Easter 2018 (and a Little April Fooling, Too)

Reunited for Easter!  Easter fell on a General Conference Weekend, as well as on April Fool's Day this year.  It was nice to know, after our long, late drive, that church Easter inspiration would be enjoyed in our jammies on the couch.  We enjoyed listening to conference talks and the music of the Tabernacle Choir in our sleepy state.  Between sessions, the kids received Easter baskets and we dyed eggs.  Then Tommy and Luke asked me to just hide the eggs in the backyard, "like you were the Easter Bunny, Mom!" and the boys had a hilarious and very fast egg hunt.  I think it took about 2 minutes before it was over.

Adam won the prize for Best Husband Ever (as he does every day), and had made us a delicious Easter feast.  He printed off all the recipes and did all the preparation and planning, from shopping to writing down the time each thing had to be started in order for it all to finish at the same time.  It was so adorable and tasty.  I think it tasted even better because I didn't make it!  I told him he could take on holiday dinners forever.  He didn't think that was my best idea ever like I did.

Because Easter fell on April Fools Day, there were antics about.  When I went to get ice from the ice maker, I discovered my glass full of Lego parts instead of ice--thanks a lot, Josh!  At bedtime Adam and I had a hard time stretching out because we had been short-sheeted by Ben--ha ha, kid!  But we had one up our sleeves, too.  Adam had unwrapped chocolates and re-wrapped grapes to put in their Easter baskets.  We thought it would be hilarious!  But the joke was mostly on us.  First of all, Adam, who did all the work to execute my brilliant internet find, said it took hours to get enough wrappers that didn't tear in the unwrapping, and then they mostly didn't stick when they were wrapped back on, so the "candy" looked really sketchy.  Then I had to BEG the kids to eat their "Butterfinger egg" chocolates, because that isn't one of their usual candies of choice (but one that has a wrapper), so they were eating the other treats first.  It took almost all day for them to even discover the trick, and they were super suspicious because I had to force them to try the eggs.  Hahaha!  So it was really funny in the end, but mostly because it felt like a comedy of errors for Adam and I, rather than that they discovered silly grapes in their candy wrapper. 

Spring Break California Road Trip 2018: Desert Side

The second half of break we drove out to my parent's condo in Rancho Mirage.  Besides a lot of time in the pool (again), we saw A Wrinkle in Time, did some paddle boating and took a day to drive out to Joshua Tree National Park.  I am not much of a "desert" person.  I love rain and trees and green things, but the wild, rugged beauties of Joshua Tree can't be denied in their unique weirdness.  There is definitely an exquisiteness in nature surviving at the extremes. We all really enjoyed our day there!  And left the park with no doubt that Joshua Trees inspired Dr. Seuss. (See: "What Was I Scared Of?" a.k.a. "The Pants With Nobody Inside Them.")

Our last night there, my mom had signed us up for the Full Moon Hike sponsored by the naturalist society they've been volunteering with since moving out there.  It was really neat!  We got to watch the full moon rise over the mountains and hunt for scorpions with black lights.  The group ended up spotting three, and my dad and I found two of them--go McKenzie/Conlins!  One of the most interesting things I learned on the hike was about how the vegetation in this area changes with every 500 feet of elevation, thus, one of the ways this group tracks climate change is by observing the vegetation and how the places where it grows changes over the years: plants that were once able to survive lower down where the hotter temperatures exist have slowly been disappearing and are only found higher up now because it gets too hot in the lower elevations.

We loved our time with Nana and Papa, some bonus time with my sis, Kai and Isla and, really, let's be honest, just all of it.  But all good things must come to an end.  We were determined to get home to Adam to celebrate Easter as a family, and to give the boys a day before heading back to school, so we hauled it home in one LOOOOONG day's drive.  Zac helped with the driving when I felt myself turning into a zombie.  I was so worried about him driving in the late hours, but he was alert and did a great job.  I had forgotten that for teens, the hours after 10pm aren't necessarily sleepy ones like they are for me these days.  It reminded me of how easily I used to be able to stay up past midnight!  We pulled into our garage at 2:58am on Easter Sunday--and all went right to sleep, sleeping the sleep of the happily satisfied.