What Did We do This Easter?

What did we not do?

Since Craig works on weekends we had to find a time to commence the Easter celebrations. Well Monday wouldn't work because I was subbing, so we settled on Friday. Since Friday was the tail end of "Free National Parks" week we decided to try and include that in our festivities-- I really need to write down when "Free National Parks" week is because it sneaks up on me every year. The hard part about that is that every Utah park is about 3 hours away. But we finally selected a destination. Our first plan was to make a day trip to Moab. We'd do Easter baskets in the morning. Then head out to Moab and find some where we could have an egg hunt. Well then we heard family was getting together to take in some hikes up at Zions. Well celebrating Easter, and Free National Parks Week with family sounded way more fun. So down south we headed.



We left on Thursday night and stayed with some friends. We did Easter Baskets on Friday morning before we left. Sadly the boys didn't sleep well because we weren't at home, and we woke up earlier then usual. We brought Big H in to see his basket and he just slumped over and laid on the floor in front of it. Little H was on the ball though. He started sneaking around, looking in everyone's basket and stealing their peanut butter cups.

We met up with everyone in LaVerkin and then we all headed to Zions. We hiked the Emerald Pools hike. This was my first time on this hike, the first time we hiked Zion's as a family and the first time the twins have really hiked-- all hikes previous to this the twins rode in packs and just fell asleep. Needless to say I had to stop and take a lot of pictures.



The boys sure loved the mud and the puddles at the lower pool. That red dirt makes for a nice stain!



Big H was adorable. He was just so excited and wanted to explore and take it all in. He kind of reminds me of me in that way. He knew he was somewhere neat and interesting and just wanted to see every little neat and interesting thing he could. We hiked up a short side trail to see this. It was his idea! And it was a good one.



Little H has a sad face here because he stumbled backwards a little which freaked me out and caused me to yell, "No No don't do that!" My heart jumped, and it took me a good while to calm down. If he had fallen here the only thing to catch him was a nice pointy cactus. And I probably would have been grateful if that's what did catch him!



We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the hike. The boys had a great time, except for the fact that we couldn't stop long enough to play in the dirt.



After the hike we headed to a local park and had some lunch and an egg hunt with the cousins.



We had so much fun with everyone. Thanks for letting us tag along. It was such a fun trip, and it was so nice to get out.

Our next Easter festivity was Baby Animal Days and Heritage Park.



My visiting teacher told me about this and I wanted to make an honest effort to go since Big H has such a fondness for animals. My original plans were to go with Craig because he has a fondness for Heritage Park, but we couldn't make it work so my parents were kind enough to go with me. It was such a fun day!



The twins were skittish at first, and they really didn't like the baby chicks, but they warmed up and it was so sweet to see them petting the animals.




The best moment was when I sat Baby M next to a lamb. My plan was to just get a picture to send to my Aunt who used to raise sheep, but it ended up being the cutest moment ever! The lamb was licking Baby M, and Baby M was giving kisses back. Then the lamb started to paw him-- I think Baby M smelled like food-- so I picked him up before it got too dangerous and the lamb started to follow us. I wasn't sure if we'd get out without adopting that lamb.




Nephew K loved the chicks. He kept asking if I'd buy him one. At 50 cents a piece I was about too.




The twins loved the goats and throwing wood chips into the little stream.



The twins even got to go on their first pony ride. They were fine until the horse started moving. But even after all that crying they were still willing to tell the horse, "Thank you!"





They had tractors on display too. The boys had to watch this one as it drove up onto the trailer.



We had a busy and exhausting weekend, but I still pulled it together and got up for church on Sunday. After all it was Easter Sunday. I set the boys baskets up again just for fun, and this time the Easter Bunny left some stuff for Craig-- he had already given me my Easter present.



On Monday we dyed eggs. I wasn't going to bother with egg dyeing this year, but our Easter just didn't feel complete.






Then when the twins woke up from their nap we had another little egg hunt. After the hunt we enjoyed our traditional "Eggs All-a-Golden Rod" for dinner.

What a wonderful time of year! It's always uplifting and peaceful at Easter time. And no mater what the forecast is the Sun always seems to shine on that Sunday. We our grateful for our savior and his sacrifice. And we are grateful for our yearly reminder that life can be restored and renewed.