Easter Ordination

Easter Sunday, March 31

When we got home the kids were excited to find that the Easter Bunny had come while we were gone.  He always brings our baskets the day before Easter at our house, so we can think about Jesus and more spiritual things on Easter.

(Zach loves to have his picture taken lately, can you tell?)

Jacob was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood on Easter Sunday.  This is very special in our church, and means that Jacob can now help pass the Sacrament in church.  He has been doing a great job and we're very proud of him!  

Beach Fun Day 4

Friday, March 29

Our last afternoon at the beach only lasted a couple of hours.  It got really overcast and stormy, but we enjoyed it while we could.  I finally got in the water and had fun taking Connor out.  He LOVED the waves as long as someone was there to keep his head out of the water.

 Savannah was pretty nervous to go out too far.  When I was walking out with her I felt a shell under my foot, so I grabbed it with my toes and there was a crab in it!  Connor named it Crabster and our little crab friend kept us entertained for the rest of the afternoon.

 Jacob was in the water 90% of the time we were on the beach.

 Landon also LOVED the "cwab."

 When it got cloudy and windy my kids started turning purple.  That's what happens when you have no fat on your bones apparently.  The only way Zach & Connor could warm up was to completely get out of the wind...

 The very last thing Savannah did before we left was to bury Jacob.

We packed up and drove home the next morning.  We're so thankful to have had the chance to go on vacation and spend time together as a family.  I hope the kids will always remember these fun times.

Pier Fishing

Friday, March 29

Dallin & Zach left early in the morning to go fishing on the pier.  Zach is always talking about fishing, and was thrilled to finally get to fish in the ocean.  But they ended up going on Good Friday, and the pier was REALLY crowded.  Dallin said that Zach spent most of the time casting his line and reeling it back up again...over and over again.  But they had a great time together, and that's what matters.  Dallin caught a couple of fish though.  Here is Fish #1.

 

 The life of a fisherman...waiting.

 Fish #2

They named him Freddy and brought him home dead in the tackle box.  Gross.  Zach thought he could revive him when they got home, but no such luck.  Freddy had a nice funeral on the beach later and made a nice meal for the seagulls.

"Wook! It's she-shells!"

Thursday, March 28

 It was pretty windy and cloudy, so we started out the afternoon with only Jacob swimming.  The other kids and I had fun digging holes and building sand castles.

Eventually Zach & Savannah decided they wanted to get wet, and went back to change into their swimsuits. Later I wished I would have had them all in their suits though, because Landon's little legs got really chapped on his inner thighs.  His diaper rubbed right on it and he walked around really carefully the next few days...poor little man!

 

 

 "Wook!  It's she-shells!"  Landon discovered the seashells and spent over an hour searching for them.  He was very particular about them though, and would only pick up the seashells that were completely whole.  If I tried to put one in his bucket that was broken he said "No Mommy, it's bwoken.  Find 'nother one she-shells."

 

 

 

 That night Dallin & I went on a walk on the beach to watch the moon rise.  It's so pretty as it comes over the edge of the water.

That evening after we bathed the kids Landon was playing with some green silly putty.  He was experimenting putting it all over different things to get the imprint.  Dallin thought it would be cool to see what the imprint of Landon's hair looked like on the silly putty.  FYI - silly putty sticks to hair.  We had to give him another hair-washing in the kitchen sink, which he hated even more than the night before.

Seawolf Park

Thursday, March 28

We spent the morning at Seawolf Park, which is at the tip of Galveston on Pelican Island.  There is a World War II submarine and destroyer escort permanently docked there, and you can tour them all on your own.  First we walked through the USS Cavalla, which was built during the war.  It is there as a memorial to the USS Seawolf, which was a submarine that was lost at sea.

 

 I think I would be a little nervous sleeping right above a huge missile, but Savannah and Connor had fun pretending.  Dallin & I were both reading the book "The Hunt for Red October," so it was neat touring a real sub at the same time.

 

 

 This is the only family picture we have from our entire trip, squinting, screaming and all.

 The USS Stewart was a destroyer escort built during World War II.

 Captain Connor Strong

 

 Landon didn't want to stop to look at anything, so after I went through quickly with the little kids I took them over to the park so that Dallin & Jacob could really look at everything and actually learn something.

 The pelicans in Galveston or so cool to watch.  They always fly in formation, and usually at least 3 or 4 together.

 Zach loved this little island, with all the birds and creatures to look for.

 Zach pretended to be a pelican, and actually waddled slowly over to them so he could get close.

 And of course, feeding more seagulls...

Beach Fun Day 2

Wednesday, March 27

(Have you seen these Puddle Jumper life jackets?  Best invention ever for the pool or beach.) 

 After visiting NASA and doing some grocery shopping we went back and hit the beach.  Jacob was the only one of the kids who stayed in the water.  Dallin went in with him for a few minutes, but it was COLD!  Savannah and I didn't even wear our swimsuits, but just played in the sand.

 After about 20 minutes of splashing around Connor and Landon were both turning purple.  I knew Landon was freezing when he voluntarily sat down and didn't move under the towel for at least 10 minutes.

Later that evening we had just given Landon a bath and Dallin took him on the balcony to watch Zach feed the seagulls.  They came in a couple of minutes later and Landon had a big blob of seagull poop on his head. Luckily he didn't know it was there, but we had to wash his hair again in the kitchen sink and he was not happy about that.

NASA

On Wednesday morning (March 27) we went to visit NASA.  The Johnson Space Center is a really fun place to visit, especially for the ages that our kids are right now.  Except Landon...I do not recommend taking a 2-year-old to NASA.  He was quite a stinker, but the other kids loved it.

Our first activity was a tram ride that took us over to the real NASA campus.  We went inside the Mission Control mock-up, where the astronauts prepare before they go into space.  The only problem there was that we had to stop every so often to listen to the tour guide.  Landon does NOT like to stop, and can be very loud when letting you know that he does not want to stop.

At the end of this tour though we saw some space suits set up and Landon loved them and called them "botits."  (Robots)

At the end of the tram tour we stopped at the restored Saturn V rocket.

Next to the rocket was a field of longhorns.  I was very curious why they had longhorn bulls at NASA, so I just looked it up.  There is a program with the local schools where the kids come learn about agriculture and how it would have to be adjusted if we lived in space.

Dallin and the three older boys watched a presentation and then we looked at a bunch of the exhibits.  We were there for 4 hours and didn't get to many of the exhibits.  Jacob was too tall for the play area, but they had a special loft section for the older kids.  He loved the robotic building sets.

Landon was just watching me download this picture to the blog and said "Wook Mommy!  It's a Sunannah and Daddy bobits!!!"

The Angry Birds Space play area was awesome.  Zach, Savannah, and Connor spent quite a while in there.  There was a little toddler section at the bottom that Landon loved too, with ball-shooting machines.

The last thing we did was attend a presentation about living in space.  Connor was the chosen volunteer for the whole presentation!  Nobody can resist that cute smile.  He was so cute up there and didn't really understand a lot of what she was talking about, but just stood there and smiled sweetly for her.

He got zipped up in an astronaut bed, got to exercise on their machine, learn about the toilet in space, how they eat, and a bunch of other things.  (Notice the bed on the ceiling?  Without gravity they can have everything on all the walls and ceiling too.)  Watching him up there was by far my favorite part of the day.