Driving back and forth between Eric’s and our house, I thought it would be fun to take a detour and stop at the Museum of Natural Curiosities. The last time William came with us, it was insane! People were packed everywhere. (We didn’t realize it was $2 day!) Today was nice and calm. We were able to enjoy all the exhibits with little to no lines. William and Lucy had a great time together. I loved that he helped take over the teaching at some of the stations. I know she admires him so much and definitely listens to what he says. They built many creations together, and knocked many down. They got wet in Water Works and blown dry by the “hurricane.” They built pyramids that “reached the sky.” Lucy always loves to come to the Africa village to buy food and then cook it for everyone. Today, she even dressed the part in a kanga. We were able to color some leaf rubbings and even able to view a collection of special rocks from the museum’s locked cases. That was pretty cool because they do not take those out when there are lots of people. It was a nice day to just enjoy our time and go at our own pace.Lucy and William climbed through the “scary temple” and the ropes temple. William does such a great job with encouraging Lucy. She even overcame most of her fear of heights on the rope bridges, except with the last one. We had to do a little more coaxing to get across it. (Once you’ve started the course, you can’t go back.) After our inside fun, we went out into the gardens. It was a bit cool today, but still a beautiful day to explore. I sure love these two, and I love to watch them interact together. Makes my mom heart happy.These multilayered daffodils were gorgeous! Lucy has a blast with the koi at the pond. She kept making them come up to the glass, and then William would scare them away from above. They thought it was incredibly funny.Lucy wanted to dig in the sand pit, but wanted me to clean out all the foliage debris first. I just laughed. I would have been there for hours. Finally, she just settled for the leaves and sticks in her creations.Before we headed back inside, the kids wanted to try out the zip line.I amazed that these don’t scare Lucy. I’m terrified that she will go flying off, but she loves them. The faster, the better.These two are so silly! The sure love each other SO much! And I absolutely love to watch them.

Brie had to work today, and since we are sharing a car for the time, we decided to take a trip to the Bean while we were there. It was graduation day, however, so it was about impossible to find any place to park on campus. We had to park at the MOA and walk through the stream area. Lucy and William had fun climbing “mountains” on the way.When we got to the museum, it was crazy busy as well with school groups.We had to dodge around them a bit to be able to see the exhibits. Luckily, they were very respectful. We wanted to get a picture with the “Trump Pheasant.” The kids were so nice and moved aside so we could. I was super impressed! I have never had school group kids be that considerate.Lucy kept wanting to go into the gift shop, so we hung out in there for a while before the Discovery Show. Anywhere there’s books, you’ll find Lu. She’s just like her siblings.At the Discovery Show, we learned about insects and arachnids. The educators did a great job helping the kids learn the differences between them and really getting to know why they are important in our environment.Then came Belle! I’m not super fond of spiders, but Lucy thought she was the greatest! Not only did she have a princess name, but she also had pink fur on her thorax.We couldn’t touch Belle, but then Mojo the bearded dragon came out, and we could pet her all we wanted. Lucy liked how bumpy she felt.Once the discovery show was over, we took a quick trip upstairs, and then headed home. It was another beautiful day, especially to play outside. I just love that we can hang out and play again.

We got rained out last night when we tried to go fishing, so William and I woke up early this morning to go. The sky was SO Blue after the rain, and the grass and trees are getting so green. I just love this time of year.William SO wanted to catch something!He tried and tried, but no luck.We have a bit to learn about what the mountain fish like.We did get to see a really cute muskrat swimming in the water though. It was worth the early morning wake-up. Wii and I will have to come back soon and try again.

Brie’s semester is over!! Now that our house is finished and relatively close to her school, she is moving in with us. We are so excited! To celebrate, we had a special lunch at Brick Oven. (Luvabella had to join us as well. This doll still creeps me out, but Lucy loves her. Lu made her “walk” and “talk” everywhere we went. We were quite a scene.) After lunch, Brie took us to the duck pond. It was a very beautiful day. All the trees were blooming and the tulips and hyacinths were still flowering. It is such a glorious sight to see these amazing flowers for more than a day. (It never failed us in Texas: The day everything blossomed, torrential rain and hail would come and blast them all to smithereens! I don’t miss that at all!)Lu kept trying to pet the ducks, despite us telling her that they did not want to be petted. After fun at the pond, Brie took us to see the greenhouse and the lab that she works in at the Life Sciences Building. Proud Mom moment, as we were walking through the hallway, one of Brie’s professors stopped and said, “Hi.” Then he followed that with telling me what an incredibly smart young lady she is. I know she works super hard and is so very humble about her accomplishments. I was happy to have her hear someone say that with her there. She needs to know they recognize her and all her hard work. I could tell he was proud of her as well.

Today was Earth Day and we started it off with our second day at our new dance school. I love how we get to watch class when we like. I also love how the girls have stations at the end of class, where they get to “free dance” with different props to show off what they like to do. Lucy was super excited to get another star at the end of class, and had to hurry home to color her new technique sheet. I never thought she’d be so excited to get a coloring page. After she changed out of her dance clothes, she wanted to draw with chalk.She has gotten so good at drawing her letters. Now she likes to make up her own words and see if we can read what it says. It just recently rained, so our dirt is now mud again. Since our planting abilities are kind of on hold right now (we are awaiting our truckload of good dirt) we just had to pretend to plant something to contribute to Earth Day. We will definitely make up for it once our dirt arrives.We did make Earth cupcakes though. They were very delicious (and messy!) and we shared with our neighbors. I think they were a big hit. Happy Earth Day!!!!

Easter was a beautiful day. We still are struggling to find clothes and shoes, so everyone was a mix of mess, but at least we managed to get a picture. Even Khaliyah joined the crew. (She hasn’t wanted to leave Brie’s side.) Mom and Dad even got a picture.Lucy is all about posing for pictures lately, so she wanted to take more. The kids were told that they could NOT touch any eggs until everyone was ready for church. Khaliyah liked that idea and slept on some.When we said they could go, William, like always, was right there to make sure Lucy found some eggs too.The dog had to help also.Church was very nice. When we got home, we had a very spiritual lesson about Christ’s life and purpose, and then we made Resurrection Rolls. They turned out SO good and were a great way to remember why we celebrate Easter. After a bit of a nap, everyone was up and running again.Lucy decided to spin and dance. And then add a little silly too. (That’s always part of her dancing, silly goof!)It rained quite a bit, but in between showers, the kids enjoyed the beautiful outdoors. William has really gotten good with his bike. As they were jumping, the rain really started to come down again. Lucy quickly put on her raincoat and boots to jump in the mud puddles.Brie was such a trooper to stick with her and keep the dog in our make shift fence.Then an absolutely amazing sight!!!! A double rainbow right over the mountain!!! What a glorious way to celebrate Easter!!!William rode out in front and found that the rainbow looked like it ended on someone’s house down the road. We said they must be pretty special. To end our Easter evening, we decided to try out a park in Orem. Lucy fell asleep on the way, so she was pretty hesitant to wake up when we got there. They had some beautiful tulip gardens, and as we were enjoying them, Alex decided to walk out into the middle of the “dried up” lake to see a dead fish. We have no clue WHAT he was thinking!His shoes sunk pretty quickly into the squishy mud and he was stuck! All of us were laughing, but Sam. He was pretty angry. There was no point in getting mad because Alex hadn’t done anything intentional to get in trouble. He just made a bad choice. Natalie grabbed a rake from the lake bed and was able to help give Alex some umph to get out. No harm done, just some very muddy shoes. Luckily the bathrooms were open to wash them off. A little bit of swinging and Under Dogs, then it got pretty cold and dark, and was time to leave. We drove by Sam’s old childhood home on our way home. He’s been dying to show the kids where he grew up. He was very glad to finally get the chance. I’m so grateful we had this wonderful weekend together. I cannot wait until we are all together again!

Our next adventure for the day was to go to Young Living’s Eggstravaganza. Egg hunt and spring festival in one.Natalie found the most adorable baby Clydesdale as soon as we made it through the gates. Their horses were gorgeous!!! Lucy was amazed to see a horse actually nurse. Mana horse was getting a bit nervous with her squealing excitement, so we moved on to another horse to give her and baby a human break.Then Lucy caught sight of the Easter Bunny.I still can figure out how he became a figure for Easter, but she really wanted a picture with him.The kids went through the town buildings, and even found the jail. Lucy wanted no part of it, since William has been telling her about bad guys getting locked up in jail. She had no issues with locking her siblings in there however.Outside the bank building was a very serious Indian. I told Natalie and Alex to stand there and be serious.That didn’t last long at all!We found the baby animal barn on the way to the bounce houses and rock walls. Natalie sure is a natural with animals. Lucy still has a bit to learn, but she loves to try and hold EVERYTHING!While Lucy jumped, the big kids went to climb. Natalie challenged William to a race. He had no chance, poor guy, with his 11 1/2 size feet! He couldn’t get any traction to climb.Alex didn’t make it very far either, but tried really hard. Next was the egg hunt. Again, Lucy couldn’t control her excitement, and kept trying to run out and grab eggs before the whistle. A cabbage butterfly flew by and I gave her permission to chase it, as long as she didn’t touch any eggs, while we waited. That brought out the biggest smile.Finally, the hunt began. This time, Lucy was very concerned about not going over her limit and kept counting her eggs over and over again. She was all smiles when it was over. Mission egg hunt= complete success!We then went to get lunch. On the way, we found a stream. It took everything out of us to keep Lucy OUT of the water! She was ready to just get right in!We found the castle and tried to get a picture of the kids. Yeah, three year old on mega Easter candy does not make for a good picture! The conversation went something like this, Mom- “Okay guys. Stand under the arch for a quick picture. Lucy, look at Mom.”

Natalie-“Wait! Where are you going?! What is she doing?!?!”

Natalie-“Okay. Nevermind.”

Yeah nevermind. I should have known it wasn’t going to work out. At least the big kids can cooperate. Then we tried to take pictures at the thrones. Miss Center-of-Attention was fine until the boys came into the picture. Poor Alex and William. Alex waited until everyone got distracted and came back for his picture. He is so patient.Natalie was super sweet and got a picture of Mom and Dad. We are hardly ever in the pictures. We need to change that. The kids found the barrel swing. It was super heavy to push, but lots of fun. Lucy insisted on me talking a picture of her with these eggs. The display was so flimsy and kept falling over, but she was not satisfied until she could see herself with these. Yes, in the mega bright midday sun too. Our last activity for the day was the jousting tournament at the castle. It was a fabulous event, complete with jugglers, sword throwers, fire blowers, bag pipers, horse and carriages, fairies, stilt walkers, and the royal courts.We didn’t get pictures during the joust because we were too into the action. Our night, Sir Shawn, won the main tournament, but was challenged by the female night, who then beat him in the final challenge. Lucy got a rose from Sir Shawn at the end. It was a fabulous end to a fabulous day! Everyone should sleep great after all the walking and playing. Hopefully no one ends up with a sunburn.

A super early start to our egg hunting fun day. Of course we get out of the van, Lucy forgets all about eggs and wants to pick every dandelion in sight instead. When she caught sight of all the eggs in the hunt area, however, she decided egg hunting would be fun after all. I’ll have to admit, Natalie and William were great sports. It stinks getting too old for these activities. They were very supportive of Alex and Lucy though. The kids played at the park during breakfast, while final preparations were made for the hunts. Lucy had to try really hard not to just run across the hunt zone. She was so excited, it was hard to wait! At one point, I caught her trying to sneak her basket further and further over the boundary line. She was like a lightening bolt when they finally said go! Funny thing was that she only wanted the pink eggs, and bypassed tons along her way to the pink ones.Then, enter the bigger boy with the blue baseball cap…They ran smack into each other trying to go for the same pink egg. I was waiting for Lucy to start crying, but she didn’t. She got up, left the egg, and stormed across the field (fists clenched) to tell us, “Did you see what he just did! He ran right into me!” Sam and I had to do everything in our power not to laugh. We just explained to her that they both ran into each other because neither of them were looking ahead. Once she realized that it was an accident, she was back to egg hunting.The rest of Lucy’s hunt went great. She was very happy with half a basket full of eggs. Next was Alex’s age group. He was bummed because it was broken up into 9-11 year olds. He thought he was going to get trampled, having just turned 9 last month. But he wasn’t.Lucy coached from the sidelines, making sure he didn’t miss any eggs.Alex got quite a few eggs too. Neither of the kids got prize tickets in their eggs. They didn’t mind though, and were super happy to share their treats with Natalie and William. It was so sweet: When we were about to leave, Alex’s friend gave Lucy one of his prize tickets (since he found 2 in his eggs) and said she could turn it in for a treat. That made Lucy’s whole day.

We had a few errands to run this morning before Lucy had recital pictures for dance. She really wanted to get a treat at the store, but I told her no. If looks could kill, I’d be dead. She didn’t mouth-off or throw a fit, just pouted silently. When I told her we were not going to get a treat because tomorrow was egg hunt time, her whole mood changed. She knew she had to be good. Pictures went very well. I hope they turn out okay. I didn’t put any makeup on Lucy because I wanted her to look natural. Hopefully that doesn’t wash her out. She had a blast running around like a bird. I’m glad too, because we had to wait a pretty long time for group pictures. One parent was 45 minutes late. I was shocked the studio waited for them. (I would not have been that nice. Everyone else was on time and should not have had to change their schedules because someone was not prepared. I just thought it was very rude and inconsiderate.) I had to laugh because Lucy kept getting right up in my face, telling me, “Watch Mom! I’ll fly like a bird super fast!” She had to make sure I watched her the entire run. If I looked away even for a second, she’d start all over again, making sure I watched the ENTIRE time.