Spring Break and Conference Weekend

 How was your Spring Break? Ours was kind of a break from the regular schedule and instead it filled up with all kinds of other things. On Wednesday morning the youth in the ward went to Twin to do baptisms and since we have so much family living that direction, it worked out that a couple of our cousins got to meet up with them and do baptisms, too.
   It ended up being even more fun because two of our cousins came back to Boise with my family and they stayed with us for a couple days. I think one of the highlights of their stay was when David, Kelani, Lanie, Maddie, and I all went to Petsmart while Malia was working there. We wanted to go say hi, and potentially embarrass her in front of her co-workers, which I think we did (all in good fun, of course).
  As soon as we got in the store David grabbed a leash from a nearby isle and then we carefully made our way to the back of the store, making sure Malia wouldn't see us. As soon as we were close to the hotel desk (yes, for the pet hotel that she works in) where she was standing, I clipped the leash to one Maddie's belt loops on her pants (she's 12 and was totally game for this) and she crawled like a dog past Malia and a couple of the other employees while I pretended to be walking her.
  Malia just stared at us like we were crazy and her co-workers looked from me and Maddie to Malia in dis-belief (who knew that most Petsmart employees were so lacking in a sense of humor?). Once Maddie and I covered a fair bit of ground, Malia called out, "Get out of the store you morons!" In her most loving way!! :D I think we truly flabbergasted her work pals and it was hilarious!!

  Also during Spring Break, our friends the Manwarings came to visit (you knew this was coming, Elena!). They were in our ward a long time ago and when they had their first baby, Alyssa, we got to babysit for them. In fact, I think they were the first family I had ever officially babysat for. I was only about 10 and I loved it!! Our families got to be good friends and it's been to fun to see their family grow. It's also been fun because they had kids in the same pattern as the four of us - girl, girl, boy, girl. After they had their third baby, they moved back to Idaho Falls, where they're originally from, and now we only get to see each other every few years. So we loved having an evening with them when they stopped in to visit.
                          (sorry this picture is a bit blurry, still trying to work out a new camera)

 We always take the traditional picture of the four of us with our "mini-me's" matched up.

  Then we have one of our wacky parents. Dad will get me for putting this one up here, but I think it's funny!

  Alright, he's back to as normal as he gets. :)

On Friday night we all packed up and headed to Jerome to watch General Conference with the family and just have a good time on the Farm. I don't know if you remember what happened a year ago when we went to the Farm for conference, but if you need a reminder, go here .

Basically it involved Dad, a lot of pork, Samoan style pit cooking, a midnight fire, and the loss of: a wheelbarrow, shovel, tarp, and meat thermometers. The miracle (besides the fact that the Farm is still standing) was that the meat got rescued and put into the oven in time and it tasted great for the big family lunch the next day.

~April 2011~

The aftermath

~April 2012~

Success

p.s. Yes, it was a little stressful in the middle of the night trying to water down the flames with a hose that didn't reach, and stay warm, and save the pork. But by the next day even Dad was laughing and joking about it with the rest of the family. Especially when our uncle, who is a mortician, showed up for lunch with funeral programs he'd made in memory of the wheelbarrow and shovel that were casualties of the fire. :)
  Anyway, this year Dad did a turkey and it was awesome! So no worries this time.

In between sessions on Saturday the weather was PERFECT! So we took advantage of it and a bunch of us and our cousins went for a barefoot walk in the cornfield by Grandma and Grandpa's house. One cousin kept saying, "I just don't understand why we have to be barefoot." Haha, who doesn't love to get their feet dirty?

This is a partial view of the Farm from the other side of the field. It's fun to look over at it and be grateful that I've had such a beautiful place in my life, all my life, to visit and grow up on. And even more important, that I have such an awesome family to be with there.

Baby Lincoln settling in for his conference nap.

I guess Grandpa thought the nap thing was too hard to pass up. :) That's another blessing we have to be grateful for. When we were at the Farm for conference last year, things were pretty much the same as always. But a week later was when our great grandma passed away, and then a couple days after that, Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer. He's had quite the year between then and now and it's been a learning experience for all of us. Needless to say, I think we were all pretty concious of how nice it is to still all be together again for conference.

I don't know why this picture won't load the right way, but here's David and Gabe digging in to part of the conference feast. We won't even bother going into too much detail of how much we over-ate during the weekend.....

Here's Maddie (Petsmart's favorite new dog) trying to drink Ginger Ale through a licorice straw. You know, why not add some sugar to your soda?!

Grrr, another sideways picture...

I thought this little picture was funny because of all the conversation involved with what was going on. Grandma somehow managed to convince 6 year old Audrey to let her (Grandma) brush her hair. Audrey is a busy girl with long hair and she generally won't let anyone near it, no matter how tangled it gets. But Audrey walked over to Grandma and Grandpa's house with freshly washed hair and the next thing we knew, Grandma was hard at work trying to remove all the "rat's nests."

Grandma had been at work for a few minutes when she exclaimed, "Audrey, look! There's blanket fuzz in here!" She showed Auds the brush, and sure enough, there was fuzz mixed in with the loose hair. Grandma said she also found some cat hair tangled in. That got her on a roll and pretty soon she was joking with Audrey and telling her, "I also found some old toenails, a whole Hershey kiss, and two pieces of bubblegum!"

After probably 10 minutes and only being about halfway through, Grandma started saying, "Audrey, if we could cut your hair short, I wouldn't have to plow through all of this." But Audrey only responded by dramatically saying, "Grandma, my hair is a garden."

Anyway, it was a fun visit to the Farm and hopefully won't be too long before we stop in again. There were also updates over the past couple weeks. One of our cousins is expecting another baby, bringing the number of second cousins up to 10. And Ben, our cousin that got home from his mission right at the end of 2010, is engaged! So there's lots of fun things to look forward to in the next few months.