Spring Break

I had lots of intentions for Spring Break and we filled our time.

Swimming Lessons

The kids have been eager to get back in the water after a several month hiatus. There were 4 days of swimming and lessons were 40 minutes each day.  After some reviewing for Izzy, the children got back into the groove. James has been bragging about managing to grab the rope on the last day. I let the kids pick new swimming suits. Izzy and Penny have matching suits (stay tuned for pics this summer). Penny's is a long-sleeved version though because we've got to protect those baby rolls.

Ninja Kids

Since we have a one month membership to Ninja Kids, we utilized our passes. The weather during spring break was less than ideal. In fact, it snowed 3 days, maybe even 4. The snow didn't really stick, but the point is that it was cold enough to snow. Because of this, we weren't able to ride our bikes to Cold Stone like we wanted.

Afterword the kids requested this photo. They were wiped out.

Thanksgiving Point

We have been antsy to go to the new exhibit at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. We've been debating getting a pass to Thanksgiving Point and finally went for it. We're members! I think we will use these passes lots! We went to Thanksgiving Point twice over spring break. On Monday, we went to the Museum of Ancient Life with the Bradshaws and on Friday we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity again with the Bradshaws for Adrianna's birthday. We also tried out the new carousel. Unfortunately 2 buses full of children joined us at the Museum of Natural Curiosity and it was overcrowded. We have plans to go to the Tulip festival in a few weeks when Jessica is in town too.

Rent "Wonka" and get popcorn from the theater.

Andrew finally got to see this movie! He has heard the songs repeatedly playing at our house. I didn't get to watch much because drum roll... I was busy booking flights for our family to go to BRAZIL! What! I still can't believe it's actually happening. We originally planned on spending Christmas in Brazil this year, but things changed and we're now going in May/the beginning of June. Brazil recently changed their travel guidelines and it's now required to have a travel visa to enter, so we frantically filled those applications out for each of us. Many thanks to my parents for paying for this once in a lifetime experience! 

See "Fiddler on the Roof" with Grandma

Grandma Langlois turned 86 today. My siblings went in on a new Firestick TV for her and her excitement level is through the roof.  Andrew and I helped her get the new TV set up. It turned into an adventure. We had to figure out the name of her WIFI, create an Amazon account for her, figure out passwords for multiple apps,  etc. but it all worked out. She was thrilled and made Andrew and I her special root beer freezes. For Grandma's birthday, I got her a ticket to see the play "Fiddler on the Roof" with me at Hale Center Theater. I was completely blown away by the production. It was one of the best plays I've seen there. The performers replicated the emotion to a t. Tevye put his whole heart into his role and nailed it. I ran into Brenda Stott there from our old ward in Pleasant Grove which was a nice surprise.

Big thanks to Andrew for driving to pick grandma up for the play during rush hour. This took him about an hour and 15 minutes due to traffic and a big accident. When I drove grandma home after the play, the freeway was deserted.

Invite the Thomans over for games and cookies!

We have new friends in our neighborhood thanks to James! The Thomans are great. They have 2 kids and one (Josh) is in James' class at school. We had such a great time playing "Cover Your Assets," "Just One," and "No Thanks" with them. We even let the kids stay up late. 8:30 feels like midnight sometimes around here. I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for that night and couldn't seem to stay away from the dough...

Other random Spring Break Happenings:

• The kids had playdates. James played with Taft twice- once at our house and once at his. Izzy went to Cantrelle's house and Quinn came to ours.
• We cleaned my parent's house.
• We organized our basement.
• I set up a dessert night with friends at "The Chocolate."
• Andrew went to the temple.
• Andrew and I did an at home date night. We got Cafe Rio and rented the movie, "The Boys in the Boat."

Penelope is too big! Makes me sad. This girl was a trooper. Keeping up with her 2 older siblings meant she missed many naptimes, but she survived and smiled as big as ever.

Easter

As I testified to our kids about Jesus' resurrection, I was touched. We had a still moment Sunday morning that turned out just like I hoped. We read 2 books about Easter, watched some church videos, and did our egg activity (each egg has a scripture and object in it). The kids were engaged, Penny was napping, and it was something I want to remember among the chaos (choir practice, family video call, dying Easter eggs, etc). There was a musical program at church that I helped organize which turned out well. I'm relieved it's over. I think it's the biggest ward choir we've had and we sounded amazing (I'm not biased at all. I did have to stop singing briefly so I wouldn't get choked up as I thought about the words.) Later we had a delightful dinner at the Bradshaw's home.

I had the week off of teaching piano and thought I'd have much more spare time than I did, but oh well. I got to spend quality time with the kiddos.