Arizona Easter Trip-5th stop The Temple Pagent

Look at my eyes.....do they look Chinese??? When I was young my sister use to say my eyes looked Chinese when I cried or when I was tired. Well, I am absolutely tired. This was a LONG LONG day. After the zoo, we loaded onto the bus and went to Mesa to wait for the temple pagent to begin. We waited 5 long hours. The kids didn't mind because we hung out at Pioneer Park and they just played. Justin, Curtis, Kaylee, Kimberly, Courtney, and Callie walked through the irrigation water and played on the playground. They were perfectly content. Us old folks on the other hand, needed a nap. Tyler helped keep us awake by making a Dairy Queen run. Those blizzards and dilly bars never tasted so good.

The pagent was great!! All of my kids made it through the whole thing without falling alseep. Unfortunately, Justin didn't give it as good of reviews as I did. He said, "That was boring". He got a laugh out of the people behind us. Kaylee was glued to the pagent. She kept wondering if it was really Jesus or someone playing him.

Another fun day has come to an end.

Arizona Easter Trip-4th stop The Zoo

Who knew the busiest day of the year for the Zoo is Good Friday??? Obviously, not us. We pulled up in the bus and were informed there was no room for the bus to park. Needless to say, Merlin (the driver) was not happy. We got dropped off and headed to the gates only to see enormous lines. Brent found some worker who told us to go to the school entrance-this is one of the perks of a family of 40. There was no waiting and we got in for school prices. It was $4.50 each instead of $14.50 per person. What a deal!!

Our kids hav always loved to zoo. We saw every animal. Courtney and Kaylee loved the monkeys. They each got a stuffed animal. Courtney's was a purple monkey that can wrap around you. Kaylee got just the traditional monkey. Now normally, I wouldn't spend $12 on a stuffed animal. But we had told the kids they could each pick out 1 present from our trip. And I knew without a doubt that Kaylee and Courtney would play and play and play with their monkeys. They love stuffed animals. Kaylee sleeps with at least 10 in her bed. I don't know how she has any room for herself. But don't take one away because she will know it is missing.

Here is a picture of the best $10 we have ever spent. Renting a stroller to use at the zoo. I can only imagine who many times we would've heard, "Carry me" if we didn't rent one.

We finished our day at the zoo by seeing the lions and then playing in some shade by the playground. It is amazing that it was soooooo hot. Now 2 1/2 years ago we wouldn't have said 88 degrees was hot....but now we think so.

Arizona Easter Trip-3rd stop dinner

It's fun to watch as the bus pulls up and off we get. I always wonder what the people watching us are saying. So off the bus we got at Hometown Buffet. Where else can you seat a group of 40 people together? Dinner was fine, but then at the very end a balloon man came by. Yep, you guessed it, all the kids wanted balloons. Courtney got a kitty, Kaylee a butterfly, Justin a scorpion, and Curtis Spiderman.

We were so happy that Lonn and Teryl's family came on this trip. Justin and Curtis were inseperable. Kaylee and Kimberly were never far apart. It was great to spend time with them.

Arizona Easter Trip-2nd stop Baseball game

The enjoyment of the AZ spring weather didn't last long. The minute we got to the baseball game, I knew we were in trouble. It had to be about 86 degrees. Which was at least 25 degrees warmer than our warm in Cedar. We sat in the grass section for about 3 minutes. Tyler was off to get food, and poor Courtney was already turning red from being hot. So I headed straight for the shade. I watched about 2 pitches out of the whole game. Our whole family took over the shade. My kids and a bunch of cousins ran around and played. It was a great blessing to have the shade. We never would've made it through the game.

Don't you love Dayna's homemade hat??? It is a nacho container tied on with string. You have to give this woman pointers for creativity.

This was such a cute sight walking out of the baseball game. All the little girl cousins are holding hands with their aunts Heidi and Alicia. Dane can barely be seen on the far right side. I said from behind it looked like Dane was the poligamist father with his 2 wives and his five little girls.

Arizona Easter Trip-1st Stop Montezuma's Castle

Wednesday, everyone loaded onto the bus (except me-I drove our car). All was going according to plan until I hit a traffic jam about 1 hour outside of Flagstaff. I sat and sat for over an hour. Then as traffic began to go, my battery died on my car. I guess I had the key turned over too far and drained the battery. So I was franctically getting help to jump my car. Some nice people loaned me their jumper cables, and then as I said traffic moved. So they didn't wait for me and I couldn't return their cables. I kept looking at each car I passed to see if it was them. No such luck!

Thursday morning, we headed to Montezuma's castle. I was pretty interesting to see a village built into the side of a mountain. This was our first glimpse of the nice Arizona spring weather. After a short stop of about an hour, it was back onto the bus.

Easter

Holy cow, two weeks have flown by and I haven't had a minute to breathe. Just keep reading and you'll see why. It all started about a week before Easter. What a fun Sunday afternoon activity, coloring Easter eggs. I boiled up 2 dozen eggs (which we are still eating) for the kids to color. This year they painted the eggs. It was much cleaner than last year. They each did 6 eggs and of course, kept them in their own containers.

Spring in Cedar

Spring in Cedar is unpredictable. The day started out so beautiful. The sun was shinning and the kids asked to have a picnic at the park. I told them we needed to go to the house first then that sounded like fun. So we called friends and off we went. As you can see, it was warm and the sun was shinning. The kids each got a bucket and dug in the dirt around the house. They said China was on the far side of the dirt mound. They were going to make France, but it was too hard.

The clouds were beginning to roll in. So we hurried to the park. Tyler went to get our pizza for lunch. I forgot a jacket. Luckily, we borrowed one from Keaton's mom. We played, rode bikes, and ate for about an hour. Then the rain began. So headed back home to play inside. Ok, a little rain isn't bad for spring. But then it turned to snow. Are you kidding me??? We went from no jackets and sunscreen on our faces, to snow. We are over winter.

Basket Raffle

It was another crazy week for the PTA. It was our 2nd annual basket raffle. Each class chooses a theme. Then the parents donate items to fill their basket. The PTA wrapps up all the baskets. This means I was at the school every morning early to bring the baskets out of the office to have on display for a week. At the end of the day, I would put them away again. Our school secretary sold tickets all week for us. It is the week of parent teacher conferences, book fair, and the science fair. So the parent traffic at the school is high. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the week. Thursday night, is the big night. The PTA announces next year's board (that is why there is a picture of me standing up--thanks Kaylee for taking the photo.) The most exciting basket was a camping theme. The teacher even had a quail stuffed. It had a chair, lantern, flashlights, fishing lures, jerky, etc. The kids and dads loved this basket. We then sell more tickets and finally raffle off the baskets. It was a much larger success this year!! We made $1267. Not bad.

The bad part was that we didn't win any baskets. My kids don't quite get how a raffle works (eventhough I explained it over and over). So I had 3 bawling kids. It was so bad, I had to leave right after the raffle and not count the $ that night. They cried all the way home, through reading books, and poor Justin could be heard sobbing in his bed. It broke my heart. So I told him while I was in St. George tomorrow, I would pick up a toy for him. That quieted the sobs, and finally they were all asleep. Oh did I mention, Tyler was in Phoenix, so I got to deal with that by myself. Tyler seems to plan his trips whenever I need him to help me with the kids because of a PTA event.

Near disaster for dinner group

It was my night to cook dinner. I added another family....a friend having a tough time who just needed some help. So I was cooking for 5 families that day. It all started out great. I had all the dough, for homemade bread, finished by 9:00 am. The first 2 loaves had already been baked. It was onto the next four loaves. So while it was cooking I decided to peak at Heidi and Valynn's blogs. I got all caught up in the garage sale and blue and gold banquet that I didn't even hear the buzzer ring. It hit me like a ton of bricks. HOLY CRAP, I yelled, running down the halls. As you can see, I was lucky this time. The bread survived.

House Progress

Work continues on the house. Yesterday, the shingles were beginning to be installed. The dirt work guys were hard at work. We had to backfill the garage about 3-4 feet. Where did the dirt come from you might ask. Well take a look at the huge hole in my backyard. It has to be 15 feet deep by 25 feet long. This is Justin's favorite play spot. At first I didn't let him down there because I wasn't sure if he could climb back out. But "accidentally" he dropped his toy in there. So he HAD to go and get it. I then saw it was OK for him to get out of.

The rest of our time was spent building a little retaining wall in back. I told Tyler we needed a level and string to make it straight and level. He said OK to the string (only because I went and got some). But he didn't have a level and didn't want to take the time to get one. So off we went. After 3 layers, I went to see what it looked like from inside the basement. Yep, not level. So off to Home Depot for a level. Tyler spent the rest of the night redoing the wall. This time without my help because it was getting late and cold. So I took the kids home for dinner. Needless to say, we have learned to work smarter NOT harder.

It is amazing to me that dirt can entertain children for hours. Running through the piles. Digging to make who knows what. Courtney wanted to lay down and make snow angels. That goes too far for me. So I put a stop to that. Otherwise, it was a free for all. And they loved every minute of it.

PJ/Dr. Seuss Day at School

All the kids had PJ day today at school. They could hardly wait. Courtney had to know each day how much longer until PJ day at school. Kaylee was worried (she's my little worrier) if she was suppossed to wear her PJ's to her morning class. They had computers and PE. So she was afraid to wear them. So at first she asked to skip the morning class. They she thought if I called the teacher to find out, it would be ok to go. I pretended to call the princial. He said she should wear her pj's to computers and pe. Then she felt ok to go. For the last 30 minutes of school all the kids filled the halls to read Dr. Seuss books. I walked around to each class. Then I started to notice a smell......I went back to the office and made a comment about it. The next thing I heard was Mr. Taylor (the principal) saying, "The halls are beginning to smell like a locker room." This time it wasn't just my over sensitive nose. The kids all had a fun day.