3 for 1 - Conference, Easter and April Fools weekend!

We always hear "the reason for the season" is Jesus around Christmas time, but there's another season that Jesus is the reason - Easter.  And because of Easter, everyday really.

When Lucy was at Girl Scouts a week before, they were cleaning out the sanctuary in the Lutheran Church.  Her leaders told me Lucy was telling them all about Easter and why we do celebrate it.  They were asking questions about Jesus, like "Does Jesus have friends?" And Lucy replied "Yes, Jesus had friends. He had his disciples and apostles, they were His friends."  The Girl Scout leader, also Christian, was asking questions as well and was impressed with her knowledge of the Savior and His life, atonement, crucifixion and resurrection.  (She just wasn't quite sure what Good Friday was, we'd talked about it before but don't really celebrate is as we tend to focus on the resurrection)  Lucy's troop leader thought it was so sweet and just had to tell me.  I'm glad she did.

The weekend before Easter, we decided to do an "Easter Art Gallery".  Some of our kids really feel the Spirit through seeing beautiful religious themed art work, so I decided we'd do our own.  We wrote down events during the Savior's last week on little slips of paper and everyone got to draw one and create a work of art representing that event.  Everyone got to work and enjoyed creating something to celebrate the life leading to the resurrection of Christ.  We shared them all with each other.  It was neat what everyone came up with and we hung it all up in our craft room.  ...

Mark & Mayela decided to come for Easter weekend.  It was so nice they were able to come, the kids only got two days off school and were sad we wouldn't be able to travel much of anywhere.  So everyone was super excited!  The night they got here, we just ate dinner, chatted, and Mayela brought us back some great things from Mexico.  She got Cal and Emma cool clay and ribbon pens, Lucy got a unicorn bow which she loves, Cov got a bunch of spicy candy, as he requested, and Sydnie got a cute traditional dress.  She also brought extra candy and gave me some real vanilla, oh yeah!  We spent the time with them doing dance parties, making crafts, playing games, chatting, playing with Marko's crutches (just hurt his leg not too long ago and has to be in a boot and on crutches for 6 more weeks, poor guy), making and eating good food, watching silly videos, making up games, playing pretend and more.  The kids all get along really well and Amber is such a fun girl.  We loved watching them play together.

We really enjoyed Conference, what a powerful weekend! The kids set up forts and we put together some eggs with pictures of the general authorities.  For each of the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve speaking, they'd find their egg and we'd have a number in it that corresponded with a little snack. We had lots of coloring stuff out, too.  The kids also did some face painting during the sessions. The solemn assembly to sustain our new prophet, President Russell M. Nelson was amazing!  The Spirit was so strong and affirmed to me that he is a true prophet of God as I raised my arm to the square. We've been trying to learn more about our new prophet lately, and I came across a picture of him swinging that I love. Before, it was so hard for me to picture another prophet.  But you can tell that mantle is upon him, and I love President Nelson and sustain him with all my heart.  I know he is the prophet for our day and our time!  The messages were uplifting and some new changes were announced.  Elders Quorum and High Priests will now meet together...Dave, EQ president in our branch was like "Yes!  I've been released!" but soon after got a text from our branch president saying not to get any ideas, haha!  It was also announced that Home and Visiting Teaching are being replaced with a higher program that will be called "ministering" and will focus less on just getting it done and numbers and focusing more on caring for one another.  I'm excited for this!  Also, 7 new temples were announced, including Layton, UT, which Dave and I have always said needed to happen. And, a temple in Russia! There were audible gasps and cries for joy here and all around the world.  So exciting to see the work moving forward!  As for topics, what stood out to me was doing the small and simple things, taking care of the poor and widows and orphans, serving others, being a good parent and teaching and listening, going to the right sources for answers, how to be a better family member, listening to the Holy Ghost, staying close to the Savior, and receiving revelation. All of the things to keep us safe in these perilous times. Mark was commenting how sad it is how many are loosing their way and falling away from the Gospel.  And I see it a lot.  It always starts with the little things.  But if we listen to the Prophet's voice, we will be able to stay safe physically and spiritually in these latter days.  This is Christ's Church and He is there for us. He directs the work and He can work through us!

Photo from LDS.org

We went to a community egg hunt here on Saturday in between sessions, and that was fun.  There were a ton of eggs.  It was a super cold and snowy weekend (still dipping down below zero) so they held it at the school.  We dyed our eggs in between as well and made hot glue gun eggs.  And little chicks out of upcycled egg cartons.  During the Priesthood session, nails were painted, and we made some Peep houses that were fun.

We woke up to a few April fools gags on Easter morning.  Looked like the Easter bunny used the facilities and forgot to the flush, oops!  The kids got a kick out of this one!  Cov helped me a bit with this, because he couldn't think of anything else.  The girls made "strawberry popsicles" which were ketchup mixed with water and offered them to us, yum!  No one fell for it though, ha!

The Easter bunny left some fun things - the kids all got a toothbrush, tooth paste, candy (have to use those tooth brushes), some little boxes of cereal and some egg racer toys.  They were excited!  We had carrot cake cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and they were yummy.

Then it was back to Conference and it was amazing!  I love having Conference on Easter.  In between sessions, we had an Easter lunch that included chicken pillows, baked potatoes, steamed carrots, french salad and strawberry cheesecake trifle for dessert.  Then we did our Easter egg hunt indoors.  We lined up youngest to oldest and let them each find the eggs.  The kids made sure to remind Dave not to hide them as hard as Grandpa Dan, and he did pretty well getting it done.

Sunday night, we headed to Canada.  Mark & Mayela just got back from Mexico a couple of weeks ago, and now they wanted to see the great north.  We saw a bald eagle on the way, that was cool.  So much wildlife up here.  We checked in at our hotel, then went swimming at the little water park there.  The kids loved the slides and did that for about 2 hours straight.  Then we played board games and ate snacks until it was late.  Monday, we slept in, went to breakfast, and then were off to run errands.  First, we went to the mall and got a few fun things.  Mostly the same stores as here, but I think everyone liked the record store the best.  After that, it was to Costco to check things out and get some Canadian maple syrup and try Poutine.  It was a hit with everyone, though Mayela wasn't sure about it.  Then we went over to check out the temple, which was closed.  We sat in the parking lot for a while though, checking out the beauty.  After that, we headed to the science museum, where Amber got to be a volunteer for a show about energy, we learned about the science of cotton candy, and got to see some new exhibits from the last time we went there.  Amber really wanted to check out Dollar-Rama, the Canadian version of a dollar store.  We got some Canadian candy to take home for later and a few other treasures.  Also, at the grocery store, we picked up some huckleberry Canadian Dry pop, it was SO good!  The last stop was to Montana Steakhouse for some dinner.  It was tasty, and they even sang to Mark and Dave, who had birthdays that week.  They got to wear a moose hat even which they were *thrilled* about.  It was fun just sitting around talking and hanging together so much!  We went home after that, sleeping well that night.

The next day, we just hung out at home most the day.  So much playing and giggling and fun going on.  We did go get shakes at the Coffee Shop, did some bowling at our little bowling alley, and then the adults went on a double date at the Slipper.  Emma and Amber took their job of babysitting seriously, and even made some really good homemade mac and cheese, which they were proud of.

The last full day together, our kids were back to school.  We helped M&M do some laundry that morning and just played around.  Then we went to have school lunch with the kids and play at recess time with them.  Then, like that, they were gone.  It was hard to believe they were here for almost a week, time went by so fast!  Thanks for coming to visit, familia!  It was a great Conference, Easter & April Fools week!