Mother's Day 2015

 I love being a mom to these three. ♥

 

  Happy Mother's Day to me! I wanted to replace my little point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot, which still works but I've dropped so many times it's a banged up mess. Mark got a $100 Best Buy gift card from his work at Christmas, and he gave it to me, but it took five months for me to use it. They didn't have the camera I wanted in stock, so we were walking out of the store and I saw this Nikon Coolpix L830 on clearance. It was WAY nicer than what I was intending to buy. Wide angle lens, HD video, etc.

Long story short, it's a $300 camera and I only had to pay $45. WOOOOOOT I'm way excited. I still have no idea to use most of the features.

 

 Taking pictures after church...it's sort of ridiculous.

We drove down to my parent's house after church to eat and to say hi to my sister Megan, who is serving a mission in Mexico.

 

 It was good to see her and hear her talk about life on the mission. She has been out for 7 months...11 months to go! She was having a hard time remembering the English words for things, which is a good sign that her Spanish is coming along.

 

 Her cat misses her.

We also celebrated Isabelle's birthday a few days early. I made this Almond Pound Cake and it was very tasty.

Her practice cake smash was a little delicately done--she was just getting warmed up for the enormous mess she'd eventually make with her real birthday cake four days later.

 

 We also went by and visited Mark's mom and dad. I'm glad that our kids get to see their grandparents so often!

Easter/Spring break

 Tulips, daffodils, jonquils, cherry blossoms, anemones and crocuses that I planted a couple years ago.

Spring officially arrived  on the calendar right before Easter this year (so naturally it's snowed twice since then...) and we were looking forward to having a break from school for three days.

 So what happened at the beginning of the week?

 

 All three kids got sick again!!!

Yaayyyyyyyyy

Colds, and another ear infection/cold for Isabelle (and teething, just to make sure there would be no sleeping for either of us all week). Luke had to miss out on his preschool Easter egg hunt and party. It had only been two weeks since they'd gotten over their last bug (where Luke had double pneumonia and a 107° fever and the everyone else had colds and Isabelle had a double ear infection and basically everyone was dying). And even now, Madelyn still has congestion in her sinuses. We should just go in quarantine.

Luckily, this go round wasn't quite as bad as the time before, and they were still able to enjoy their break for the most part.

 By Friday, everyone was feeling well enough to go down to my parent's house for an Easter party. There was a giant egg hunt, and each kid had 20 eggs of a certain color that they had to find. Madelyn and Luke never found all of theirs because my parent's yard swallowed them up somewhere.

 

My brother Kevin, his son Gary, and Isabelle

Mark had to work so didn't come with us. We were gone nearly all day and were very tired by the time we got home.

 All except for Luke, who can keep going on Minecraft juices and sheer force of will.

 Easter day was very exciting for the kids because the Easter Bunny apparently made a last minute decision that they needed brand new bikes! So they got those as well as baskets full of toys and candy. *Spoiled*

That picture of Madelyn's white board of a message she left for the Easter Bunny with a drawing of some eggs. It says, "To: The Easter Bunny, Love: Madelyn Yoder and my cat Tiger. P.S. He is nice."

This is Luke's first two wheeler, and after he found out that it had training wheels (he was afraid of having to balance and didn't think he'd be brave enough) he's been zipping around on it everywhere. Madelyn had a bike that she'd outgrown and today she gave it to a neighbor friend so that they can ride together. Love those kids!

President's Day in Zion

President's Day rolled around and we thought we'd take advantage of the nice weather we've been having and go to Zion National Park. Because, you know, ZION. It's our thing.

So we hopped in the car after lunch and drove down, and the closer we got to Zion, the windier it was getting. Right around Virgin, the road goes right by some steep cliffs and there were about 40 tumbleweeds blowing straight UP those cliffs. And dust devils were swirling and plants everywhere were getting flattened by the wind. So we began to rethink things.

We decided we might as well stop at Zion Rock and Gem as long as we were all the way up there. The wind wasn't too bad, and I figured that once we got in the canyon, we'd be pretty sheltered.

Luke bought a wolf slingshot (a dear ambition of his for many years) and Madelyn got some geodes.

Angel's Landing. There is a hike (which is Mark's favorite) that goes clear to the top of that thing, which I am never, ever going on.

We decided to go ahead with our plans, and we lucked out. The wind died down in the canyon, the weather was nice and it was FREE! Our park pass had expired and we were going to have to pay $80 for a new one (the National Parks pass that gets you into all of them). It was an awesome coincidence that we happened to go on a fee free day. And it wasn't even crowded, either!

 

 We decided to stick with some easy walks and went up to Weeping Rock. Madelyn insisted on calling it "Hanging Gardens". Water seeps out of the rock and drips everywhere. It takes 1,000 years for the water to make its journey all the way through the rock.

 

 This particular hike is so pretty in the fall. Check out the zillion pictures I took here in October a couple years ago.

We had to stop to poke around the stream and this giant fallen log for quite a while.

Every time we come here, Luke is obsessed with playing in the powdery sand.

 Isabelle was 7 weeks old the last time we came to Zion. It was 100° F that day, I remember it very well! We were crazy to go in July with a new baby.

After Weeping Rock, we thought about going on our old favorite hike to Emerald Pools, but it was getting cold and dark and we were running out of time, so I walked the Grotto Trail with Luke and Madelyn while Mark and Isabelle drove to meet us at the Lodge.

 

Luke was hitching a piggyback ride when he spotted a group of deer right by us. The kids were so excited. We ended up seeing at least a dozen.

 

 It was such a pretty trail--I've never walked it before and I'll bet it's gorgeous when everything is green in the summer.

 As we were leaving, Mark decided to take us on a detour to the Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel, which cuts directly into the mountain for over a mile and brings you out to the east side of the park. It was built as a shortcut to be able to reach Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon more easily from Zion.

Can you spot the opening in the side of the mountain? There are several "galleries" that allow you to see glimpses of the canyon as you drive through. 

 View from inside the tunnel gallery.

 Mark took these pictures of The Watchman as we were leaving the park to go home.

 We live in a beautiful place!