Spring

With spring comes General Conference. This one, because of our circumstances, was an unforgettable experience, as predicted by President Nelson last October. Jason and I were supposed to be in Chile, but we ended up being home and listening to all the beautifully written talks that were prepared, mostly, before this pandemic. A few people probably added some things to make it applicable to what we're going through, currently, but for the most part, they were things we needed to hear regardless. I especially loved the Solemn Assembly and President Nelson's reading of the Proclamation of the Restoration. The announcement of the new temples to be built, the worldwide fast for today, and the apostolic blessing for all of us were particularly significant, spiritual highlights.

We enjoyed celebrating my mom's birthday a little early, before she left, with a cake Karissa made. My mom ended up going back a few days early since it's getting so bad here in the Detroit area and she should be with Jim again. Her first flight was canceled, but she ended up getting another one for the evening. She said it was another empty flight with a lot of people cleaning everything around meticulously. Before she left, we enjoyed a hike in a new area, and even took Jason back there 5 days later because we loved it so much!

Usually, Jason doesn't get off over spring break, but Ford made everyone take off this week, so it was nice to be able to go for a hike with him and enjoy a day of absolutely perfect weather! We got a lot of yard work done that day too. It's a good thing we keep an eye on the weather because that beautiful weather was on Wednesday and Tuesday and Thursday were days we needed to mostly be inside due to rain, hail, wind, and even some snow yesterday. We played lots of games inside and Victoria is the Battleship Queen! She beat everyone, some of us a couple of times. Erik did beat her once, but she also beat him more than once. Karissa did a lot of art and completed painting a pair of shoes that she'd been working on for over a week.

Victoria and Karissa worked on this family poster for a while and finally finished it during General Conference.

Karissa's night and day shoes.

Victoria painted the garden plot for us to earn some money. She's taking care of the seedlings in the greenhouse as well. Hopefully, we have a great garden!

We planted this little evergreen that started out as a small sapling that Austin brought home from school a few years ago. His siblings all brought them home whenever they were in that particular grade in school ( I can't remember which grade!), but his is the only one that survived. Lucky Austin!

Karissa painted this just for fun.

We look forward to Easter weekend. It will be a memorable, spiritual time, I'm sure!