Spring break and Easter

 Saturday March 30 we drove to John and Pauline's Escalante cabin to spend Easter with them and part of our Spring break week with cousins. We went to Easter sacrament meeting with both wards combined in town. This is the bell outside the ward building.

James gave me a cuddle in church and I wanted to sneak a look to see if he was asleep and ended up taking a picture.

Then we had an Easter egg hunt with the cousins! Ben — who was the oldest of the whole crew by a lot — helped hide the eggs and then helped Lou find some eggs.

The hunter-gatherers and their spoils.

The days were full of playing games: board games, card games, adventure games, role-player games, all thanks to the Robertsons. The boys told me they really had fun. We played Azul, Roam, Silver Coin, 7 Wonders Architects, Gnoming-A-Round, Cover Your Cookies, and more.

There was lots of outside play, too, down by the creek and the fort. You'll notice our youngest child kept sneaking outside in her pajamas.

Making treats was also a hit.

Ben and Lou were often together. She would find him and hang out by him or he would go find her to tease her.

We did have a sad hour or so when James fell into a cactus and I had to pull out the needles as he screamed and cried.

Then later I found this selfie on my camera with the cabin's bear so he rallied.

On Tuesday we took a great hike to 100 hands, by the Escalante River trailhead. These are petroglyphs high up on a cliff face.

Papa and the grandkids (Lou also came and was such a trooper).

Papa accidentally stuck his hand in a cactus while gaining his balance on a hill. He was much more stoic and calm than James was earlier in our stay.

That day JB and Suzanne made homemade pizzas in the pizza oven with Suzanne's homemade sourdough crusts. We all sat outside and ate under the blue skies and this might have been my favorite meal.

Seth brought BB guns and slingshots and the kids had fun shooting at the target.

And we had a couple rides in the side-by-side.

All too soon we were back at home in the city! I need to get my children out among sticks and dirt and nature more often. Thank you, John and Pauline!

The Frozen play

Andrew was part of the ensemble in the Frozen play at the middle school and I don't know who was more excited, him for the fun time or Millie for the fact that it was Frozen. The rehearsals took months and the week of the play he had long days. The play was well done and really fun.

The tickets sold fast, so we grabbed what we could. JB went opening night with Millie (dressed as Anna).

This was Andrew's townsperson costume for the last scene.

James got to see the play during the school day on a field trip. Then on Saturday, closing night, I took Ben, James and Millie.

We were sitting on opposite sides.

Here's the closing number with everyone together.

Here's the cast picture for Andrew on the wall.

 

Every night we read a book of Frozen short stories before Millie goes to bed. She loves it so much. 

Max did the play when he was in 7th grade, too, (it was Peter Pan, see this post) but then got too busy with basketball the next year and Ben was always too busy with basketball.

February happenings

Here's a family update for February. These pictures came up of Elder Richards in his Google photos from El Paso.

Ben went to the Sweethearts Dance in February.

Papa, Nona and Scott came to one of Ben's home games.

 Ben had his last sophomore and JV games of the season. 

I took Ben and Andrew and one of Ben's friends to the temple early before school one morning.

The Chiefs won the Super Bowl on the day I was running round Maui on my last assignment and then heading to the airport. And of course Max was staying faithful and not watching the game. But we were both grateful to learn about the Chiefs' win!

JB and the kids went to dinner with the Richards that day.

JB took the kids to Crown Burger (which Millie called Burger Crown) and to Costco while I was gone. Another time we all went to Costco again for lunch.

JB and James went to the Utah Jazz game with James's Jr Jazz tickets.

James and Millie made axolotl Valentine's Day boxes for school.

We watched National Treasure for a movie night.

Millie continues to get into bed with us in the morning and take my phone for a few minutes.

JB went to 2nd grade's donuts with grownups at the school.