Easter 2016

Easter in St. George, a fave holiday tradition of mine.

We'd been planning on it and looking forward to it for months, but at the last minute, when the kitchen/bathroom demo was turning into a never-ending nightmare, Randy had to stay behind and finish things up.

I really didn't wanna spend the holiday weekend apart from him, but figured it was better to get the kids the heck out of his way anyways.

So we went ahead to St. George without him. :(

Thankfully, I survived the 7 1/2 hour road trip alone with the kids.

And once we got there, I drowned my sorrows in dirty diet pepsi's and swig sugar cookies.

The Clowards were there waiting for us and had lots of fun stuff planned.

John heard about this new spot called the Gypsum Mines.

We off-roaded it in the minivan way the hell out in the middle of the desert and it was looking a little sketchy for a minute there...but we made it and the kids loved it!  They all used their own chisels and hammers to mine for gypsum...

While these two filthy trouble makers just rolled around in the red dirt and tried to hit people with hammers...

The Clowards also took us to another new spot we had never been to before called "The Crack."

Its basically this famous spot in St. George where these two rock walls are so close together that it leaves a crack barely big enough for people to shimmy through.

You can't do it with toddlers or babies so Shel stayed out with the little ones and I thought I'd go through with Madden and Boston.

But I was barely in a few yards when my boobs started wedging me in between the rock walls and I was like hell to the no.  I'm not even claustrophobic but it totally freaked me out and so I backed out! Madden and Boss went ahead without me and I left them to fend for themselves...

But then when Madden and Boss made it out the other end and Shel and John realized I chickened out, John came back around to the entrance and made me go through with him.

I was pretty much taking deep breaths and freaking the freak out through the whole thing while John coached me through it.

Actually, he mostly just laughed at me and told me how this was like an episode of The Bachelor, where we were overcoming a fear together and it was gonna bring our relationship to another level of closeness.

But I was thinking it was more like the James Franco movie 127 hours where he gets stuck in a red rock cave and he has to chop off his own arm to get out only instead of chopping off my own arm I was gonna have to chop off my own boobs.

But I made it, guys.

With my boobs still attached to my body.

The next morning was Easter.

The kids put out their Easter baskets the night before for the Easter Bunny to fill.

But the (lame) Easter Bunny left a Target bag full of easter basket surprises in the closet where the kids found it (oopsies).

Which started a conversation about whether or not the Easter Bunny was even real or whether the parents were the Easter Bunny.

So the older kids had the idea of setting up a camera to see if they could catch the Easter Bunny in action.

When I showed the kids this pic on my phone Easter morning, Naomi and Rowen's reactions were priceless.

Boston and Madden still were a little skeptical.

In the end, they decided it was "totally obvious" this was someone in an Easter Bunny costume so they think it wasn't the REAL easter bunny, but one of his helpers, who came to deliver their easter basket goodies ;)

After the kids went through their Easter baskets, we rushed out the door to church.

Which went as disastrously as you can imagine with 6 kids and only 3 adults.

Needless to say, we didn't even last through the entire first hour.

2 years ago, we took this same pic on this same rock with this same group of cute kids.  But those two crazy-hair toddlers were just itty bitty newborns in their older sibling's arms...

After church, we went and ate delicious crepes for brunch and drove through Zion's National Park.

It was gorgeous!

We parked on the side of the road along the way and went for a little walk.  And then the moms ended up in the car with the toddlers while John took the older kids on "real" hike.

When we got back to the condo it was time for the Easter Egg Hunt!!

We missed Daddy hardcore on Easter, but luckily his parents had come down to the valley so his Dad could help him with stuff at the house, so he was able to spend the holiday with them.

The day after Easter, the painter came and the house turned into even more of a construction zone!

So Randy told us to stay in Utah a little longer while things got finished up...