Easter Weekend

We had a pretty fun Easter weekend. On Friday, we went to Baby Animal Days (along with every other person in the valley!). It was insane! There were so many people there. We waited in line for over an hour to ride the horses. I was hoping that it would get better. We went and saw the baby calves, goats and sheep. Tamsen thought it was fun petting the baby sheep. But when we got over to the area where the baby chicks, ducks and rabbits were, the lines were so long. We ended up just wandering around and looking at the baby animals instead of waiting in line to hold them, since we had to leave to get to Salt Lake by 5:30.

We got to Salt Lake to watch Jeremy's band play. Tamsen thought it was so fun listening to the music. She liked clapping and dancing. She told the people that were sitting next to us "You know what the coolest thing about me is? That's my dad playing the guitar." Too funny.

Saturday, we colored eggs. Tamsen had a lot of fun coloring them all. She liked trying to make them rainbow colored and wanted to hide them as soon as we were finished coloring them.

Sunday morning she got up and found her Easter basket. At first she wanted to go find all the eggs, but then she realized that the Easter Bunny had hidden presents too, so she liked finding the clues that led to her gifts. After she'd found everything, she went hunting for eggs and was ready to find more -- apparently two dozen wasn't quite enough!

We had really nice weather, church was nice, it was just a quiet relaxing day.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

To say that Tamsen's Grandma and Nana love St. Patrick's Day would be an understatement. It's a huge holiday in their family, so it's become a big day for us as well. This year, we went and had an Irish dinner with grandma and nana's friends, the Thunell's. We also went to Celtic Night at the Eccles Theatre to watch the Irish dancers and listen to the Irish music. When Tamsen woke up on St. Patrick's Day morning, she found that those mischievious leprechauns had topsy-turvyed our house and hid their treasure somewhere. She had lots of fun seeing what they'd done to the house, pulling cushions off the couch, turning the food green, putting chairs on the table, hanging pictures sideways -- they even turned the toilet water green!

She came in my office with this St Patricks Day outfit that she put together all by herself and told me that she was a "leprechaun daughter". She had fun searching for the "treasure" and pinching anyone she could whether or not they were wearing green!

Where Is Spring???

Here's a picture of our yard on March 5.










Here's a picture of our yard on March 9.

Yes, the snow is up past the swings on the swingset.


I woke up thinking that I was going to get out and spray for weeds after work. Then at about 6:30 am I was sitting there working and I heard a lawn mower. I'm thinking -- who in the world is mowing their lawn this early in the year, and at this time of the morning. So I peeked out the window and saw that it was my neighbor with his snow blower on my driveway taking care of the 6 or so inches of snow that had fallen. Well, it didn't let up all day. Around 3 pm, I went out to brush off the dish, because Tams was mad that the tv wasn't working and there was nearly two feet of snow. I couldn't even get the screen door open! I took out the yardstick to see how much there was -- 20 inches!! And it was still snowing like crazy! And three days later -- snow was gone. Crazy Utah spring!!

What is It?

So, everytime Tamsen goes to her Grandma and Nana's, we come home with all sorts of interesting things, but this one beats all. I have no idea what it is... it's got YoGos in it. When I first got it, it looked like it might be blueberry cheesecake (my favorite!), but when I took the plastic wrap off it... hmmmmm.... let's see, I see some crushed graham crackers, and something that looks like pears, except that they're purple (???) There's some YoGos in there and it's topped with whipped cream. Mmmmm... Yeah, I didn't taste it. If you know what it is, could you please let me know?

Ice Skating

Tamsen has wanted ice skates since I can remember. Her Grandma and Nnana bought her a pair of ice skates, so we went over to the park to try them out. The city floods the park each winter to make an outdoor ice skating rink. She had lots of fun "skating". We skated clear across the rink, and on the way back, she fell down and hit her nose on the ice. It started bleeding. I felt so bad! I gave her my gloves to hold on her nose and we drove a couple blocks to Grandma and Nana's to get cleaned up. Once she was cleaned up, she was ready to go back and skate some more. So we went back to the park, but she decided she wanted to "skate" without the ice skates. After that day, the weather warmed up and the rink closed down. Guess we'll try again next year!

New Years 2009

We had lots of fun on New Years Eve. We watched movies, played games and made lots of fun foods to snack on. At 10 o'clock, we "pretended" it was midnight. We watched the big ball drop in Times Square and blew our horns and had our Happy New Year!

On New Years Day, we hung out at home and had a pretty quiet day. Tamsen wanted to go out and play in the snow, so we went out about 4:30 and built snow men. We built two snowmen, then Tams decided she wanted to build some snow babies. She had lots of fun making snow angels and throwing snowballs at me.

Christmas 2008

Wow! Christmas came FAST this year! Tams and I went to Idaho to spend Christmas with my family. The trip there was an adventure! I found out Monday night that the freeway through Snowville was closed. So I kept checking all morning on Tuesday, hoping that it would open up. We left about noon and took the long way, up through Pocatello and across. The roads were good and bad, but even when they were good, the going was pretty slow. It usually takes about four and a half hours to get there. It took us almost eight! Tams wasn't real happy about it. When we got to Burley she said, "How come you keep driving and driving and driving?" Both of us were happy to finally make it to grandma and grandpa's house.

We had a full house. Eric, Meg, Lexie and Josh had come from California and Brett and Britney were there too. It was loud and fun. I love my family!! Tams had so much fun playing with Lexie and Josh. It was just great to hang out with the family. Get up early, stay up late, eat too much, go shopping. Good times! I love being with my family!!

Mom made pajamas for the grandkids that they got to open on Christmas Eve. Princess pajamas for the girls and Cars pjs for Josh. They loved the matching slippers!

Christmas day was really fun. We didn't get up as early as usual, we waited for the kids to wake up. They were so excited to see what Santa brought. Then we opened presents. It was too funny, Josh LOVES Cars and Thomas the Train. He got a Thomas the Train set and was perfectly happy to play with that the entire time. But, before Christmas, he'd picked out some Cars wrapping paper, and they'd wrapped a lot of his gifts in it. Well, the first two gifts he unwrapped were in the Cars paper. When we handed him the next one, it was wrapped in Santa paper. He didn't want anything to do with that present! He pushed it away and said NO! So we handed him a present wrapped in the Cars paper. He opened it right up! Apparently he only wanted his presents wrapped in his wrapping paper. Finally, they ripped a little of the Santa paper off, and when he saw that it was Thomas the Train inside, he decided he'd open it after all. It was too funny.

Brett got Guitar Hero for Christmas. We had so much fun playing it. Dad didn't like it so much. I guess we had it turned up too loud and it was constantly going. He was probably glad to see it go home with Brett. But in the meantime, it was a blast. Tamsen had wanted a Hannah Montana guitar for Christmas. She got a Princess one instead. She liked to "play" guitar hero with her guitar. She'd get her guitar and go stand in front of the tv playing with the boys.

Well, as soon as it had come, Christmas was gone, and it was time to head back home. It was a fun week spending time with everyone. Can't wait til next time...