Little of this, little of that

We are keeping busy, trying to just hang on until the end of the school year.  Owen is still doing track, Gator started her outdoor soccer season while still doing basketball, and Davis is playing on yet another basketball team.  The weather finally has started to warm up, I would rather it stay on the cool side for a little longer, but it is almost May I guess.  The boys are busy with friends.  I've been begging them to hang out a little more at home, but they almost set the house on fire last night, so maybe I should just let them go cause trouble somewhere else.  I'm grateful they all have such good friends.  Lagoon opened up for spring.  After so many years of getting passes, this year it is just Gator and I.  We were almost lagooned out as well, until we found out Krissy & PJ got passes, so we decided we wanted them for another season.  I thought caterpillars would be fun for my students to watch grow into butterflies, so I ordered some for school and also a set for home.  They are getting big and will soon be changing to butterflies.  Last year it was baby birds that I was obsessed with and this year it is caterpillars.  Lots will be happening in the next little bit with graduation, a mission call, summer jobs, football camps, soccer tournaments, and summer trips.  Hang on life keeps going faster and faster!
A win for the first game of the outdoor season!

 Homemade hot tubs

 Longboarding for 5 hours.  I guess you can't smile and longboard, but I was just happy to get a picture!

 What will I do next year, when I don't have a kid at Rocky with me to sluff and go get lunch?

 Track buddies

 A new team, Davis would play on 50 teams, he loves basketball

 I got the tires fixed and it wasn't stormy, so we went for a bike ride. It ended up being almost 3 hours and I was feeling it. 

 Soon we will have butterflies

 First 2018 Lagoon day

Senior Pictures

I put this job off as long as I could.  I didn't want to admit that Owen was a senior and would be graduating, but not taking the pictures wasn't stopping the time.  And all I did was make myself feel stressed about getting it done.  Finally today we went and took some.  I love how they turned out.  Yes, I cried.  But they are mostly happy tears.  I am so excited for Owens future, and I feel that he was raised pretty darn good.  I am sure a lot of it was just luck of the draw, but he is a dang good kid and I'm so proud of him. 

Back to Pocatello

Today we all were able to go to Pocatello for practice.  Dave, Lucy, and Dallin joined us along with some of the boys friends.  We had to take two cars, but that was okay, because each car went to a different lunch spot.  That way we can cover more area and find more local places for Owen to eat when he lives up there.  He is beginning to feel very comfortable in Pocatello, which makes me happy. 

Sunday dinner

One of my favorite things is having family dinners.  I love getting together for an evening and watching the kids play with cousins, and visiting with my family. 

Lava Hot Springs

Our trip wasn't all about football.  And the hot pots felt so good in the cold and rainy weather.  Gator wasn't a huge fan, she wanted to be swimming and jumping and diving not just sitting and soaking.  Good thing the hotel has a big pool.   I'd never been to Lava, I've been to Crystal Hot Springs and they are pretty similar.  Pretty cool how they don't heat the water or add anything to it.  It comes straight from the ground this way.  We will be back this summer.  Driving back to the hot pots, the road goes in front of a big outdoor pool with slides and diving boards.  Gator's eyes about bulged out of her head and then we had to tell her the pots were for just soaking.....poor girl. 

Shoshone Falls

Why have I never been here before??  It was amazing and beautiful.  I am so glad that we took the drive to Shoshone Falls, it was so worth it.  Poor Davis is quite scared of heights and bridges.  Which I find a little funny, because he is my skier, but a bridge over water he'd rather have nothing to do with.  Owen knows this as well and he teases him so bad.  I had to drag Davis out on the lookout for couple pictures, he was back to the trail before I could even tell him thanks.  I admit though, it was a little scary.  It was just so massive and breath taking.  Nature really is beautiful. 

Spring Practices

I had a hard time convincing Owen to come home.  He would've stayed at ISU and just jumped right on that field and played some football.  We went to some practices, and Owen was invited to some team meetings, and he met his new offensive line coach.  He loved every minute of being there with the team.

From South to North

After spending the first half of spring break in Toquerville, we came home for a day then went North to Pocatello.  Owen wanted to see some spring practices at the college and I thought we'd make a little vacation out of it.  I booked a hotel and looked up some stuff to do around Pocatello.  Not much has changed since I lived there.  There are quite a few new homes, and we went to see the site where the temple will be built, but other then that I had a lot of flashbacks from the two years that I lived in Pocatello.  A pool is all Gator needs to have a good time. 

 I came back from the pool and the boys had made themselves comfortable. 

 We made a trip to the bookstore.  It is time to start collecting orange and black. 

 We took Davis and Gator on a little campus tour like we went on in December. 

 

Easter

Enjoying Easter on conference Sunday was pretty neat.  This conference a lot of changes were made including home/visiting teaching, Elders/High Priests, and a big announcement of 7 new temples, including one in Layton.  And we also had the opportunity to sustain a new prophet, President Nelson.  He definitely made his first conference as prophet a memorable one with all the changes.  We wanted to keep our tradition of "egging houses" going even though we were in Toquerville, so we got a few families from dad and Dianne to enjoy our Easter surprise. 

 Dianne set up an Easter egg hunt for the kids two weekends in a row.  Last weekend was the big family one during their spring break, but she was sweet enough to have a hunt for our kids as well this weekend. 

 This looked so much cooler on Pinterest.  Dying eggs with shaving cream and food coloring.  The thought was cool, and a couple turned out.  The kids had more fun playing in the shaving cream though.  Clean up was super easy, just roll up the plastic and throw it all away.