Easter Weekend...

We had the best weekend...starting last Friday morning. To my surprise Lars had the day off work for Good Friday (thanks to his company that is based back East). It was great to have him home especially since I wasn't expecting it. So I got out for a good run that morning while he played with the boys, then we all colored eggs together...always fun! Then we got Ashton to school and came home and got all of our stuff ready to go stay the night at Little America in Salt Lake. We haven't all gone and stayed at a hotel since we went over a year ago and stayed in Lava...so it was a big treat for Ashton and Gunnar. Ashton was so excited when I picked him up from school. The first words out of his mouth (as he's running towards the truck) were..."Mommy did you pack my swimsuit and my pajamas?" That was pretty much our plan...to take them down and let them swim then go to dinner, then stay the night and let them swim for a long time again in the morning after breakfast. They had so much fun! Oh and I had fun watching them swim...thankful that Lars got in with them so I didn't have to. I am so not a swimmer!We waited till the last minute to check out, then went and looked at more trailers (no we didn't buy one), then went to lunch, then went and visited some good friends of ours that live in Farmington, then finally headed home. It was a fun little getaway.
Sunday the boys woke up to find the Easter Bunny left eggs all over the house and filled their buckets full. Hunting for eggs is Gunnar's favorite! Oh and of course eating all the chocolate he can get his little hands on.Then it was time to get dressed for church. I made these little tie shirts for them this year. They were kind of a pain, but turned out pretty cute (if you don't look too close!)I love going to mass on Easter Sunday and the boys were so good! Really some Sundays are hard, but that day they did great. After that we headed home to wait for Grandma and Grandpa Harry and Aunt Kelli to come visit for the day. I made the boys keep their church clothes on and took all of those pictures of them while we waited...they ever cooperated for that! Surprise!
After everyone arrived, we packed up a lunch and took it to the "green" park and ate and had fun with water guns and playing catch. Oh and laying on the warm slides. It really was the most beautiful day that day. We came home and Kelli and I set up another egg hunt outside for the boys while they played inside. It never gets old!Then Kelli and I made our yummy 5 cheese ziti (which is really 4 cheese, since I can't ever find fontina cheese:) but it was so good! Ashton and Gunnar entertained us with jokes while we ate...then it was time for Mom's "special dessert", then time for them to head home. It was a great weekend!

Easter photo shoot...

Here are some of my favorite new pictures of Ashton and Gunnar all dressed up in their Easter outfits...Lars decided to come straight home and change...that's why he's not in any of these! Stay tuned for the long Easter weekend post :)

Spring Soccer...

Well we swore we wouldn't ever sign Ashton up for soccer again after fall soccer last year...just because he really wasn't into it and we had to fight to get him there and participate, but when it came time to sign up for spring he said he really wanted to play again, so I caved in and signed him up figuring we'd give him another chance as a now 6 year old...hoping it would go better this time. So far so good. (well besides the usual rainy cold weather here this time of year...) He seems to be more into it this season and is having fun with it so far. I really like his coach and it's been fun for him to make some new friends. We'll see how it goes towards the end I guess. It really is fun to watch, oh and some things never change...he still makes time for goofing off.

Bigger boy bed!

The time came again to upgrade Gunnar's bed...He just seemed like he wasn't staying warm enough at night. I was going in to cover him up a couple times a night and his room is the coldest in the house...so we decided it was time for him to have a real big boy bed. Luckily we had this twin bed downstairs in our playroom (it was Lars' bed when he lived at home). So a couple weeks ago we moved it up and moved Gunnar's bed down. First night sleeping in it...

He loves it!
Oh and a few other signs of his big boy-ness...just a few days ago I started to notice that he can now say his G's...he first said "Go-Gurt", then when I asked him what his name is he said "Gunnar Chase Larsen". Till now it has always been "Dunnar". So proud of him (and he is so proud of himself)! But it makes me kind of sad :( He can also say his C's and K's...I noticed first when he said "Soccer" so well at Ashton's game last week (used to be "sotter"). He sure is growing up!

CaLiFoRniA...

Kelli and I got to go on a little 4 day trip to California last week...(Thursday-Sunday). We went to visit our Dad's cousin Neil, who has actually always been more like an uncle or grandpa to us and has for years asked us when we were coming to see him. Well a few months ago I decided that I didn't want any more time to pass before we made a trip out to visit him, so I called and told him we were coming and booked our trip. He turned 80 in December although you'd never know it if you spent an hour with him. My gosh he has a better memory than anyone I know...he told us story after story of things taking place 50 or 60 years ago with all sorts of details that I would never remember! Same old Neil we've always known :) This was our first night there...eating at a yummy Italian restaurant where Neil of course new the whole family that owned it. It was SO good!It was fun to finally get to see where he lives...which is in a great little gated neighborhood in Salinas (closeby Monterey). We flew into San Jose and he drove the almost 2 hours there to pick us up. To me our trip had all the elements that make up a relaxing vacation...We ate out almost every meal, I got to sleep in every morning, took a nap one day, read a whole book and started another on the way home, went for a good run one morning, didn't have to clean or do dishes or laundry, got to spend some time outside and see a few sites around the area... (Lone Cypress Tree on 17 Mile Drive)(Beautiful view right next to the 18th hole of the Pebble Beach golf course...)(Carmel Mission Catholic Church...we attended mass there on Sunday)The Monterey Bay Aquarium... ...where Kelli (as she was trying to pet a stingray) dropped her whole purse in the tank! I realized later that I got a picture of her purse going in...we had a good laugh about it...hahahahaha! Mostly we just had fun catching up with Neil. He has to be one of the happiest friendliest people I know and doesn't go anywhere without making a new friend. Oh and we even got him set up on facebook while we were there...ha! Within a few hours he had almost 40 friends!

Love ya Neil...and thanks for your generosity, hospitality and your refreshing overall positive outlook on life. Always fun to see you!Oh and thanks to Lars for taking care of the boys all weekend...with the help of Nana and Papa in Price. I sure missed them, but they came home with all sorts of stories about how much fun they had!

Goodbye little tent trailer...

The time has come for us to get rid of our little tent trailer that was given to us by my Mom and Stepdad 4 or 5 years ago. We have been thinking a lot about getting a bigger trailer and have looked at quite a few over the past couple of weeks, so we knew the first step in that process would be to sell the old one. I waited for a nice day to have Lars pop it up so that I could take some pictures of it to post on ksl to try to sell it. The whole time Lars kept saying that it probably wouldn't sell and if or when it did we may only get 3 or 400 dollars for it. I just thought, that's fine, I'm going to post it anyway and see what happens. So I got my pictures, came inside posted it and not 5 minutes later someone called, then at the same time someone else called on Lars' cell phone, then after he got off the first call, someone else called. He couldn't believe it! Within half an hour we had someone who wanted it and was willing to pay my $950 asking price! hee hee! The guy was about to jump in his car and drive up from St. George, but I felt bad knowing that Lars would be driving to Price this coming weekend and could at least meet him with it as far as Spanish Fork. So it's sold! Unfortunately right after we'd posted it, someone posted one almost exactly like it for $600, so the guy texted us to see if we'd go any lower, so Lars took it down to $800...but that's okay.

So I was feeling pretty good about it all until Lars started talking about all of our fun times in it. Then I cried. Then I felt bad that it's going to be gone. I mean I'm glad that it is, because we feel like it's time to move onto something else, but he's right, we did have a lot of fun times in it and it has been a good trailer for us. So now my hope is that our buyer (who has a wife and little boy) will enjoy it with his family. Some of our fun memories...Before my parents actually gave it to us, we would drive up and borrow it sometimes and one weekend we picked it up and drove clear up to Diamond Mountain over by Vernal...(about a 5 hour drive for us) because Lars wanted to scout the area before his deer hunt. This was long before kids, just the two of us. And I remember when we finally got to where we were going it was close to midnight, we couldn't find a place to camp so we just parked it kind of out in the open and it was really, REALLY windy, and I was SO tired. We popped it up, got in bed and I guess after a couple minutes Lars was trying to talk to me and even with the wind blowing 50 miles an hour (SO LOUD) I was out. Fast asleep. He still loves to tease me about it. We ended up moving the trailer a couple times trying to find a better place and finally did and I just remember it being one of our most fun camping trips ever.Then of course when Ashton was about 18 months old we took him out for his first camping trip in it...and he LOVED it! I remember he was into everything, but it was so fun introducting him to camping and he had a blast playing in the trailer.Gunnar got to stay in it I think once when he was pretty little...I remember setting up the playpen in it, but can't remember where we went! Then again last summer when Lars stayed up Logan Canyon one night with him and Ashton. He loves it too. I think they will both be sad on Thursday when they see it go away attached to someone else's truck, but they will love it someday when we can get another one and be able to go out a lot more as they get older. Goodbye little pop-up trailer :)