Arches

Most of the group--my sis-in-law and brother and a couple of Jared's cousins are missing.

Last weekend we went on a trip to Arches National Park with both of my brothers and their families (minus my sis-in-law and her newborn baby). The weather was looking cold and lousy, so instead of camping with them, we decided last minute to stay in a cheap motel in Moab.

Despite the cold and the wind, we never got rained on, and it was overall an extremely fun trip. Jared got really excited about all the arches and other famous landmarks, and he has already made a mental list of things we didn't get to see that he wants to see on our next trip. Jared was also thrilled about staying in a motel. This was his first time staying in a motel where he could actually remember it.

Jared did not even complain on any of the hikes we went on--he loved all of them! (Well, he did complain about the cold--but not that he was tired on the hikes.) I was so proud of him. Maggie also turned out to be quite the little hiker. She wanted to walk as much as possible and even walked the almost-mile to Landscape Arch all by herself! (It was more like "guided wandering" than hiking, but it worked out.)

One of the Windows

Turret Arch

Both "spectacles" with the nose in between

Double Arch

Sand Dune Arch. Our kids played here forever!

Landscape Arch

Jared and his cousin Collette

I didn't take any pictures of the last half of our hike on Saturday because it was just too cold and windy for people to pose for a picture. But we also hiked to Navajo Arch, which I had never seen before. It was a fun trip and we are looking forward to our next trip there!

Happy Easter

We had a lovely Easter weekend at our house. On Saturday we hosted my ENTIRE family over for the traditional dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, etc., which is a big accomplishment! Our house doesn't easily accommodate so many people, so we had to move around furniture to be able to set up some extra tables and folding chairs.

It ended up working out pretty well, and the weather decided to cooperate so that Jared and his cousins could play outside on our playground and have an Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries during the middle of the dinner, so I didn't get good pictures of the egg hunt nor the singing of "Happy Birthday" to my Mom and Alan. (We like to combine holidays in my family.)

It was a good excuse to dust off my china, silverware, and crystal goblets.

On Sunday, we had an awesome visit with Alan's brothers Spencer and Mason. We were originally hoping that we could host a nice dinner with about half of Alan's family (the half that wasn't out of town for Spring Break), but it turns out that no one could come for dinner except Mason. I think Spencer had pity on us and came to visit anyway, even though he couldn't stay for dinner. :)

Alan and Mason had a good long talk about Mexico, since Alan served his mission there and Mason will be leaving for his mission there in less than 2 months!!

Mason also brought treats from Alan's mom so that our kids could have another egg hunt. They loved it!!

Disneyland Follow-up

Nice hair, Amanda. :)

My cousin Amanda took these pictures of pictures on her phone. We loved figuring out where all the cameras were on all the rides and pulling funny faces. These four pictures were taken on California Screamin' and Space Mountain.

St. Patrick's Day

This post is out of order from the last post, but oh well. I don't usually make a big deal out of St. Patrick's Day (other than wearing green), but Jared had learned about it in preschool and was so excited about leprechauns and hidden gold, etc. The day before, he was telling Alan and me all about what would happen the next day: "A leprechaun would hide treasure in our house and turn a few things green."

So we hid some "treasure" (Reese's peanut butter cups) with a trail leading to it, and dyed our breakfast green. It wasn't much, but Jared loved it.

Our green pancakes, canadian bacon, and juice.

Jared made the leprechaun hat at preschool.

These are just two more random pictures of The Button:

This is typical Maggie: pantless and trying on someone else's shoes.

Sorry it is blurry.

Disneyland

We have been extremely busy lately. Not only have we spent the last few Saturdays doing random fix-its (we had to get new tires for our car, as well as a new washer and dryer), but we also spent 5 days in there somewhere babysitting 5 of my nieces and nephews while my brother and sis-in-law had a fun little getaway. That was an adventure. (We really were happy to do it, but let's just say that I'm not ready to be a mother of seven kids. Ha ha!)

Well, this past week we had some fun of our own. This same brother and sis-in-law of mine watched our kids for a few days while Alan and I went to Disneyland!! It was amazing! We wanted to be able to go at least once together before we took our kids, and my cousins Amy and Amanda were so awesome to go with us and show us the ropes. (I hadn't been to Disneyland for 8 years, and Alan hadn't been for 12--before California Adventure Land was there.)

We found an incredible deal on airfare (way cheaper than driving, in this case) and then were lucky to have some hook-ups to get 2-day park hopper tickets for the California resident price. (Some friends of ours in our ward were going to Disneyland the exact same days we were, and it was actually they who had the hook-ups. They were so nice to invite us to be included on the discount!) We stayed in a cheap hotel (it didn't even have hot water one of the nights we were there!), but it was decent enough.

It was such a fun trip! The weather was perfect and it wasn't very crowded, since we went on a Tuesday and Wednesday. We became Fast Pass ninjas and only had to wait in a real line a few times on the entire trip. Our goals was to get our fill of all the grown-up rides so that in a few years when we take our kids we will be content spending most of our time on the kid rides. I think it worked. :)

Here is Alan taking a rest before we saw the fountain/water show "World of Color" at Cali Adventure Land:

Here we are at the park entrance:

I chose to only carry around my camera for one of the two days we were there, so I don't have many pictures. But we had a blast! I got to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams: to eat at the Blue Bayou (the fancy restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.) We made reservations weeks in advance and had to pay extra to split a meal, but the food was amazing (Monte Cristo sandwich, scalloped potatoes, salad, gumbo, and green beans) and the atmosphere was so fun! Also, apparently our food took a long time to arrive (we didn't notice since it was feeling so good to rest our feet!), so our server gave us two free desserts. We got creme brulee and a fancy layered chocolate cake with ice cream. A-MAZING. I seriously will never forget it.

I think every couple should take a trip to Disneyland without children at some point. It was so good for us to get away. (Before this trip, we had never spent more than one night away from the kids. I was terribly nervous about leaving not-quite-two-years-old Maggie, but she seemed to do fine without us.)

I feel rejuvenated but am itchy to go again. Just ask Alan. I keep talking about it. :)

Walking Thesaurus

A couple days ago Jared came up to me and said, "Mommy, do you know what the word mend means?"

I said, "What does it mean, Jared?"

He said, "It means to fix, repair, or sew."

Seriously. He is a genius. (I'm sure he learned this on pbskids.org. He loves to play on the computer.)

Cutie

Here is a picture of my newest niece! She is so adorable! I got to hold her for the first time last night, and I immediately fell in love...

P.S. I crocheted the baby blanket that was used in this photo shoot. :)