Spring break came and went with a flash. We were initially planning on going to my sisters house for a few days, but had to cancel that due to a B-Ball tourney that Abby was scheduled to play in. That ended up not being the case which was perfectly fine because we were also expecting lots of American company over that week. But then they ended up not being able to come. Just as John and I were starting to settle in for a long and quiet week - my entire family serendipitously all arrived in town on the same day, so we ended up having a bit of an Easter party after all! haha
My family weren't here for long though, and so it was up to John and I to fill that glorious week off of school with all sorts of fun. Some of the highlights included:
1. Temple visits:
John and I were able to accompany Abby for her first ever trip to the temple to do Baptisms for the dead. We were with a group of our ward young women, but it was nice to be able to help Abby through that special day and to watch John baptized her. I've enjoyed seeing how her love for the temple has increased now that she can go in!
The kids and I also had a fun afternoon picnic on the temple lawn one day while John was busy officiating at a funeral. I was sure to send him a photo of us having fun, so that he could know that he was missing out;)
2. We got to spend a day out at Sommerland!!!
Some friends (and landlords;) of ours invited us out to their family cabin one day during the break. It's aptly called "Sommerland" and it is a great place to spend a spring day. John grew up next door to some of this family, and their Grandpa Dean sure had a lot of quads for the kids to ride.
My kids had never been on a quad, let alone drive one themselves!! They went all sorts of crazy, riding nonstop (literally until the fuel ran out), and they've each decided that this is what they are saving up their money for. And hey, I'm okay with that! (whatever takes their minds off the lizard they've been wanting;)
When the kids weren't out joyriding, we all kept ourselves busy visiting, building forts in the trees, playing Yahtzee, and eating lots of yummy food! One thing that was particularly thrilling for me was to find little crocuses starting to poke up from the ground. "Oh, hello SPRING!!!!!"
We got home that night just after 10:00 pm and the kids were all asleep the moment their heads hit their pillows, which is always a sure sign of a great day!!
3. A bit of Paleontology out at St. Mary's
Towards the end of our spring break, we realized that we had not yet made a trip out to our favorite fossil hunting site. In fact, we hadn't been out there at all since last fall, and I could tell that John was anxious to see if the winter weather had unearthed anything exciting. Boy did it!!! We hadn't been there five minutes before the kids started stumbling across all sorts of fossils. And unlike searches in the past - they hardly had to search at all!!! It was the strangest thing to walk along and look down and realize that you were staring at something really amazing.
Picture 1 (with the pail) shows where all the major fossil finds were. Picture 2 shows Jessica holding what we have since learned (from a local expert) was most likely a tooth from a Crocodilian dinosaur. The third picture shows a giant tooth that Abby discovered. It was all broken up, but we snapped that photo before Abby scooped each piece into a pail. The fourth picture shows scattered fossils that John excitedly gathered one by one. A similar find as this consisted 7 tiny serrated teeth that looked different than anything we'd ever found before. John was excited to show those to his colleague as well who was able to identify them as Shark teeth. They likely belonged to a "Snaggletooth" shark. The cool thing about that though is because so many were found in one spot - Shane felt that this might mean that an actual skeleton is buried somewhere nearby, just waiting to be unearthed! I generally just walk around and take pictures when the family wants to go fossil hunting, but this particular day was pretty darn exciting!!!
Abby carried all the tiny pieces of that tooth home and with a little bit of "Kragle" (haha) and a whole lot of patience, she worked on piecing that tooth back together!
John was pretty much on cloud 9 for the rest of the day (and pretty much every day since;)
I tell ya, it's bordering on an obsession now, but who knows, perhaps one of these four little hooligans may really take an interest in this whole thing.
Other fun events of our week long holiday included sleepovers with cousins, trips to the local pool and a couple of days spent on some minor home renovations. Yes, on the home that we are JUST RENTING!!! (Stay tuned;)
It was a great week off, and one in which life taught me (yet again) that sometimes the best kind of plan to have - is NO PLAN AT ALL!!!!
