bit. 

Penny recently turned one which means I take start increasing our running distances! Before she turned one, when she was around 8 months, I started jogging her for about a mile. Now we're up to 3 miles! It does tire her out, but she loves it all the same. We jog together once or twice a week, and I take her for 2 mile walks in the mornings a few days a week as well. 

Penny turned one on March 24. We celebrated by giving her a homemade banana and peanut butter muffin with cocowhip on top. She loved it and even took it outside and away from everyone else, probably just in case we decided it was too big and wanted to take some back, which we didn't. 

We are grateful Penny made us first-time pet owners by joining our family near the beginning of this crazy pandemic, even if she smells and drools and sheds a lot (I encourage her to spend a lot of time outdoors...I guess I'm more of an 'outdoor pet' kinda person.). It sure helped the kids get through all the quarantine time. And they still love her so much, even now that she weighs more than a couple of them (she's 70 lbs!)...we had wondered how that would go once she didn't look like a puppy anymore. 

Penny is loyal, loving, energetic and loves to be with her human pack as often as possible. Oh, and she loves food; she fits in with our family well. 

Prom 2021

Last month the high school decided to hold Prom in mid March! It only gave us a couple of weeks to find a dress, but she ended up finding a classmate on instagram who was renting out her dresses for $45 and one fit just right, minus being a little long. Our good friend April Murphy came to the rescue with her amazing hemming skills and got it fixed up and ready in time! 

Tanner asked Elisabeth with this cute banner and bundt cakes. 

The boys planned the day date. They went to Boondocks for a few hours doing gocarts and whatever else they have there, and then they got a late lunch and came back home to get ready. Lis did her own hair and I helped with makeup. After the dance they went over to a friends and hung out there for a couple of hours before making it home by midnight (which is an hour extension from our usual weekend curfew).