Garden Time

Yesterday, we planted spinach, 2 types of lettuce, walla walla onions, 2 types of carrots, and herbs in our garden. Kiersten really wanted to help so I found a Dora the Explorer gardening spade at Lowe's. She really loves to dig holes! This morning when she woke up, she told me we had to check the carrots. I think it is going to be a long couple of weeks until those little carrot seeds start to sprout!

We will also be planting zuchinni, brocolli, pole beans, snow peas, and cucumbers in the garden. We will do tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets and hopefully a potato mound. I really hope we can have a decent harvest so we can be excited to do it again next summer.

Track Meet

Lauren had her one and only track meet on Saturday. The elementary kids would meet once a week after school to practice their skills. There was another track meet last month but Lauren was sick so I'm glad she got to participate yesterday. She did the softball throw, long jump, 100 meter dash, and 4 x 100 meter relay. She placed 4th in her heat in the 100 meter dash. For that she earned a pink ribbon!

K-I-E-R-S-T-E-N

Easter Dreams

After the rousing success of St. Patrick's Day, you would think I would have gone all out for Easter. Boy, are you wrong! The kids did an Easter Egg hunt or two and I bought Kiersten a new dress. Let me explain.

When I was a kid, my mom would set out one Easter basket with all the candy in it to split between the siblings. We spent the morning dividing the candy one jelly bean at a time. I know how much I hated having to share with my brothers and sisters so I vowed when I had kids, they would each get their own Easter basket. I think that lasted only a couple of years with Connor and Bryce. Candy and Easter themed goodies are expensive! Not only that, the kids really don't need more candy after Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's Day!

For playgroup, Kiersten did have an egg hunt in the park. I splurged and purchased two buckets of prefilled eggs, one to hide for Kiersten and her friends and the other to do with our kids. The day before Easter, Lauren ended up going with a friend to their family egg hunt and was gone all day so she missed the eggs I hid for the kids in the backyard.

Also, the day before Easter, I decided I would get a new dress for Kiersten and searched through 5 stores before I found one that was cute and not 100% cotton. Kiersten warranted a new dress mainly because she is growing SOOO tall! Lauren was really disappointed she didn't get a new dress but if you could see her closet, she definitely DOES NOT need any more clothes! Lauren was also very disappointed when she woke up on Easter morning and found the Easter Bunny did not visit our house.

I have read many blogs and looked at many Facebook pages where people have shown all the goodies their kids got for Easter. It kind of makes me feel like I should have done more for my kids but on the other hand, Easter is not about the Easter Bunny. Easter is about Jesus Christ; His Crucifiction and His Resurection. How thankful I am for my Elder Brother.

The Looonnnggg Way Home

On a good day, the trip between our house and the Grandparents Reid's house is 12 1/2 hours including gas, bathroom, and lunch stops. We began our journey at 6:00 AM and made good time with traffic being very light. The kids were doing well, watched some movies, had some snacks, and dozed now and again. We got past Yakima and saw there was a road advisory. After listening to the radio, we discovered there was a back-up in Snoqualmie Pass due to lanes being closed for avalanche precautions. Had this advisory been posted earlier in our journey, we would have detoured through Portland. No big deal however, we were now past the point where we could have easily turned around without adding tons of additional driving time. Long story short, we waited out the delay in the Pass. It was stop and go for just over 2 hours but we made it home much later than anticipated, ready to not be couped up in the van for a long time.

You can kind of see Lauren's sleeve behind Hunter and Bryce is crashed out on the back seat under the gray blanket. We did not leave any children behind!

The Gateway

One of the highlights of our Spring Break trip to Idaho and Utah was a ride on the Front Runner train from Ogden to The Gateway in SLC. The train took an hour to get to SLC and then we hopped on a trolley to get to The Gateway. The weather was cold and snowing. We all came dressed in light jackets thinking the mall would be inside. Instead it was a glorified strip mall. Shopping would have been much more pleasant in warm Spring weather. The kids didn't seem to mind though. Hunter, Lauren, and Kiersten spent their money at Build-A-Bear. Bryce had fun at Game Stop and Connor finally got to spend his gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods that he received last summer from his old baseball team. We also had a picnic lunch in the food court and visited a couple of other stores before we returned to Ogden. Thanks Grandma and Papa for a fun day! And especially Grandma for funding some of the kids shopping!!