Meet Josephina

We read about Josephina this month. She was a girl who grew up in New Mexico. Cate has really enjoyed her story especially the part about Josephina's goat that was so mean. It was so fun to learn about the Mexican culture and we had a great time doing the activities Adrienne had planned for us. The girls made corn husk dolls which turned out super cute....

They painted boxes like the one Josephina had to put her special memories in....

They made torillas and had some yummy salsa and black beans....

Happy Birthday Ean!

What a day you had today! After 'weekend cereal" for breakfast we headed to the water park at the towne square, one of your favorite places.

Then chicken nuggets from Wendy's

After a little rest we are off to the movies with your best bud Bracken. You have been waiting to go see Toy Story 3 for almost a month and knew we were taking you for your birthday. When you woke up this morning the first thing out of your mouth was "Can we go to the theatre now?" Unfortunately you had a to wait a while. The two of you had a blast though and I have to admit the movie was pretty cute.


We had the family over for cupcakes and some fun on the tramp with the sprinkler, another one of your favorites. You had a great time with your cousins!

You were spoiled with lots of fun presents. This was one of your favorites. Now you can be Buzz Lightyear, "To Infinity And Beyond!"

This year has flown by! Didn't you just turn 3? You are such a ray of sunshine in our home and we are all having so much fun watching you grow up. We love you Ean!

Day Four

Today we went to Coba, a Mayan village and ruins in the jungle. No kidding, in the jungle :). It was amazing! The ruins date back to 300-900 AD. There are over 6500 ruins there but only about 5% have been rebuilt are in good enough condition that you can see what they are. We can't wait to show you all the pictures but here is the pyramid (oldest one in Mexico) we were able to climb. It is 140 (I think?) feet tall and we climbed 120 steps to the top.

Yeah, we made it! From the top is a beautiful view of tree tops, a couple of lakes in the distance and a long way down :).

Then we walked through the jungle to have a Mayan blessing from a shaman (medicine man). We couldn't understand anything he said but it was cool :).
After that we repelled down to a 2000 yr. old cave with a blue cenote (water) at the bottom. Dad was so excited, he was hoping they would let him jump into the water instead of repel down but they wouldn't let him :(. The water was cold but crystal clear. There isn't any rivers here. They are all underground. It was awesome but I was a little frightened, it was dark, there were bats down there and yes I got pooped on by a bat :)! So glad we did though, definetely not an everyday event. We took some pictures with a waterproof camera so I can't put them on here yet. Then we walked some more and took a zipline across a lake. So fun!!


Needless to say it was a great day and we had a blast together! Can't wait to tell you all about it. Love you!

Day Five

Today we went into the town of Playa Del Carmen. We spent the morning shopping and then went to lunch at a different Palace resort and spent a couple hours at the beach. The water is warm and beautiful but sooo salty.



Tonight we went to the fire show put on by our hotel. It was awesome!

Day Three

We sure are missing you so we wrote you a little note!

Today we went to Tulum to see some of the Mayan ruins. It was so awesome! It was amazing to see and touch an ancient civilization and learn about their customs and why they built where they did and how life would have been there. The city was built on a cliff overlooking the beautiful ocean. We got some good pics, can't wait to show you all of them and tell you all that we learned. When we got back we headed to the beach since it was a sunny day today, yeah :)! Dad taught me how to body surf and we enjoyed the warm beautiful water. After that we headed for the pool for a while. Tonight was movie night at our resort. We thought we would check it out since we just wanted to sit and relax a bit. Now we are headed to bed to rest up for our big day tomorrow, more ruins. We love you and miss you. We are glad you having fun and love talking to you each night. Be good at church tomorrow, we will really miss being there with you. Talk to you tomorrow, love you!

Day Two

Last night we had a big storm, thunder, lightening, and really windy. We were hoping it would just blow by so we would wake up to sunny skies but no such luck. Today we saw glimpses of sun but it has been mostly cloudy and windy. The nice thing is that it is still warm and so the yucky weather hasn't been that bad. We walked around our resort today looking at the animals and scenery. There are lots of big lizards just hanging out by the walk ways. Then we did a bit of kayaking and walked along the beach. The beach right here at our resort is very rocky but has really cool shells, crabs and rocks. Only a very short walk down the beach is beautiful sand and water although today it was a bit rough. The water isn't cold and we can't wait to get in it. After our walk we went swimming in the pool and hung out, had a delicious dinner and are enjoying a relaxing evening. Tomorrow we go to Tulum to look at some ruins, we can't wait! Hope you are all doing well, we miss you! oh, yeah, on the way home from dinner it had just got done raining and I almost stepped on this crab. It was mad and it backed itself up on the wall and got his pinchers out ready for a fight. I was freaked out and had a hard time walking the rest of the way back :)!

Mexico-Day One

Well, we finally decided to go on a honeymoon. It only took us 10 years :). We decided to go to Riviera Maya in Mexico and just arrived today. We are so excited to take this vacation and spend some time together having fun. We will miss the kids but know they are well taken care of, thank you Bells! I told the kids we would blog so they could know what we were up to and I thought it would be a great way to keep in contact with them. So here is our first entry.....

After a very long day of travel we finally got here, yeah! we could feel the humidity the minute our plane touched down in Cancun :)! Our resort is beautiful and it feels like we are staying in the jungle. Huge lizards are walking around, there are flamingos, crocodiles, birds, turtles and crabs (most of which are in pens thank goodness). We were starving when we arrived and ate a delicious dinner, walked down to check out the beach (it was too dark to take pics) and are now going to enjoy some much needed sleep tonight. The weather is cloudy and rainy. We hope it clears up by tomorrow. We love you guys! Thank you Dylan for the picture and note, we love it :)!

Enjoying a gourmet meal...I don't know if we were just starving but it was delicious! Here are some pictures of our room. The rooms here are in bungalows with two rooms in each one. Ours is on top so we are in the tree tops. Its pretty cool!

General Conference

In addition to Easter it was conference weekend and it was beyond wonderful. We were all looking forward to watching conference this weekend. We had our traditional conference activities, bingo, coloring, snacks, Dylan's reverent tent, and we added this year a more formal debriefing Sunday during dinner.

Braeden & Star each took notes on a few of the talks (star more than braeden :). Watching conference and the talks on the Savior made Easter more meaningful. Sunday morning session was filled with the testimonies from the general authorities on Christ. The Saturday sessions were centered mostly around the family and were so inspiring to listen to (I'd tell you my favorites but I loved them all). Scott & Braeden both said that the Priesthood session was their favorite, as always :). I know we all learned so much from them, just feeling the Spirit so strong strengthens our testimonies and inspires us to do better and try harder. I can't wait to read the talks again next month. I feel so blessed to live in a time when the gospel is so readily available to us. We are able to access the words of the prophet instantly online and are able to read uplifting, inspiring messages every month in the church magazines. It helps us to stay focused on Christ and His gospel principles as we live in a hardened world. After talking as a family we decided we truly are blessed. One of the talks given talked about how a few hundred years ago a man was put to death for translating the Bible into English for all to read. Now, we have several sets of not only the Bible but also the Book of Mormon and other modern day scripture right here on our shelves for us to read anytime we want without fear. This gift we have reminded our family we need not take for granted this gift as we do so often.

I thought I'd get a few pics of what Ean was doing during conference this year. I distracted him for a few minutes by taking some pics of he & I. He thought that was really fun!

Happy Easter

You can't see it very well but these are pictures dipicting  Christ's week leading up to His crucifiction and Resurrection. We normally read scriptures every day, starting with Palm Sunday through Easter, about that last week of Christ's life, what He was doing and what He did for us. We usually have some kind of activity that goes along with that reading of the day. Unfortunately this year we were not able to do that every day. I feel so sad about it! We have been so busy and had several things going on this week that we let get in the way of our plans. We did eventually get through all the days by doubling up on some but we didn't do many activities. We did end on a good note this morning though when we read the account in John about Christ's resurrection. Later the kids found plastic eggs that had parts of the Easter story in each one and we sat in a circle and took turns reading the story. It was nice to focus on Christ today and not just candy. I like our new tradition and the kids agree which is alwasy nice. I have learned this year though that truly important things just don't get done when we fill up our lives with stuff. Now, some of the things we had to do this week were not in our control but we didn't have a set plan in place to still accomplish what we needed to even with distrations. We need to manage our time better and find times (actually schedule and make the time because we will never just "find" it) of the day where there is not any where else we need to be and then plan our scripture time or learning time then.
We had a great day, we felt the Spirit (especially during conference), we enjoyed each other and focused on our Savior. So I guess we didn't mess up too bad, just something to think about next year :).

A Visit From The Easter Bunny

We decided to start a new tradition in our family and wrote to the Easter Bunny asking him to come on Saturday instead of Sunday. This would allow the kids to enjoy their baskets and keep the sacredness of Easter on Sunday. We have thought about doing this for a few years but Braeden actually brought it up this year so we thought we better put it in motion. The kids were excited to find their baskets this morning full of goodies. The Easter Bunny must have had a baseball theme in mind. Each of the kids got either a mitt, ball or both. We have no excuse now so we better start playing ball :)!





Cate, Ean & Dylan also got goggles and Ean has been wearing his all day :)!


Cate & Ean also got bug catchers. Ean came in so proud and said he had caught a bee! What?! He had said he needed his goggles on so he could catch a bee but we weren't too concerned that he actually would. Guess we should have more confidence in him :).