Easter

Look at these handome boys in their Sunday best.  There is just something special about seeing them dressed up and excited to go to church.  I must admit their enthusiasm is a great blessing on days when my motivation is lacking.

I felt a little bad when at church everyone was asking my kids what they got for Easter.  My four-year olds answer was nothin'. Our family tradition has been to save the baskets of treats for a family night treasure hunt the Monday after.  I cut out pictures from adds for the clues and they follow one clue to the next and after about eight clues find their treasure.  It's great as you can do it with young children who aren't reading yet.  I have many fond memories of treasure hunts we did as a child.

 My parents sent the kids an Easter treat (thanks Mom!) and Amanda, Christian and Uncle Sandy did an Easter egg hunt for the kids later in the afternoon.

My favorite part of the whole day (besides visiting with all the family) was the Primary sharing time where they put symbols of the Easter story in plastic eggs and the last week of the Savior's life unfolded as we  opened each egg.  It brought such a great spirit into the meeting and helped us all get focused back onto the Resurrection.

I'm so grateful for the Savior that He was willing to give His life for me.  I find great joy at Easter time as I'm reminded of the great gift of the atonement and the resurrection.  I love the scripture that says, death where is thy sting, Christ truly overcame death so we could live again.

Tulip Festival, Mt. Vernon WA

Every once in a while I feel the need to run away for the day.  A sunny day came along and a friend of mine invited us to go over to the Tulip Festival.

 I used to think that flowers were general useless and impractical.  About three years ago someone gave me a tiger lily plant for my birthday.  After the flowers had finnished I put it out on my balcony and the next spring it started to grow.  And thus was born my love for flowers and plants in general.

 Since then I've grown vegetables and flowers in flower boxes on my apartment balcony and when we bought a house we filled the flower beds with tulips, daffodils and irises. We've also put in a garden bed for vegetables.

I have grown to love plants and really enjoyed this day filled with beautiful flowers. I had no idea there were so many varieties of tulips and walking through the fields was surreal.   It weather was so nice we all got a little sunburn and it made for a very memorable day.

I Think I Can

For the past year and a half I've been battling a hip injury.  It all started when I decided to get healthy and start running again.  I'm sure I did too much too fast and within 10 days something had happened in my left hip and I woke up in a great deal of pain.  For the next six months I nursed it along and went to the chiropractor regularly.  For the next six months I started feeling stronger and doing yoga.  About a year after the initial injury I hurt it again.  This was super frustrating as I was just getting to the point where I felt I didn't have to be cautious.  It's been about six months since my last injury and I am pleased to announce I am training for a 5K.  A friend of mine found a training program that is couch to 5K in 10 weeks.  As of tomorrow I will have completed my first two weeks.  I am loving it.  It gets me outside.  It starts me out slow so I'm not prone to hurt myself and I'm learning to pay attention to my body.  There have been days when I've needed to ice my hip but for the most part I'm really loving it.  I'm excited about the prospect of reaching a goal I meant to meet one or two years ago and was unable to due to injury.  I think I can, I think I can.