It's been a hard days night

Today after the morning session of General Conference we loaded up and headed to our Albertsons grocery store. They were having and Easter egg hunt. They've had them in the past and had hard boiled eggs. I'm not a fan, but I knew this year it was plastic filled eggs!! I figured the kids would each get a few-I was wrong!!

Can you tell Emma was excited!!

Let the hunting begin!! It was all through the produce section!

Here's the haul after I refilled 26 eggs for Mo to take to preschool this week plus another small bowl that didn't fit!!

I'm kicking myself that I already bought some Easter candy!!

We signed Bud and Emma up for Spring soccer season. Both of their practices are on Wednesday nights which is nice they fall on the same night. Unfortunately they're not at the same time-5:30-6:30 and 6:30-7:30. This week is was COLD and WINDY!! N8 came home with Mo and Henry and I stayed with the soccer players.

Emma's games are all on Friday nights. She loves they they get a snack at the end!

Bud's game was this morning (Mo wasn't feeling well so N8 and Emma went):

Bud hasn't played since Kindergarten and his team ranges from 9 to 11 year olds. He is by far the scrawniest player on the team. They both seemed to enjoy their first game.

While perusing slickdeals.net on Friday morning I saw a post that Home Depot was having a "Spring Black Friday (weekend)" sale. This included 50% off all of their veggie and herb plants. So I headed over and picked out some tomatoes, peppers, squash and onions.

Once home I still had to clear the garden on last seasons VERY dead tomato plants, turn the soil and get it prepped.

Here's the result, I hoping for a more successful garden this year... we'll see!

Back in February I decided to try forcing bulbs inside. I had seen it on Pinterest and thought it would be fun to try. I wanted to try tulips, but couldn't find any bulbs in town. Then I was shocked at the price of bulbs and went with one that was more economical-the iris!

I failed to consider that they grow quite tall. But I got 2!!

So this is a bowl I got at the local thrift store for $.50, rocks (no soil) and bulbs. I kept water in it, about 1/2 cup a day (except when we left town).

 

 

I think I'll have to try another type of flower next time, but it has been fun to watch it grow in my kitchen window! 

Each Spring break we like to take the kids somewhere with just us. This year we ventured down to San Diego. We started at Sea World. We have been to both Sea World San Diego and Sea World Orlando, but the last time we went Bud was about 3 1/2! So it had been a few years! We arrived about 30 minutes before the park opened, but they let us through the gates and we were able to see a few things before everything opened up.

Emma was super excited to ride a roller coaster!! Bud and Mo we less excited. N8 just loves rides where he gets wet, strange I know! So right off the bat they rode Atlantis (while I hung out with Henry and took pictures):

Then it was onto the Arctic (Beluga Whales, Polar bears and Penguins):

Something I had forgotten about Sea World was there are lots of exhibits that you can not take strollers into. While Henry loves to be able to be free and walk on his own, he hasn't quite got it that he has to stay with us. That made things a little interesting and difficult in some places.

We were able to see the 3 shows we wanted to see starting with the Shamu show. Of course N8 convinced us to stay in the "soak zone" and boy did we get soaked!!

 

We also went to the Dolphin/Bird show and the Sea Lion Show. The kids loved seeing all of the fish and we kept our eye out for Dori and Nemo:

 

We also went to the tide pool exhibit and saw lots of sea stars:

All in all the kids really enjoyed it. I personally thing we had more fun at Legoland last year, but it was still enjoyable.

The next day we started out by heading to Old Town San Diego. After we found parking N8 saw that there was a goecache nearby so the he and the kids set out to find it:

This is was onto the Mormon Battalion Historic Site and Museum. It is an excellent tour and perfect for kids!

Then we headed over to Coronado Island to check out where the finish line of N8's upcoming Ragnar would be and play on the beach.

 

Then it was onto the Cabrillo National Monument and tide pools. At the tide pools we saw Sea Anemones, Sea Snails and Hermit Crabs:

 

And the Cabrillo light house:

As we left San Diego we made a quick stop at the San Diego Temple:

And another geocache:

We made our way up to LA and stayed in the LA temple patron apartments so that N8 and I could do some temple work and then made our way home!

All in a great Spring break!!

This past weekend my sister's family came for a quick visit. They had spent the week at Disneyland and came up here for the weekend. It had been several years since they had been here and they had never really done anything in our surrounding area when they had been here. We were excited to take them on some of our hikes and check out the area. They got here on Friday afternoon and we knew our time was limited. The forecast was predicting a 90% chance of rain for Saturday and the wind was already starting to pick up bringing in the storm.

So, we headed out to Fossil Falls. There are no fossils at fossil falls, it's the falls that are fossilized! It's a lava flow that water has etched out fun crevices, holes and an interesting little canyons. Their family really enjoying finding geocaches and luckily there were a few in the area!

It's a wonderful place to get some fun pictures!

Here's Jim with the cache!

Our token group shot taken with the timer on the camera!!

Jim had been given a "water" type gun that everyone had fun shooting:

 

N8 and the kids also found a large lizard, here's it's tail:

 

Saturday started out with a trip to urgent care for a sinus infection for Emma. Then the rain started. So we spent a bit of the day playing the Wii, going to a furniture store, playing games and going to the movies (We saw the Secret world of Arriety, it was cute!). By the time the movie got out the rain had cleared a bit (but the wind was still here) and N8, Jim and Bud headed out to find a few more geocaches while the rest of us tested our skills on Wii Resorts and Wii Fit +. We went to some Mexican for dinner and played games and the kids watched a movie in the evening. 

It was a great visit even with the rain. We love having visitors and look forward to our next one!!

I'm hoping for a good long Spring here. Especially since we didn't really get much of a Winter. Spring break is this next week and my fingers are crossed for good weather since we have some things planned. Getting outdoors and enjoying all of the things around us are the best parts of Spring. Here we are a few weeks ago enjoying the outdoors.

 

Sugar Bee Crafts is having a celebrating spring photo contest. $50 to Amazon could help my do some celebrating :) ("My entry into Sugar Bee Craft’s Celebrating Spring competition, sponsored by Appliances Online and Beko Fridge Freezers")

7 years ago was one crazy day. A day that N8 and I  (and Amy, my fabulous friend that was there through it all) will never forget. My little Emma was born in the bathroom. She just didn't want to wait for the hospital. Emma is spunky, and full of life. I love you Emma!

Emma through the years!

Today we had Emma's 7th birthday party!! Her birthday isn't until Tuesday, but today was the best day to party!!

We stole and idea from one of my sisters and had a "Just Dance" party. 

Everyone got fun and funky socks to dance in

 

 

 

We played Just Dance Kids on the Wii

 we decorated visors

 

 had party beads and we served root beer floats with funky straws out of personalized cups!!

 

The kids had a blast!