Catching up...

Geoff was in Utah this past week doing all sorts of things...with our computer. I am, therefore, very behind. I'm going to skip most details to keep myself from not getting around to posting, and just get the general ideas on record.

As I mentioned, Geoff's sister Ingrid and her family were visiting for Spring Break/Easter Week. I say Easter week because Geoff and I are campaigning to make Easter the biggest holiday/week of the year. The events of Easter are the center of everything we believe in so we're trying to create a lot of tradition and learning around the last week of Jesus' life.

We had a daily devotional that corresponded with Jesus' last week, and acted out the stories as much as we could. More kids made it more fun, and more chaotic at the same time! We made clay lamps to use in our reenactment of The Ten Virgins, as well as to adorn the Passover table. We had a Passover dinner where we talked about the symbols of the food (which mostly "passed over" the kid's heads), and had a yummy lamb feast to follow. All week we tried out "Jesus foods" and on Sunday finished up the week with a fish dinner with honey(comb). It was a fun week. The kids were still most excited about the Easter bunny, which is to be expected, so as a comprise to their excitement and anticipation and our desire to separate Easter from the Easter bunny we had our egg hunt Saturday morning. It was a rainy morning so we had 120 eggs hidden throughout the downstairs. The Easter bunny hid them well this year and it took the kids a good hour to find them all.

General Conference, the semi-annual conference of our church, was over Easter weekend. Ingrid prepared little packets for the kids to keep them engaged, and she prepared a snack buffet during the mornings. Geoff made our second annual spring conference "Mormon Tiramisu" (which Ingrid told us means "pick me up" in Italian...quite fitting for a conference traditional food!) Oh my it was delicious! Conference was full of great counsel, the house was full of great people and food, and activity...we were all nourished temporally and spiritually!

Being with Ingrid and Trent's family was so delightful. We learned a lot from observing how they do things. They are great parents with some great kids.

Ceci sharing Milkshake with cousin Taeya

Working with clay

Lots of free time with cousins...here Adele, Ceci and Taeya had broken legs.

Each child goes for a particular colored egg and Ceci's were pink. I love Ceci's face here.
The magic of childhood...

This past week has been a week of catch-up after several busy weeks, which tail-ended some very busy months. It feels nice to have limited outside demands again.

Geoff was in Utah reconnecting with some old contacts, doing some consulting with the LDS Perpetual Education Fund, and judging a Business Plan Competition at BYU. He squeezed in a little time with his siblings who kindly chauffeured him around, and provided him with dinner and a bed each night. We girls are severely out of practice having Geoff gone and are so overwhelmingly happy to have him home again!