Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter Weekend

Friday night we had a Montgomery Easter party. We cooked hamburgers on the grill and had a good dinner.


After the dinner we had an easter egg hunt in the yard with everyone getting involved.






























Then we played games inside such as rolling an egg with our nose, or carrying an egg with a spoon in our mouth. We laughed and had fun. We colored eggs and had some special treats.


 Maddie made a candy basket for Payton and Connor who the slept overnight at our house.
















Saturday was laying sod at Shannon and Nic's house and doing some gravel for our future floor. Sunday was Easter and we had Maddie and Skylar over at the house for dinner. They did the traditional follow the string to the Easter baskets and we played games that evening.



Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Easter Season

The Easter season began with a full moon on the 14th of April. We went to visit Jan and Karl in Orem in the evening. We had not seen Jan since she had undergone her cancer treatments this second time. It was inspiring to visit with them and see her courage and also to see tender mercies take place as she read one of the 60 inspiring quotes that Cindy had written from the last conference.
When we got home it was late enough to think about staying up to watch the lunar eclipse of the full moon that was going to be taking place after midnight. We dozed off a little but woke up in time to watch the moon turn an orange color as it passed through the earth's shadow.




While the pictures do not do it justice, it at least gives an idea of what we saw. The next morning I thought it would be appropriate to show the other aspects of Spring; the cherry blossoms and the flowers.











Sunday, April 6, 2014

Jeanne's setting apart

After conference today we went with Jeanne to the stake center for her setting apart as a missionary called to the Nashville, Tennessee mission. There was a great spirit there and she will do such a good job. She leaves tomorrow and Cameron and Cecelia will be moving into her house tomorrow and be there until she comes back.



Spring Break

Cindy got a week off of school for Spring break so we decided to go somewhere a little warmer this time of year. The weather here was still one day cold and then another day mild; typical of spring. It snowed on Sunday the 30th the day before we left. Monday the 31st we got up early to leave. The snow was fresh on the mountains and there were geese in the field.












A few hours later we were in Long Beach , California and the weather was warmer, the sky clear and flowers were in bloom.















We drove along highway 1 and headed to San Diego. We stopped along Huntington Beach because the waves were so attractive. We walked along the edge and of course had to get our feet wet and had to show off our white legs.














We finally made it to our hotel near Old Town San Diego after a casual drive.


 
We then decided to go to the beach and watch the sunset. We never checked to see when sunset was so we spent an hour and a half waiting for that to happen. In the meantime we watched the surfers and sea gulls,

















built a Utah Raptor,












watched the sun set a little more,













watched the surfers some more and sail boats in the distance,






























and then the sun set. Afterwards we went to Anthony's to have a fish dinner along the San Diego Bay. End of day one.




Tuesday morning it was raining so we decided to go to the temple which was wonderful. The San Diego temple is so unique and beautiful. When we were done with the session the sun was out and it was a beautiful day.




The afternoon we walked through Old Town and the various shops. We went to eat and the line was long so we put our names in and then decided to go to the Mormon Battalion Center to see if we could see sister McKee who is the daughter of Cindy's BYU roommate Renae.  We waited because she was doing a tour at the time. We talked to a sister from Texas and Alaska and then talked to her. Even though she did not know us the connections were important. We had a nice talk and then returned back to Taco Tuesday at this restaurant. It was great.
















We then took the trolley to Seaport Village and walked around that evening and had ice cream at Ben and Jerry's.











Walking to the hotel that night we saw this thing move around a tree and as we got closer it was a  couple of raccoons along the street of Old Town.



The next day we went to Balboa Park and walked around. We visited the orchard house,








walked the plaza, 


and then went to the desert garden


















and the rose gardens.


From there we drove along the coast highway to La Jolla. On the way we stopped and watched the kite surfers since it was a windy day at the beach.












We walked over to look at the Harbor Seals that stay around the Kids beach in La Jolla.














From there we went to Torry Pines State Park and hiked some of the trails that gave some dramatic views of the ocean a hundred or so feet below us. We then traveled north to Anaheim to our next hotel so that we could go to Disneyland and California Adventure the next day.




We started at California Adventure at 7:30 in the morning. We waited in line waiting for the park to open and then headed off to the Cars rides. We liked it so much we went back later in the day and did it again.
 












We took advantage of the early start and went to various rides and shows. We had lunch and listened to an all woman mariachi band and then watched Goofy lead the musical water fountain.















 We then went over to Disneyland and enjoyed the various rides. At Splash Mountain we got very wet.






























On one of our trips back and forth between parks we came upon a parade on main street.













That evening we had just Space Mountain left and as we stood in line they announced that it had a mechanical problem. Many left except 16 of us who decided to wait since we were going to wait 40 minutes anyway and had no where else to go. After about 40 minutes the ride was open and they lead us down to the ride. We even got to go twice on the ride since we had waited outside that long while no one else did.


Once we got out it was time for fireworks and the end of the day and the last day of our trip.