How To Roll Easter Eggs

 Step One:  Boil eggs.  You might think this is an obvious first step, but we found out last year that some people don't realize you should actually boil the eggs.  I suppose mostly it was Floyd who discovered this when the unboiled egg splattered across his shoes.

Step Two:  Color eggs.  No need to get too fancy here.  You are, after all, planning to smash the eggs.

Step Three:  Take pictures of your favorites.  This step is probably optional.

Step Four:  Find a decent-sized hill to roll the eggs down.  We have a few really good ones we rotate through, but I'm not telling where cause we don't really like crowds.  If you don't mind crowds, Old Mail Hill is always a popular place -- and proof that we are not the only people who carry on this rather obscure tradition.

 Step Five:  Start throwing.

 

 

 Step Six:  Climb down the hill to retrieve any eggs that didn't break.  Be sure to take some little kids who don't roll too hard so there are lots of unbroken eggs.

 

Step Seven:  Watch out for eggs while you are down there.  Kids really like hitting people.

Step Eight:  Repeat steps 5, 6, and 7 as many times as needed.

 

 

 

 Optional:  Get a little Spring Training in while you are there.  It's good for throwing and hitting skills and funner than a batting cage (those things are scary!).

It's always a good time - just trust the smiles.

Easter

 You would think that since we have 1:00 church this year, getting ready with enough time to snap some good Easter pictures would be a doable thing.  Of course you would be wrong.  Because you forgot to factor in the fact that you spent the morning working on sewing projects (please no one tell my Grandma Donna - I don't want her to worry about me having to unpick those Sabbath sewn stitches in Heaven).

Oh, and by "you" in the above scenario, I of course mean me.  I'm sure none of you would have guessed that we'd actually have time to spare.  

So anyway, here are our quickly snapped shots before we headed off to church.  No yellow trees blossoming in the background this year (darn early Easter), but the tulips are almost ready to pop.  Hooray!

 Can you guess what word is on the tip of Ben's tongue in the pictures below? 

 

 

Cole still lets me pick his clothes for the most part.  That probably won't last much longer, so I'll enjoy it while I can. 

 

Annie, on the other hand, has been choosing her own clothes since she was two.  Luckily her taste isn't terrible (although it is frequently not seasonally appropriate - and she wonders why she gets cold!).

  Hope you all had a nice Easter and that you made it to church on time!

The Socialist Egg Hunt

So, every year I swear I am not going to take my kids to any of the Easter egg hunts because every one that we have attended where we live has been terrible.  I always cave last minute because, ya know, I'm a bit of a traditionalist. 

This year's was the worst.  We showed up and the announcer guy informed us all that each child got one egg.  Seriously.  One egg.  Cole looked at me and said (very calmly) "well that sucks."  I have to agree.

 

So they blew the whistle and all the kids ran to the very opposite end of the field, gathered up their one egg, and then ran back to wait in line to trade their egg for a treat.  The treat was a box of Peeps, the world's worst candy.

And that is when I turned into an Easter egg hunt scrooge.  Cause really, who sits around planning an egg hunt for kids and thinks, "I know.  We'll give them each just one egg and then make them wait in a long line to trade it for some yucky candy.  They'll have a blast!" 

Maybe I'm just too competitive, but I think our kids will all live if someone gets a couple more eggs than them in the egg hunt.  Sheesh.  I'm sticking to our family hunts. 

Zions

 We spent a couple days in Zion.  I haven't been for lots of years, so I was pretty excited to take my kids.  One of our first stops was Weeping Rock, which is a perfectly short trail for little kids.

 Then we hiked back to the Visitors Center. 

 

 The kids entertained themselves by playing "what's the password?" on the trail every ten feet or so and by playing a super original throw your jacket in the air game.  Whatever works for you.

Mom entertained herself by fiddling with camera settings.

 

Can you tell the difference?

 

 The next day we rode the shuttle all the way to the Temple of Sinawava and hiked along the Virgin River for a bit.  Had we not already worn the kids out hiking, I would have really liked to have hiked to the end of the trail where the Narrows begin.  Someday. 

Until that someday, we'll entertain ourselves by throwing rocks and sand in the river.  Endless entertainment right there.

 Anyone else have a few pictures like this one?  She'll really thank me for snapping it one day.

 She did redeem herself with a few nice shots thrown in the mix.

 

 

 There's not a lot of pictures of Cole cause I could not keep up with the kid.  It used to be that we hated to take him hiking cause he stopped to examine every single rock and plant and bug on the trail.  Every.Single.One.  Now, he runs up the trail and we just hold our breath that we'll meet up somewhere along the way.

We always found him in the end.   

 I didn't take any pictures of my favorite part - the tunnel road.  It probably has an official name, but I've already forgotten it.  I remembered it from when I was a kid and it honestly took my breath away at every switchback.  

What a beautiful place.  I hope it isn't another 20+ years until I make it back.

Temple

 We stopped by the St. George Temple on Sunday and felt a little bad that we were the only ones not in our church clothes, but oh well.

 I tried to give the kids a little history lesson and share all the stories I knew about the St. George temple (which is only about two), but they really only cared about running in the green grass.  It was a long winter around our parts.

 Despite their lack of enthusiasm for my pioneer stories, we all had a great time visiting the temple and I am always in awe of the pioneer temples.  It is just so amazing to me that they were able to build them.  Maybe that's cause I couldn't even manage the toothpick bridge in high school physics.

I suppose we really were on sacred ground, cause look at this miracle - a picture with all three children looking at the camera!

On the Rocks

 While we were in St. George, Floyd remembered a cool place he went to while he lived there and took us for a little rock exploring.  He then proceeded to have 17 heart attacks as the children climbed all over said rocks.  A bit of a Nervous Nelly is he.  

Not so much the kids.  They were everywhere and had a great time climbing all over the place.  We found lizards and silk worms and caterpillars and quite a bit of red sand.  It was great. 

 

 

 The highlight of the day (and the reason we came to this place) was this itty bitty crack in the rocks.  Floyd is too big to climb through and I am too claustrophobic (and might currently have a bit too big of a tummy for it), so Cole and Annie were on their own.  It didn't seem to phase them.  They both scampered right up and down it.  It's a little hard to tell, but it was definitely less than a foot wide in some places - maybe about 8 inches (but I'm not too reliable on this since I didn't actually go through it).

I was a little nervous about Annie, but she was all smiles when she came back down. 

 And not to be outdone, Floyd found his own tight spot to climb through.  It just wasn't so tight for the rest of us.

 Ben was in love with all the red sand and wouldn't leave without collecting his own little bag of it -- which he promptly dumped into his sandbox the morning after we made it back home.

It was a lovely day on the rocks.  What a fun place.