Easter Weekend

We spent Easter weekend in Utah with Heather & Bryan's family. We were also able to see Ron & Rachel's Family. It was the first time we had ever been away from home for Easter.  We filled the weekend with a haircuts, golfing, shopping, pictures, and some long overdue visiting.

Andrea's haircut--12 inches donated to Locks of Love

The Golfing Crew

Traditional Family Easter Pictures

Cousins are the best!

Idaho--Part 3

Now this is the Idaho I remember--cloudy, cold, and windy.  After enjoying a beautiful sunny day yesterday, Idaho showed us what she was really about--Brrrr.  Before heading south to Utah, we stopped in Idaho Falls to check out the Salmon River and to see the temple.  If you look closely, you can see the temple in the background against the grey clouds.

While we were making the drive to Utah, we stopped for lunch.  Since we will not be together on Andrea's birthday in May, we decided to take her out to one of her favorite restaurants to celebrate her 19 years.  Olive Garden it is!





We made it to Utah.  Our first stop was to see my brother Kyle and his family.  We enjoyed dinner together and the kids took part in the traditional egg coloring for Easter.  It's fun to see the cousins get together even if some are too cool to show us the fun they are having.

Idaho--Part 2

We woke up early the next morning and went to the Rexburg temple. Since it was a break between semesters at the university, the temple was not very busy.  We were able to have the baptistry mostly to ourselves We brought several family names with us and did part of their temple work for them. It was amazing to all be in the temple together. 

For lunch, Andrea took us a fun pizza & pasta restaurant called, Pizza Pie Cafe.  It's an all you can eat pizza, pasta, salad, and even dessert pizza.  It was delicious!

We then went on a tour of the campus (Andrea was our tour guide).  We saw many buildings on campus and walked A LOT, but the highlight of the tour was the BYU I center which looks just like the one in Salt Lake City . It has a 10 court basketball gym complete with a running track on the upper level--amazing!  (Trivia:  Idaho seating 15,000/Utah seating 21,000)

During our tour we stopped by the Manwaring center, checked out the bookstore, and took a quick break to play some Foosball and pool before finishing our tour.

For dinner, we went to the famous Big Jud's restaurant.  They are famous for their 1lb burger.  No one ended up ordering the famous burger--we just enjoyed our own personalized food.

Before leaving we each decided to play the love meter game to see how lovable we are.  Below are our love ratings . . . . I guess the kids need to work on being more lovable.

We then finished the night with some swimming, hot tubing, games, and just hanging out together at the hotel!

Idaho--Part 1

All the stars aligned for our after tax season trip this year!  Kiana and Seth had spring break this year AFTER April 15th--this doesn't happen very often.  Many times Aaron is still in the middle of tax season when Easter/spring break comes along.  Even Andrea's break between semesters was at the same time, so we decided to head up north and spend time seeing her and the BYU Idaho campus.

As we headed East, our first traditional stop is always Circus Circus in Reno.  We spent a couple of hours playing and enjoying a delicious buffet before getting back in the car to continue the long drive.

After stopping in Elko for the night, we got back on the road the next morning and headed North East toward the small town of Rexburg.  We arrived by mid-afternoon where Andrea was waiting with open arms! We hung out in her apartment, went food shopping (Mother Hubbard's cupboards were bare), and enjoyed yummy homemade taquitoes for dinner.  We then ventured out for a delicious treat at Artic Circle--Good Times!

Table Top Mountain

It's a tradition . . . . every year we try to visit Table Top Mountain.  It's best in the spring when you can see all of the colorful wildflowers.  Having a picnic, flying kites, enjoying the sun, and hanging with family are our top favorite things to do there.  This year we added catching lizards to our list of activities.

We tried to tell Kiana that it was too windy for an umbrella. 

Despite several failed attempts, she finally found some shade.