Spring Break

I love having the kids at home and have looked forward to Spring Break for quite some time. We had a lot of fun together even with the snowy, wet conditions. On Monday after Byron got home from work we headed up to Temple Square to see "Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration" video. We were lucky enough to have Melissa join us since she works in the Relief Society Building. We were a little early, so we decided to walk around Temple Square and go into one of the visitors centers. The smell of blossoms was so awesome as we walked next to the visitors center. There were some trees in full bloom that had the most amazing smell. The temple grounds were gorgeous - as always. I couldn't help but take some pictures.

The video was amazing also. We had seen it as a family when it first came out, but some of my children were so young they don't remember it. What an amazing life Joseph Smith and Emma led - Such a powerful movie - I am so glad we had the opportunity to go and see it.

When we exited the Joseph Smith Memorial after the show, the temple was just gorgeous. Tanner took a picture that I seriously want to frame. Thanks Melissa for going with us and for the yummy treat afterwards.
On Tuesday we had Cooper & Cameron spend the night. Tanner & Johnathan were so excited to have their cousins over. We live so close to them and really have no excuses to not let the kid's get together more often. They enjoyed playing the Wii together and watched "Bedtime Stories" right before bed. Tanner & Johnathan were so excited to say that they stayed up until midnight. They ended up sleeping in their regular bunkbed with each of their cousins next to them. Not sure how they were able to sleep that way, but they weren't complaining.

On Wednesday we went to Mrs. Cavanaugh's to have a tour up in Salt Lake. We went with Grandpa & Grandpa Beck and the kid's couldn't be happier to have them there with us. We watched a film about "cocoa beans" and how chocolate is made - very fascinating. There are windows from an observation room where we could see onto the factory floor. Unfortunately this wasn't a very busy time, so not much going on. We want to go back right before a holiday so we can see more action. We all were able to taste a delicious chocolate on our way out - yum!
After the tour, we headed back to John & Sharon's house to spend some more time with them. Of course the kid's were able to talk Grandma into playing a game - not very hard to do - and we enjoyed playing "7" together.

On Thursday was Byron's birthday. We had a great time with him celebrating his birthday -(see next post for details).

On Friday Byron took the day off. We enjoyed spending time with him. He has wanted to help his parent's cut down their 25 year old apple tree for quite some time, so we decided that today was the day. I had to take some pictures of the kid's in the tree before it got chopped down. This has been one of their favorite part's of going up to Grandpa & Grandma's house. It was the perfect tree to climb since it was so low to the ground. They weren't happy at the thought of cutting it down, but it didn't take them long till they were having a great time helping with the clean-up. Byron did awesome at using the chain saw while the rest of us carried logs to the truck and cut the small branches up. The hardest part was the darn trunk. It was a grafted tree, so it had the largest base and the wood was VERY hard. We got the trunk low enough to finally just put dirt over the top of it. Everyone seemed to have a great time and there were very few complaining children.