20 April 2014 - Easter

This weekend Emily had a slumber party with a couple of friends for her birthday.  She requested poison as her birthday cake of choice.  Poison is comprised of layers of crushed Oreos, fudge, ice cream and whipped cream.  Um, yum.

Easter dress girls on a glorious, sunny Easter afternoon.

Coloring Easter eggs never gets old for the crafty ones.

Our flowering pear tree in our front yard is in full bloom this week.

13 April 2014 - Spring Yard Work

Joanne has been very busy whipping our yard into shape.  Last summer we were in Argentina,and elsewhere, and the summer before that, the house was empty.  My suspicion is that it was neglected for several summers before that too.  So we've been shaping and planting flower beds, killing weeds and generally trying to make the yard more presentable.

Jessica has continued working on her room remodel for her school project on interior design. This week we helped her learn how to do crown molding.

6 April 2014 - Fading Winter

It has been getting warmer and spring is definitely here.  But we didn't let that keep us from celebrating one last week of winter fun.  On Wednesday, the youth at church had an ice skating activity in Boise.

Closing day at Bogus Basin...OK, actually the day before, since we don't ski on Sundays.

We'll hang up our winter wear for now and move on to warm weather activities.

30 March 2014 - Spring Break!

This week we all enjoyed Spring Break at the same time for the first time in many years.  In Pennsylvania, our Spring Break weeks never aligned.  We took advantage of this new alignment to spend a few days in Utah.  Between Wednesday and Thursday nights, 13" of new powder fell, so Phil took Friday off and we all went to Brighton for the day.

Taking a break from epic powder to grab a quick lunch with Grandpa Phil.

Selfies (us-ies?) on the lift on a glorious, sunny day.

On Saturday, we went to BYU's final home volleyball game of the season.  BYU played for the national championship last year, and are having a great season again this year.

One of our motivations for going to the game was to watch Devin Young.  Devin grew up in our ward in Pennsylvania.  His dad (left) replaced me when I was released as bishop.  His mom was relief society president for the last three years while I was bishop.  It was very good to reunite with old friends, even if they did make me look short!

23 March 2014 - Trampoline and Bike Ride

This weekend, the girls decided they were going to help clean and organize Mommy's car.  We were particularly impressed with the trunk.

We got a new child's plaything for the back yard, given that it's getting warm enough to play outside again.

This week a friend from church (who was almost as excited about my new motorcycle as I was) took my on my first Idaho ride.  We did a 100 mile loop along the Snake River in Owyhee County.  This is the county courthouse in Murphy, ID (Population 97).

On the way back, we stopped and saw the Map Rock.  Some hundreds of years ago, Owyhee Indians carved a varied of these large lava rocks with maps, guides, and indicators of sources of water and game.

Here is a close up of the hieroglyphs indicating game can be found in these mountains.