Easter/Conference Weekend

Kind of strange that Easter not only landed on Conference weekend, but Spring Break as well. Unfortunately for us, most of us were sick. Miles has been sick for the past few days with the crud which usually is accompanied by fevers and vomiting. So that's been fun. I started to feel kind of sick about a week ago but today I got a fever around lunch time. Jett has a bad cough and Dave has a sore throat. Cruise I guess is waiting to get sick later this week.

Luckily last Sunday I had everyone dress up in their Easter best!

On Saturday, we all rolled out of bed and went to the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt & breakfast. They boys always like that and it gets me off the hook. All I have to do is drop off 30 filled Easter eggs at our neighbor's house the day before and it's all taken care of. We also do a breakfast potluck but it's pretty much a muffin potluck. Lots of muffins.

Despite being sick, Easter turned out pretty well. For Easter baskets this year, I bought sand pails off of Oriental Trading. The baskets from years past got ruined so I had to find something else, but the baskets at Target were stupidly expensive, so I found these pails online for $3 each, and they are surprisingly very sturdy! Go me!

The boys left the Easter Bunny some carrots on the floor the night before and even helped clean the house because Mom says, "The Easter Bunny only comes to clean houses!".

Cruise and Jett each got a package of chocolate dipped Peeps, 2 caramel Cadbury eggs, Lindt chocolates, a tithing bank, a CTR tie pin, a missionary action figure (yes, they're a real thing), a shovel & rake set, sidewalk chalk, crayons & a pad of paper, and they each got a book. Cruise got Click, Clack, Peep and Jett got Happy Easter Curious George. Miles got Lindt chocolates, Goldfish Crackers, shovel & rake set, sidewalk chalk, triangle crayons, a small bubble machine, and a board book: Happy Easter, Mouse!

 We had our big meal between General Conference sessions. We had a glazed ham, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, sauteed garlic asparagus, rolls, and sparkling cider. For dessert we had a banana cream pie.

It was so nice to spend Easter at home, listening to General Conference. So many talks that I felt I really needed. 

Hopefully we will all get better to enjoy Spring Break this week!

LIUB 2015

Light It Up Blue!!!

Once again it's April, which means Autism Awareness Month! And April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day, where all over the world you will find things like the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids in Egypt, The Sydney Opera House, and the Empire State Building going blue for the day all to raise awareness for autism!

We always put up our blue lights on our porch and try to wear blue. Cruise, of course, never wears blue. The only exception is if he is wearing pajamas. Then he'll practically wear any color.

I once again got to attend the annual Autism Conference at UVU last week and learned some new things that would help Cruise, particularly Social Skills. I was a little disappointed this year by a few of the classes, but I still was able to leave there with some good info and new goals. The main speakers were wonderful and the lunch was much better this year than years past. So it balanced out and I enjoyed a day of uninterrupted learning! 

Fish N Ships

I'm finally getting to this...

Birthday Fly Fishing Trip

Dave finally got to redeem his fly fishing trip I gave him for his birthday on the 13th of March. He learned what he had been doing wrong and got a lot of good pointers. He fished for about 4 hours on the Provo River and brought home a nice brown trout since we've never eaten brown before.

He had a lot of fun.

Fishing With Jett
Dave took Jett out fishing not too long after his fly fishing trip. And they had a lot of success! Here is Dave's account:

First we went to Vivian Park and I asked Jett what lure he wanted to use and he picked out a spinner I had never caught a fish on before. I had to ask him a couple of times if he was sure that was the one he wanted because I never had success with that one. He was sure. So then he asked me to cast it for him, so I cast it out and handed the pole back to him. On the second cast, we caught a fish. It was a little rainbow trout and Jett reeled it in. I couldn't believe we had caught a fish on that lure! We tried it a few more times but didn't catch anything. So then I asked him if he wanted to try a different lure, so he picked out a new one. It was another lure I had never caught anything on, and we cast it out a couple of times but didn't catch anything.

He said he wanted to go to the Provo river and fish there. so we walked over there and found a drainage pipe that was out into the river that we could walk on. We stood on the drainage pipe and he wanted to stick with the lure he had on his pole. So i had him drop his line in and on the first cast, he caught a 15 inch brown trout! We reeled it in and tried casting the same lure again in the same spot, but after 4-5 casts, Jett got bored and decided he didn't want to fish there anymore.

So we headed to Deer Creek and the wind was blowing too hard to launch the boat, so I told him we should go back to the river. We went to just below the dam and i put on my waders, got my fly fishing reel set up, and i asked him if he wanted to change lures. He picked out a double jointed rapella, which i've had a lot of success with in the past. So I put him on my shoulders with his fishing pole, I cast my line and he threw in his lure, and after about 10 minutes of waiting, Jett said, "Dad, should I reel it in?" and I said, "Yeah, go ahead." So he reels it in and there is a 17 inch brown trout on the end of it!"

The Boat
Dave got this boat for free. He has been working on it day and night for weeks now and today he said he feels like we can take it out for a test run. He painted the trailer, re-carpeted the whole thing, put in the seats, and has rebuilt the engine. If that's not talent, I don't know what is!

He's the mayor of Awesomeville.