Maxwell House

We headed out for our spring break vacay on my birthday. It was a nice birthday . . . I went to the park with 2 classes from my kids' school that had won a pizza party - Jonas' class and Emmy's class. As I was leaving all the 1st and 3rd graders sang "Happy Birthday" to me. Awesome.

The car ride was enjoyable - we listened to new CDs (Into the Woods and the Okee Dokee brothers) plus some books on CDs (I made Ben - and everyone else, but me and the boys had already read it - listen to Origami Yoda. It's hilarious - as evidenced by Ben actually laughing out loud.) Dinner was late, but was at Cafe Rio and so that was cool.

Anyways, lots of pictures to detail the rest of our trip:

On Saturday (after many errands), we met up with some friends that had recently moved from Montrose to St. George. We hiked around the "Dixie rocks" and had fun.

Then we went downtown to cool off in the splash pad. Fun, fun!

Lucy and a cute Ezra.

Emmy loving holding baby Enoch.

Jonas adores little ones!

That's my friend Cassidy. She's great. And she's crazy, too - 4 kids, 4 and under! Aiyiyi. :) Her kids are adorable though and it was fun to get together with them!

I went to the Women's broadcast and while I was away Ben made my one-day late Birthday cake. I had requested (and pinned) a Neapolitan rice krispie cake. It was Delish.

After church and lunch on Sunday, we went on a drive to a ghost town called Grafton. It has this really super old and cool (in a weird way) cemetery. Lots of little kids buried there. Some were buried that were "killed by Indians." Even some Indians were buried there. So interesting.

An old log home in town.

The town. :) The school-house/church and a home. The log home was in back of me. It was actually a pretty little spot for a town.

That night we watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. What a crazy movie! But it was fun and the kids all liked it. :)

On Monday we went and hiked around the Red Cliffs Recreation area. It was pretty neat.

A cute bunch.

This was a little tricky of a climb and Ben thought Lucy might need help or just to stay down at the bottom. Well, by the time he said that, Lucy was already half-way up - like it was nothing. Go Lucy!

Cute sisters who like flipping their caps up.

I'd like a Lucy on the rocks, please.

One hike took us to this pool. Kind of cool. Actually, the water was very cool! There is a water-slide that you can slide on in to the pool. I never saw anyone actually do it. Miles found and caught a toad here. That was cool, too.

We were recommended to try out Judd's and so we did. It's a quaint store - with old-time candies, sodas, ice cream, etc. Jonas chose a lime soda. Yum.

Emmy was a little unsure of finishing up her cone! But, with a lot of hard help from her dad, she did. :)

On Tuesday we made it a "kids' day" (isn't every day practically a kids' day?!) and went to Fiesta Fun. The mini-cars were sure fun - for everyone, but Lucy especially. :)

Vrooom, vroom!

They all loved it.

Me driving with Miles.

Ben with Emmy.

I missed pictures of their favorite stuff: the bumper boats. They were able to "drive" their own and spray other people. They loved it. Me, not so much. It was nice that they (minus Lucy, but she didn't love it either) could go in and do it themselves. They also loved Lazer-Tag. Lucy couldn't do it either - too short, so I hung out with her. Ieven got to drive a mini-car. Awesome. But the kids really loved lazer-tag! So that was a fun day.

That night we had our friends, same friends from Saturday (the Marshalls), over for dinner. It was a nice evening. But then I started to not feel so great. A little sore throat and a headache. That night I didn't sleep well at all. I woke up feeling miserable - horrendous sore throat, bad headache, and a very achy, achy body. Ugh. But it was the day we were going to Zions and so we just went. It wasn't very pleasant for me (but neither would it have been nice just staying at home all day either).

In Zions.

Miles loved the hanging gardens on the rocks. Very cool.

This little hike took us to the beginning on the Narrows hike. It was pretty with the tall, towering Zion rock walls.

Weeping rock. Emmy didn't make it quite to the top. She was very angry about having to hike some more. So she stopped 100 feet before she would have gotten to the top. Silly.

Lunch time - yay!

Our backdrop for our lunch. Very pretty.

The kids all worked very diligently on their Junior Ranger packets and so each one earned their pin. Awesome.

I just felt miserable all day. My back, hips. and legs just ached and ached. My throat had never felt more sore. What a bummer. I had another crummy night with frequent wakings, many moanings, and some 2-4 am reading.

Thursday my throat was still killing and so I decided to try an Insta-Care. Well the wait was 2-hours and so I just didn't do it. We ended up going to see Cinderella - loved it. Then we went bowling and had fun there, too. Although I think I bowled my worst game ever: 48! Hahaha. Both boys beat me with 50 points each. :) I blame it on my sickness. :)

We went out to dinner that night. I was feeling a teensy-bit better - my throat still killed, but at least my body-aches were gone.

Then at 2:30 am I was awoken by a terrible earache. I went in to the bathroom for a bit and just sat and moaned. By 3am I decided to read. While reading there was a loud pop in my ear - and a teeny tiny relief. My eardrum had perforated. I finally was able to get back to sleep around 5am for a couple of hours.

On Friday morning I went to the Insta-care again - this time I got there right before they opened and so there was only 1 person in front. Yay. The doc checked out my ear and said there was a small perforation caused by my ear infection. He looked at my throat and said, "Wow, it is really red and I see a lot of pus." The rapid-stress test came back positive of course. So I got some horse-pill of antibiotics that I get to take twice a day for 10 days.

We headed out of St. George (Ben did most of the cleaning while the kids watched The Apple Dumpling Gang and I was getting checked out) and to Provo.

Ben commented several times about my sickness, "I wonder when I'll get it . . .?" By Friday morning he was starting to feel it coming on. Neither of us have current physicians because they have moved. So he tried to call a doc he works with to see if she would write a prescription for him. She didn't think she could do one out of state. Bummer, Ben really wanted to get a head of it and start taking something!

Well . . . as we drove in to BYU's parking lot, we see some friends from Montrose: the Osorio family. As in President Osorio (of the Spanish branch) and Doctor Osorio as well. Short story: Ben was able to get a prescription for zithromax. Happy day and lucky guy.

I didn't get pictures of what my kids' favorite activity was in St. George: swimmming! We took the kids pretty much every morning - plus a few "bonus" evening-swims. There was never anybody else in the pool - there were 2 couples once in the hot tub, but that was it. So that was pretty spectacular.

Back to Friday . . . we did a few things at BYU . . . like Ben buying garments, walking around the Erying Science building and doing a few of their hands-on cool science activities, eating at the Cougar-eat (minus me . . . still feeling yucky), etc. Then we drove to my parents' home in Miday - who were gone at a mission-reunion in Orem.

Saturday = Easter Bunny Saturday. Yep, the Bunny did find us in Midway and left eggs for us to find and baskets to hunt:

Finding eggs!

Easter baskets found!

Ben and I went on a good walk that morning and then it was General Conference time. After the first session and lunch, the winds picked up . . . which was perfect since the Easter Bunny had brought kites for each kid!

Seriously, the wind could not have been better nor come at a more perfect time (it was totally calm in the morning!).

It was hard to get great pictures, but the kids really loved flying their kites.

They got them up so high - Ben couldn't get both kid and kite in one picture. :)

Awwww, Lucy.

Look how thrilled my dad is at flying Miles' kite! :)

Just proof that my mom was there, too. :)

The kids were invited by some of my mother's *young* friends and ward member, who just happened to be there as well, to join a bunch of kids in an easter-egg hunt. So my kids got 20+ more plastic eggs filled with candy. They were happy!

We finished up conference that afternoon and then went out to dinner. Ben and my dad went to priesthood session that night and Ben came home and gave us a "report" on the talks. A very nice day.

Sunday included our Conference breakfast, then more conference. Then we ate a yummy Asian left-overs-from-the-reunion lunch. Then we drove home. :(

That's about it, and definitely enough! Go buy yourself a treat if you read the whole thing. If it's under $1, you can send the bill to me and I'll pay it. :)

I had to beg him for this gift . . .

The gift of cutting his hair! Now, I like long hair in boys. Funny, I also like bald hair in boys . . . But Miles didn't like doing his hair and also has NO clue how to do hair or how to style his hair. And it was just getting long and unruly. And his hair long in the winter time is just kind of flat . . . as opposed to a more wavy look in the summer. He still had some curl, but not much.

Anyways, I've begged him to get it cut. But he didn't want it buzzed like Ben did to Jonas a couple of weeks ago. (Also, the gal that I would have do it couldn't do it this week, then we are gone next week . . .)

So I found a video on youtube and got an idea of a non-buzz cut. (Besides a "buzz-cut," I've never really cut my boys' hair.)

Here is Miles' "BEFORE" look:

I look at this picture and think, "This doesn't look too bad." But, really and 99% of the time, his hair looked . . . not good (i.e., ugly and messy and super unkempt).

He is pretty wimpy at getting his hair cut! "OW!" was a frequent exclamation made by him. I was using trimmers with guards on them. Seriously child? He's goofy. He does HATE the hair on his body, which makes him super itchy. But I, being the professional I am not, did make him a cape out of a trash bag and even clipped it so it was extra-tight around the neck. :)

Here are 2 "AFTER" pictures:

I think it turned out alright! It's not perfect and there are some longer hairs here and there and some unevenness here and there, but for a first time, it ain't too bad. :) I did a shorter guard on the bottom, a longer one at the top, and then "blended" in the 2 with 2 other guards. Whatever. (Oh, but it was so hard at first because I was shaving the bottom part and the top part was soooo long I couldn't even see what I was doing. Yes, of course I should have shaved all of his hair a bit first of all, but I didn't think of that until too late! It was nuts.)