Easter Weekend 2014

We had a packed Easter weekend this year. 

Lance and the kids got in some fun Easter Egg dying Friday night:

Saturday morning my friend Amy and I got up super early to run in our first 5K.  Although I've played sports my whole life and spent years running up and down the basketball court, I am by no means a runner.  I remember doing the mile in school and hating it.  I'm pretty sure I had never run more than a mile without breaks in my life.  Running for distance and running in a basketball game are just so different.  I have lots of family members and friends who are great runners and I've always wished it was something I enjoyed more.  Amy, in addition to being one of my best friends is, my workout gym buddy and in a moment of craziness I suggested that maybe we should add to our workout routine by preparing for a 5K.  We found an app called C25K that we religiously followed which was an 8 week 3 day a week running plan.  It was awesome and really just what I needed to keep me on track and accountable.  In the end I still never really loved the running, but I did love pushing myself physically and accomplishing a goal.  I really learned how much running is so much about mental toughness for me.  So, in the end it was having the app and Amy to be accountable to that made for it successful.  We happily ran the whole 5K and even finished a bit faster than anticipated.   So, now we are looking for something new to add to our workouts.  And no we aren't interested in gearing up for longer running races. :)       

 

Later that day we decided it would be fun to check out the Salt Lake Natural History Museum.  They built a new beautiful one close to where we live in the last few years and we had never been.  It was lots of fun to check it out and all the kids really enjoyed themselves.  An added bonus was they had an exhibit going on about the history of chocolate.  It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

 

 

 

Sunday morning the kids were excited to get up and check out their Easter Bunny loot:

 

 

Then we had breakfast and headed to Church:

 

And then we went to Cousin Cole's baby blessing and after party and played with cousins for hours:

 

 

And when Monday finally rolled around this is how we all felt:

 

 

Spring Break 2014

We headed down to Vegas for Spring Break.  We spent the first couple days settling in, enjoying time with Lance, and catching up with a few of our Vegas friends.  Then, we were excited to have Grandma, Grandpa, and Whitney join us.  It was a nice get away and we had lots of fun just all being together.  Most of the trip was spent swimming, shopping, eating, early birthday and Easter celebrating, and just visiting.  The weather was a little cool so we took full advantage of grandma and grandpa's indoor hotel pool every day (often multiple times a day).  We took a special trip to check out the new Container Park that we had been hearing about.  The area around it was a little questionable, but once inside it was nice and the kids had fun exploring.  It was a nice trip and we were sad to see it come to an end. 

 

 

Pinewood Derby 2014

 

Kai has been really looking forward to getting to participate in the Pinewood Derby for the first time this year.  He and Lance worked on his car over the span of a few weekends.  Kai had a vision for what he wanted and Lance went with it and helped him get it all figured out.  The car turned out great and they did a really good job.  We were all a little sad that Lance couldn't be there on the night of the race as it was in the middle of the week, but we kept him updated with texts and videos throughout the night.  Lance had given me instructions on what to do if it was over the weight limit and how to properly put the graphite in the wheels pre-race, etc.  Let's just say that I was happy when we were checked in and the potential for me to screw it up and not have a car for Kai to race was over.   

We had been warned that these Pinewood Derby races have gotten a little out of control over the last few years.  We heard stories about Dad's spending hundreds of dollars ordering all sorts of special parts and spending the whole year prior researching things on the Internet.  Kai's race had maybe 40 cars and there were for sure some Dad's that were way in to it that had sons that probably could of cared less.  We had talked to Kai about this in advance so he was somewhat prepared for this going in and I was proud that in the end even he seemed to realize which cars the boys were really involved with and which cars were just totally Dad's racing Dad's.   

With that said Kai's car actually did pretty well and now he has seen what the cars look like shape wise that were the very fastest.  So, even that night after we got home his brain was already going strong about what he wants to make next year.  It was a good lesson about the actual science of the cars, but in the end maybe the greater lesson was more of a life lesson. 

 

 *Kai was the announcer for the Flag Ceremony.  Good thing it doesn't seem to phase him to get up and speak in front of large crowds.

 *The younger siblings also had fun.  They were troopers as we ended up being there for almost 3 hours!!!!  The little boy next to Rori is one of her favorite friends from Church so I thought it was cute that they found each other.  The boy to the right of Zuri is the son of a family that used to live in our old neighborhood here in SLC before we moved to Las Vegas.  They moved to this neighborhood while we were gone and their daughter is in Kai's class this year.

Inching Towards Kindergarten

 

 

They do these cute kindergarten preview days for kids here so we let Rori skip out on her school on Friday and go check out kindergarten at Kai's school with the other kids from our neighborhood.  She loved every second of it and really is a pro at going to school after all these years now. 

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The kids were sure excited for St. Patrick's Day this year.  I don't remember anything about it other than wearing green from my growing up, but it is up there for our kids.  Since there is some pretty strong Irish blood on Lance's side of the family the kids seem even more excited about it all.  Our cute friends/ neighbors hosted a little treasure hunt for the kids right on our block which our kids also thought was great.

 

Pepperdine Volleyball

We had the opportunity to go watch Pepperdine play Men's Volleyball against BYU at BYU.  Pepperdine hosted a little reception before the game and hooked us up with some great seats right behind the bench.  It was so much fun to see some familiar faces from our days at Pepperdine.  The Assistant Vice Chancellor hosting was someone I had worked with at Pepperdine and the University President's wife who we knew was also there and visited with us for awhile.  At the reception we also got to talk with a few of the current players who were super nice and very well spoken.  Our kids thought that was pretty awesome.  The Coach is the same Coach that coached Lance so he pulled Kai over when he was doing his little presentation and had him stand with him and the players.  It was also really fun to wander around at BYU for a bit.  Kai brought one of his friends with him from school whose Dad actually played Volleyball at BYU in the past so that was also pretty cool- note that he and Kai are the tallest kids in their class.  Pepperdine lost the game which was too bad since they had already beaten BYU earlier this year, but it was still lots of fun and a great time for all of us.