Easter Sunday

Our whole family came together Easter morning!  The Easter bunny left a little basket for Emma next to her bed while she slept.  Yellow nail polish, yellow Peeps, and yellow Sun Bum banana lip balm were tucked inside among other treats.  He left lots of candies in the kitchen for everybody else.

Chelsea and her family arrived from Provo about the same time that Josh and his fiance, Megan, came from Logan.  It was absolutely wonderful to be all together on this special Easter morning.  We had a hashbrown and sausage breakfast casserole and yummy waffles with strawberries and cream.

 After brunch, we dyed easter eggs.  I'm glad they didn't think they are too old to do that!

We gifted sweet Piper with a book and a Peter Rabbit baby dish set.  I got to read her the cute book that Matt picked out for her.  What a doll she was in her easter dress!  Everybody was a good sport about going out in the backyard to take a family selfie.  The sun was so bright though.  This is as good as we could get.  Then we all went to church together at the YSA ward which was AWESOME!  That won't happen again for a long time.  What a blessing for us on Easter.  We had a late afternoon light lunch afterwards and some game playing before everyone went home.

Spring Break 2019 Day 3: Coronado Island and Padres Baseball

Fresh squeezed orange juice awaited us again at Breakfast Republic!  So was lemon and coconut french toast, lemon coconut pancakes, two sides of bacon, and crab and crawfish cake benedict.  

OH MY!  We didn't need to eat again until that evening! 

We then headed over Matt's favorite bridge to Coronado Island.  We spent a couple of hours sitting on the beach with our feet in the warm sand.  We collected shells and sand dollars.  We watched naval helicopters and jets fly overhead as they were coming in to land at the naval air station.  We soaked in that California sun.  

At 4:30, we arrived downtown for our Petco Park tour and pre-game batting practice.  

It was a fun night for all of us watching the Padres vs the Reds!  Emma kept score in Matt's book, and we all ate yummy ballpark food.

Spring Break 2019 Day 2: Pacific, Mission, and Oceanside Beaches

Our day started out with breakfast at our fav spot, Breakfast Republic, in Pacific Beach.  It is soooo stinkin good! Having fresh squeezed orange juice is the best way to start the day.  Emma had the mashed potato omelet with bacon and cheddar cheese.  She absolutely loved it!  Matt had the chilaquiles, and I had the protein lover scramble.  Before we finished our meal, we knew we'd make the drive again in the morning for more deliciousness!

We walked a couple of blocks over to Surf Monkey Bikes.  We rented three kinda ugly beach cruisers, and we were off on our morning bike ride down the boardwalk.  We started at Pacific Beach and continued to Mission Beach and over to Mission Bay.  Emma loved seeing all the beach houses that were along the boardwalk and bike path around the bay.  It's now her dream to live in one someday.  We were out riding for about 2 1/2 hours.  It was a bright sunny day with a nice ocean breeze.  So. Much. Fun.

After a quick change at the hotel, we drove up the coast to Oceanside Harbor where we ate lunch at Rockin' Baja Lobster.

Then we walked out to Oceanside Pier, which we've walked so many times before.  We love it there.  So many memories with our young kids.  We watched the surfers catch some waves and smelled the salty ocean air.

At the end of the night, we ate dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  We ordered way too much food, and instead of leaving it to go in the trash, we took a whole pizza in the car with us in hope that we would find a homeless person to give it to.  As we were leaving the mall area in Mission Valley, we saw an old man at the corner begging.  He was very happy to have Emma hand him dinner and promptly began to eat as we watched in the rearview mirror.  That's a nice memory to have! 

Spring Break 2019 Day 1: San Diego Zoo

As soon as the three of us landed in San Diego, we headed straight for the zoo!  Emma had never been there before, and we were super excited to share it with her.  When we lived at Camp Pendleton about 20 years ago, we had a family annual pass, so we went frequently with Chelsea and Josh.  Matt and I went back to the zoo with some of my siblings about 12 years ago when we were there for my parents' 40th anniversary cruise.  We love the San Diego Zoo!

After viewing the flamingos at the entrance, and on our way over to Emma's first pick of seeing the reptiles, Matt spotted a face painting kiosk.  He asked Emma is she'd like her face painted, and she surprised me by saying yes! She went with just a little tiger design by her eye.  She's such a fun loving girl!

 The giant tortoises were my favorite from the whole day.  They were all as active as tortoises can be, and they were up at the fence line while we were there.  The other cool thing in the reptile house was watching a snake eat a mouse.

Gorillas! Hippos! Pandas! Elephants! Jaguars! Bears! Birds! Koalas! It was all so FUN!

April's Rundown

Emma went to Bingham Prom at the very end of March, but I wanted to include her picture here anyway.  She was so beautiful, as always!

One night while Matt was at work, I made the Food Nanny's pizza with arugula, tomatoes, balsamic glaze, and french salt.  Oh my goodness!  It was so very good! The crust turned out awesome!  It was like a cracker, but still chewy enough.  I used my new Kamut flour which made all the difference.

This happened on April 2nd.  Look at Josh kneeling down in a circle of rose petals on a raining day proposing to his lovely lady, Megan!  He's a pretty happy guy these days.  As he should be!  We are thrilled that he has found a wonderful girl to marry.  July 13th is the big day!

My dad turned 76 (I think), and I made him a german chocolate cake to show him how much I love him.  I used the recipe from A Bountiful Kitchen.  It was a labor of love for sure.  But look at it!  It was beautiful and it tasted out of this world!

I had a little picnic on the lawn at Wymount with my favorite granddaughter and her sweet momma.  We ate Chick-Fil-A while Piper chewed on my mint box.  When they move away, I'm going to miss these days of making visits to Provo to see this little family.

For Emma's last spring break, we flew to San Diego and had an awesome time together.  I will do another post about that so I can share more details.

We were home from San Diego for Easter Sunday.  I love Easter!  And this year it was extra special.  I will share more in another post.

On April 23rd we spent part of our 26th anniversary in Provo.  We went out to lunch at Chom Burger with Chelsea, Spencer, and Pips.  And then we went over to the BYU Museum of Art and saw this wonderful exhibit called Windswept created by Patrick Dougherty.  These pictures don't really do it justice.  This large room was filled with "a towering, contorting sculpture that seems unreal".  These willow saplings from upstate New York were bent and twisted into this incredible piece of art which took him three weeks to make on site.  We read about this man's other tree bending artwork that he has created around the world. It's pretty darn unique and amazing.

Yesterday I babysat my cute nephew Henry.  His parents are on a fun anniversary trip and his other grandma who has been tending him and his sissy was at work for the day.  So Henry and I spent time at the park, played with Playdough, and watched Cars back at the house.  I'm happy that I have a flexible, open schedule which allows me to help when needed.

This morning I got a much-needed haircut at the Aveda salon in Draper by Emily.  She's a super nice young mom who listens to me and talks it out with me as we decide how to proceed.  Today, she cut my hair on a center part and then styled it on the opposite side as I usually do, and then she curled it to put in a little movement instead of styling it straight.

April has been a good month.  It started out with my favorite General Conference weekend and a bit of snow, continued into the month with wind and rain, and now is ending with sunny blue skies.