April 2015 Happenings

The month of April started out with Easter, General Conference and Spring Break all in one glorious week.  Besides the Easter celebrations, we just enjoyed Spring Break around here.  The boys came with me and the youth of our ward to hike Ensign Peak.  It was our first hike of the season and they ran the whole way up and wondered what took me so long to get there.  I'm looking forward to lot of hikes this summer with them!

We took an afternoon to visit Grandma and Grandpa and to have a swim in the condo pool.

Then we stopped for dinner and ice cream on the way home.  The boys love Arctic Circle.

Another Spring Break afternoon we again went downtown where we went with my mom, Mandy and Ellie to visit the Conference Center.

 April views at our house looked like this.

And this.  Our biggest snow storm of the entire winter was in April.

Work and play took place in April.  The boys still think some work with dad is more like play, but any kid would with Mark as their dad.

They even helped lift those super heavy pieces of sod.  Mark did lots of back breaking work and now the renters yard in finally completely finished.  I was not much help as I waited and am still waiting for my broken thumb to heal.  It is going to be a long time before it is functional again.

This pheasant along with his girlfriends have taken over the field and adjoining forest.

We had a mini crisis in April when within two weeks one of our pine trees in the front went from a beautiful green to completely brown and dead.  After getting several arborists to check it out, we now know that it and all our other pines were invested with borer beetles.  The prognosis was grim.  The dead tree definitely needed to be cut down and we needed to pay lots of money for treatments on the other six to hopefully save them from the same demise.  I got a little depressed about it and realized I'm a bit of a tree hugger.  Hopefully the treatments did the trick for our other trees.  Here's the one being taken down.

The month of April brought Mark's new Sous Vide water bath oven thing in the mail.  You put that thing in a pot of water along with whatever you want to cook in a vacuum sealed bag and a few hours later you have a perfectly cooked whatever.  I had never heard of such a thing before, but after seeing the magic it works on cheap steak, I have become a believer.  It can make the cheapest beef roast taste like a very expensive steak, perfectly cooked evenly all the way through.  Mark will just sear the outside of the steak on the grill quickly and it's amazingly delicious.  We've eaten Sous Vide steak every Sunday since it's arrival.  I have also gotten great results with chicken breasts and fish.

The boys got into kite flying in April and it's so nice to head out the back door to our field or the park when we want to fly a kite.

We had Mark's family over to Sunday dinner and we chatted with Mark's parents for the first time.  Timmy thought it was the coolest thing in the world to see them while talking to them.  We are missing them on Sundays, but they are doing so much good in the Taiwan temple.  Their fluency in both Chinese and English is really needed there.

The boys finished up soccer.  They loved playing indoor soccer!

The end of April brought our 11th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated on our camping trip to Moab.  There's not a better way to celebrate than camping in my opinion.

April was a fantastic month.  I just can't believe it's already the middle of May.  Time is flying by.

Moab Camping Trip

It had been almost two years since we camped in Moab, so we felt it was time to get down there again.  We also wanted to take our sister-in-law, Sunny, on her first camping trip.

We didn't take off for camping until late Friday afternoon because of some craziness at work for Mark, but when we did finally pull out, the boys were thrilled to have their own little entertainment center/snack bar in the back seat of Mark's car.  It was the perfect car setup for them.

Friday night is the worst possible time to arrive in Moab to find a campsite.  We knew this to start out with, but it was our only option.  Every campsite within an hour of Moab was full.  We drove all the way out on Kane Creek road and ended up taking someone's site that was already reserved for the night before and that night, but because no one was there and it was already 11:00 p.m. we pulled in a set up camp.

The next morning after a stormy loud night, we headed straight to Arches.  Our first stop was the Visitor Center where the kids always have to take a ride on the bronze animals.

Then we headed up to see The Windows and Double Arch.  The boys were not interested in the Arches at all, but they were super into running and climbing on everything and chasing lizards.  I could barely keep up with them.

The morning started out beautiful, so we headed to show Sunny the famous Delicate Arch.  The hike up was warm and sunny.  Timmy actually hiked it this time with some enthusiasm.

As we were enjoying the view we noticed these storm clouds moving in rather quickly.

We did our best to hurry down to the car, but Timmy kept deciding he was done and he would just lie down on the rocks until Mark picked him up.

We didn't make it to the car.  Because it was so sunny when we started hiking I only put in one poncho.  Brian got the poncho and we all ran as fast as we could.  We got soaked.

We got in the heated car and decided to drive up to see the Devil's Garden area.  We got to the top and were surprised to see this white stuff all over.  Had that storm left snow? In April?  Yes it had.  I couldn't believe how fast it changed.  It was seriously hot out in the sun two hours earlier and now cold enough for snow.

We had planned on doing more hikes and more exploring in Arches, but the kids had fallen asleep and we were still wet and the thought of getting out of the car sounded way too cold and miserable.  So we headed back into town for an early warm dinner at the Chinese restaurant.

After dinner we walked around Moab for a bit and then drove out to our soggy campsite.  We got a smokey fire going and roasted some marshmallows.

It was cold and wet, so we went in the Scamp for a bit and played some Ma Jong.

We are so spoiled when it comes to camping.  This is what the boys enjoyed while Sunny and Luke had to stay in...

...a tent.  Luckily our tent kept them dry.

Unlucky though that the only campsite we could possibly get was right next to the the biggest and loudest group of crazy campers in the world.  It would have been a really nice spot it it weren't for that group of trailers you see in the background.  They were loud and wild all night long.  The Scamp kept the noise out for us, but I felt so bad for Luke and Sunny in the tent.

After packing up camp on Sunday we drove up to Sand Flats to give Sunny her first experience off roading.  It was fun and beautiful!  I'm so glad we went.

The kids think it is fun too.  Timmy loves it!

Our last experience in Moab was a picnic and fun in the musical park in town.  We made a pretty good percussion band with all of us playing different instruments.

After arriving home, Mark cleaned and waxed our Scamp and parked it in the shed.  We love that little trailer and are looking forward to our next scamping adventure.