Elizabeth's Late Birthday Party

Since Elizabeth was gone to school for her birthday we had a "late" birthday party on her break home. (She only kept reminding Amberly for a few weeks that we needed to do this!) We had planned on doing it, but life gets busy and getting everyone home and a time when the grandparents could come also took some quick planning. We had planned to surprise her, but I don't think she was actually surprised. It was a fun evening celebrating our beautiful daughters 19th birthday. It's hard to believe she is that OLD!!

She wanted a chocolate/chocolate cake and of course I had to get yummy Blue Bell ice cream for her!

Happy Late Birthday Elizabeth! We love having you home and miss you like

crazy when your gone!!

Skating with Friends

In an attempt to do something different and to stay out of the extreme heat we have been having, we decided to spend the day at the skating rink. Trent invited some friends and off we went! Next time we plan to invite more people with more notice! It was so much fun!! We spent 4 hours there and they never once asked me if it was time to go! I was able to sit and enjoy visiting with a friend and reading my book in the A/C. It was GREAT! We even scored by having buy one get one free coupons. I think I spent around 15 dollars total and the kids all had loads of snacks and cold water.

I know this first picture is blurry, but you can see Trent getting up off the floor where he spent a lot of time. He hasn't skated in years! He informed me toward the end of the day that he needed pads, especially for his bum. I think he was quite sore when we left.

Ms. Amberly enjoying herself. She did quite well skating. She is ready to go back!
The Jensens and the Quiriantes were there also. This is Seth Jensen. He was quite a good skater!

Around and around they went! Its amazing the memories this brought back to me! The skating rink in Midland growing up was the Junior High hangout. I spent plenty of weekends there.

Trent, John Jensen, and Jaron Quiriante

They had such a great time!

John taking a snack break.

Sweaty, Stinky, Tired Trent

One happy girl!

I wish I would have pulled the camera out earlier and taken more pictures. We had a great day! They all agreed we need to get more people together to go again before school starts back up.

Bluebonnets!!

Springtime and Bluebonnets in Southeast Texas is amazing after a wet winter! Some years the wildflowers aren't' that great, but this year they are amazing! When we were first married we lived in Austin and I was blown away with how beautiful the wildflowers were. I grew up in West Texas and always knew Bluebonnets were the State Flower but never "got it" until we moved to Austin. They are simply beautiful! For the past several years our children have learned that when mom says it's time to go find the bluebonnets you just do it. No complaining, just smile and put up with mom!

This year we actually were very limited on when we could go take pictures. Between Eyn and Elizabeth working and Elizabeth leaving to go back to school we barely found a few hours free on a Saturday afternoon to go take pictures. We drove about an hour away to Brenham where they just seem to be the best. We were not disappointed at our findings! I wish we would of had another hour to enjoy them!

Easter Recap

I put my pictures in out of order so I'll do my best to tell our Easter week story the best I can...

The Last Easter egg hunt we went to actually ended up being our favorite hunt. It was at Best Buy. Elizabeth had seen a flyer at work about it so we decided to check it out. It was AWESOME!!! They had around 4000 eggs hidden throughout the entire store. When I say throughout I mean it!! They had eggs hidden in washing machines, refrigerators, computers, printers, videos, furniture, TV's, EVERYWHERE!! It was so much fun!! When we started the day Trent didn't know if he wanted to join us due to his age. He's at that wonderful age of nearly 12 and wanting to still do some things and then not wanting to do them. He was really glad he went!! They got so many eggs at Best Buy! At one point we stopped to look through the eggs to look to see if we had one of the "golden eggs". They hadn't found any. Well, I turned and right in front of me hidden behind some earphones was one of the golden marbled eggs!! We were so excited!! We actually won the movie "The Princess and the Frog". They had great prizes! We definitely left there feeling like winners!

Both of their baskets were full of candy! Notice the bags of eggs! They were handing out the bags to all the kids because there was so many eggs! I think there was only 50 - 60 kids for 4000 eggs. At one point they called all the kids back to the front of the store so they could put out more eggs! When they said GO the kids took off again! It was hilarious because some of the employees weren't finished putting the eggs out. When they saw the kids running towards them they quickly tossed their boxes of eggs out on the floor and ran to escape! They were laughing at how quick the kids were. We will be planning on going to this again next year!
We rose early Saturday morning to hit the HEB egg hunt first. Eyn works here so we had to go to it. They have some green grass on the side of the building that they had divided out by age groups. Trent was happy that he still qualified for one of the groups. They didn't get any of the "prize" eggs, but they came away with a lot of loot!

Amberly waiting for the hunt to start
Searching for the special eggs.

Amberly enjoying a moment with the Easter Bunny

The Tuesday night before Easter we were able to all go to the Ward Picnic/Easter Egg Hunt. We enjoyed being outside on such a gorgeous evening and being able to visit with wonderful friends! The egg hunt was quick and Amberly had fun doing it. The boys enjoyed the evening playing football, Frisbee, and hanging out with friends. If our youth night falls on the 5th Tuesday of the month our ward has the tradition of the Ward Picnic on that night. Its always been well attended and a lot of fun.

We had to dye Easter eggs. I guess this is an Easter Tradition we just can't forget!

Trent's masterpieceSilly Elizabeth!

Easter weekend was wonderful! It was different having General Conference on Easter. It was strange not going to church on that day, but it was wonderful listening to our Prophet and other General Authorities. The messages were truly inspiring and were amazing! We enjoyed a wonderful dinner after the last session on Sunday. I "think" everyone was pleased with their Easter baskets. The Easter bunny seemed to be in a very giving mood this year and was nice to everyone. Of course I forgot to take pictures of them.

I'm so grateful we were able to celebrate Easter together as a family. It was a wonderful weekend!

Quick Visit to the Temple

Elizabeth has been asking recently if we could make a trip to the temple before she heads back to school. So, on Good Friday Elizabeth, Trent, Amberly and I headed up there for a few hours. It was a wonderful afternoon! It was so incredibly peaceful just being on the temple grounds and the flowers were absolutely beautiful! It was the perfect day for going there!
Trent was in an interesting mood. He was quiet and very thoughtful. I kept finding him sitting just looking at the temple or at something deep in thought. We talked about how he is turning 12 next month and gets to go into the temple. He is very excited to go inside!

Together in front of the Temple

The wind had blown a lot of the flowers on the ground (no, we weren't picking the flowers!)