Happy Easter

We made bird's nest treats which no one ate.

 We decorated eggs in the least messy way possible, straight from the greendoodle blog.

We had a delicious Easter breakfast party with Todd's family (except Grandma Rainey who was in the Panama Canal - hopefully not IN it, just ON it in a cruise ship).  The kids loved the egg hunt, but surrendered their "treasures" almost immediately so now I have all the coins back in my wallet and  chocolate-y breath.


We all tried the slackline. It's harder than it looks.

After a nap, we went to Faucheux's for a ham dinner and another egg hunt which made Ikey a "rich man".

We slept in our new tent in our backyard. It rained all night, but we stayed warm and dry. I checked on Jovie in the middle of the night and she was asleep with her hands over her ears because the rain and winds were pretty noisy.

Salon Mexico at Utah Symphony

We listened to some stirring Latin music at Utah Symphony's Salon Mexico concert with Grandma Faucheux. The kids tried out a xylophone, flute, clarinet, saxophone, and french horn.

 

The little lady is standing on her tip toes to reach the instruments.

The Snow Queen

We watched Children's Dance Theater perform The Snow Queen. Ikey honestly loved every second of it. Jovie loved the first hour.

After the show, we rode Trax to City Creek for lunch with friends and played in the dino play zone at the mall. It was a truly beautiful spring day.

 

 Then Ikey hiked to the top of Jack's Peak. It's quite a hike, don't be fooled by his small stature.

Then the kids played their favorite outside game, which is to peel the bark off this old stump on the edge of our yard. Jovie was beating it up with a plastic golf club today too. The kids were quite dirty under their fingernails and Ikey's hair was full of wood chips. They call it "painting the castle".

Rock Springs and Green River, Wyoming

Our one-day adventure was to tag along with TB on his trip to Rock Springs. We stopped in Green River at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum. If you're going to take these kids to a museum, you have to clarify if it's a dinosaur museum, train museum, or something else, because they don't like to be surprised about this kind of thing. The museums on this trip were mostly about mining history, which luckily always includes mining cars on rails and rail yards, and some dinosaur fossils from the mines. Whew!

Jovie acted afraid of "mannequins" for the first time ever, so she wouldn't pose in front of the nurse's uniform by herself. She felt safer with her "best play friend" Ikey instead.

The next stop was at Western Wyoming Community College. They have a walking tour around the main building. The campus is kind of just one classroom building and one dorm. There were dinosaurs, fossils, local history and lots of college kids.

 The wildlife museum included 125 stuffed animals. It was kind of an artistic display and the animals were really varied, but it was all collected by one family that was really into hunting, and seemed a little blood-thirsty to me. The pamphlet they handed out made it clear that even if these animals look nice, they can really be awful - hunting each other and stuff like that. They're even spreading the rumor that the taxidermied elephant "killed a German tourist" - just to add insult to injury.

 We visited the Rock Springs Historical Museum in the old City Hall and fire station. Historic downtown Rock Springs is pretty interesting - and trains are going by about a block away all the time.

Jails are one of our favorite things to see! This one even had a padded room. Jovie told me "There's greasy stuff in the potty." I told her not to get sent to jail.

The Burrows are showing you a Burroughs adding machine.

We're getting more ideas about flapper dresses.

Last stop for the day was Expedition Island where John Wesley Powell embarked on his travels down the Green River and Colorado River.  

Singin In the Rain at Olympus High School

 

We dressed up in our best rain coats and boots for the show. Jovie was really concerned about the two songs that were in the play, but not in the movie. She said that the best part was when it rained. It did! It rained on the stage at just the right time. The school is moving into a new building next month, so they figured they'd flood this old one.

These boys laughed and laughed at "Make 'Em Laugh"

Cousins!

All the actors wore yellow raincoats for their bows, so the hallway outside the theater was full of TEENAGERS(!) with yellow coats. Ikey walked up to every one he could chase down to say, "You did a good job!" The kids got to see some of the set pieces backstage when we were leaving the school, and I think that was Ikey's favorite part.

Springtime

You can hardly keep Ikey inside! I looked out the playroom window this morning and found this beautiful scene that TB and Ikey drew on the driveway yesterday.

Ballerina graduation

This was Jovie's last family ballet class. She's going to class with big girls next week so she'll have to wear a bun and no Easter bunny ears.

Balancing stuffed animals on their heads.

This is Ikey's last dance class until he can do tap dancing when he's 5. He's starting soccer again in spring and he said he's going to make a goal this time, so stay tuned.