My whole family decided to spend Easter in Idaho and it was fun.  The girls of course were so excited to go to Mimi and Grandpa's house. So much so that Lila pulled out all of her clothes in preparation for packing. I wondered what she was doing so quietly--we whittled it down to what we would need for a weekend trip.


The Easter Bunny is always fun. Lila got the much coveted Merida and her horse Angus, even Ellie knew how excited Lila would be.















Mimi and Grandpa gave the girls some clothes and beach towels. :)

Then we hunted for eggs after breakfast.  Uncle Jakey was a good assistant to the Easter Bunny--hiding the eggs while we finished opening Easter presents (it was too cold for the Eater Bunny to do it at night). There were a ton of eggs and the girls had a ball searching all over the large yard for them.



Checking out the loot.

We spent the rest of Saturday relaxing and hanging out. Steve and Grandpa went for a bike ride. The crew tried out the new paddle boards Grandpa bought and everybody enjoyed it including the girls sitting on the front while the adult paddled around (didn't get any picture though). It was a nice weekend to spend with family and the girls love going to Mimi and Grandpa's house.

I am grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. For His life and the opportunity that we get to celebrate that He lives and that through Him we can live again too!

It has been a super busy and fun week.

Lila's joy school went on a field trip to the Hill Aerospace Museum.  They had a ball.  Lila kept repeating, "museum" like it was a new word. She said this is her favorite plane because it has polka-dots. Another note, is that she was so excited to take a lunch to school like Ellie that she carried it the whole time without a complaint. ;)

We made a stack of rainbow pancakes for breakfast on Saturday since Mom has a 7am meeting on Sunday and couldn't make them on St. Patrick's Day. Look at those smiles. I don't think they cared what day they got them. :) Add a dollop of whip cream for a cloud and we're set.



We then got busy loading bikes and packing a lunch so we could go out to Antelope Island after Ellie's gym class. We were hoping to do a family bike ride together, but most of the trails there are really meant for mountain bikes. So after a little exploring which we saw Antelope run across the road and right out our window and Bison we sent Steve off on his own trail ride.

The girls and I went to the visitor's center and then out to the beach area. Which they love! 












The girls played for 1.5 hours. Steve joined us when he completed his ride (which when we got home both of his tires were flat--serious riding).

Then we had a chance to visit with Mimi for a bit before she headed off to the airport and Grandpa found these mini greenhouses that the girls have planted and are so excited about.

We made our leprechaun trap. It is a "Gold Vault". Ellie actually made gold coins with eagles on them to put down in the trap. We thought once he fell down in he wouldn't be able to get out, but he must have had a friend with him who lowered in our clover decoration that he used to climb out with--spilling the coins Ellie made along the way.  Ellie said, "I knew we should have pulled all the clovers off of that." :)











Then as they escaped through the door they dropped a $1,000,000 that turned into a candy bar. Better luck next year! 

My Dad told me last Tuesday that in a couple of weeks all of the snow would be gone and I thought 'yeah right'. Well here we are almost a week later and there is barely any snow in our front yard (the backyard may have snow for a bit longer because it is in the shadow of the house, but we take it in strides here). I wish I would have taken a picture of the snow at its height in our yard, but alas I did not so it is just an image in my head right now of the snow so tall it almost reached the lowest branches on our trees, so deep that the girls couldn't walk through it, so deep that it took several passes with a snow blower to clear it. Now the sun has come out and it was a glorious day! We got the girls bikes out and Ellie practiced without training wheels again--she did pretty good a little nervous about turning and there was still some snow encroaching the sidewalks that intimidated her. Lila rode the training wheel bike like a champ. They even wore their helmets without complaint. Then Steve and I got out our mountain bikes and the bike trailer and went for a 10 mile bike ride. WHEW! Steve forgets how used to a bike seat he is--my hiney was sore from sitting on that seat for an hour and my legs were a bit jello-ish, but that means a good workout right. :) Then we went on a date--wahoo! We decided to go to Smith & Edwards and check it out and guess what . . . they had airless solid rubber tires for my jogging stroller for half the price I could find anywhere else. I could sing a chorus of HALLELUJAH! I'm so excited to never have to fix a flat on my jogging stroller ever again! By way of side note, I had the jogging stroller for 5 years before we moved here and only got a flat once. After moving here I was fixing/changing tires every other day. We tried thicker tubes, we tried green goo, we tried the plastic protectors I think we spent more than double the cost of the $20 solid tires just trying to fix the tires--such an exciting investment!! Well other fun things of the day include Ellie starting a new gym class, the girls going to Home Depot with Steve for the kid project-race cars, and just an all around good day. Oh and did I mention my insane desire to spring clean. Since we've been married I've never really 'spring cleaned'. I would tackle big projects throughout the year, but something about being inside all winter and the strong desire to spend as much time out in the garden or cleaning the garage when the weather gets warmer has spurred me to spring clean. I organized our cold storage with shelves and put the food storage away, I cleaned and organized the kitchen cabinets so the countertops are much less cluttered, now I want to do some touch up painting (hence the reason I sent Steve to Home Depot while I was at a baptism, I need some spackle to fill holes). Life is good!