First Guests

We enjoyed our first guests to stay in our new guest room in the basement, Gramms and Abuelo. While it's not 100% completed, it was good enough for them to stay in and Jason's dad even helped with a couple of touch ups like adding a little mirror in the room and hanging some hooks on doors, etc. He also helped Jason with the long process of putting the banding on the edges of the shelving unit to finish that up. They ran out of banding, though, and now we have to wait for the rest to come in.

Here's our model to show it off.

While they were here the kids were on Spring Break. My assistant at school had asked off a while ago, so I was supposed to go in for "Spring Camp" during Spring Break. It worked out well because Erik went every day, which the structure is good for him, Austin went a couple times for the field trips with the school aged kids, and Victoria went a couple of times to help me out and the cook in the kitchen. Karissa decided to stay home every day (it turns out she got sick at the end of the break anyhow, so it was good she didn't go and spread her germs). They ended up sending me home early every day and I got Thursday off altogether. Those who stayed home were able to visit more with Gramms and Abuelo. Jason got some days off as well and could enjoy working and visiting with them at home.

Conference Sunday, after Gramms and Abuelo arrived.

Abuelo's birthday was the day before, so we had to celebrate!

The weather Spring Break was yucky- wet and cloudy/cold. It was fitting because Abuelo caught the cold the boys were getting over and the girls got sick too. What a week! Of course there's no vacation without a visit to the urgent care. On my day off, Erik sliced his finger with a little craft blade that was left on the floor. Luckily, they didn't give him stitches, just glued it together, but he got to wear this nice metal sling, and still is, to be on the safe side.

Gotta love the popsicles there!

Victoria and Austin found this turlte on the side walk coming home from school. She rode her bike rest of the way home carrying it!

They named him Trooper and we put him in our little pool with a rock. He's sliding into the water here. 

We let him go a couple of hours later.

  We went to the pool, played with some friends, and the boys and I went to a free bowling class.

The next week the kids were all back at school, so Gramms and Abuelo went to see a few things for one day before they had to care for Karissa and her pink eye that showed up again a few days after her first round of it during the break. On Good Friday we all went to a mall with a butterfly exhibit and a small train ride. It was a nice outing and still allowed Jason and Will to get some things done around the house before the ward Easter egg hunt and dinner. There was also a nice message given by the missionaries.

The butterflies were so cool!

Coloring Easter eggs.

We finally got nice weather on  Good Friday and it has been here since! Saturday, the kids played outside the entire time, almost. Kay and Will gave us an "updating your house" housewarming gift. It's this awesome gazebo that my neighbors got from Aldi last year and I've been eyeing it. Jason and Will set it up on Saturday and we were able to enjoy it that day and on Easter. The kids really like it too! Thanks, Kay and Will!

Love it!

Easter morning.

Can you guess what everyone got for Easter this year? We're going to Costa Rica in June, so they all got hydration packs and picked themsleves out a nice hat to help with the intense sun there.

Easter was lovely. All the flowers outside started to bloom and it was beautiful! I had told the kids that the only way they could look for their baskets before church was if they were all dressed from head to toe and had eaten breakfast with enough time to spare. Well, you can guess what happened. I couldn't help but smile as Erik was standing right in front of my face at 6:40am dressed in the outfit I was going to pick out for him, but didn't, including a tie! He got it out and on by himself and had a big ol' smile on his face at when he woke me up, again. Karissa and Austin had already been in to show me they were dressed as well, which was also cute, but not as much since they were in there earlier! Church was great as was the company and food at home. We invited our neighbor, Barb, who's a widow and her kids were out-of-town, to dinner.

Happy Easter and Happy Spring everyone!