Easter Time

It's been increasingly more fun each year to see the kids get excited for the holidays that roll around - in particular, both boys were so thrilled and tickled with egg hunts! The night before we had another 'glow in the dark' hunt and Aaron screamed with joy, running back and forth across our backyard! Lots of fun.

It all began with a holiday themed lunch for school - I had PBJ cut up small inside the eggs along with Annie's bunny crackers. I didn't do a themed lunch this time for Aaron :( Nate made it sound like his friends enjoyed it, too!

We colored eggs the day before - pretty last minute this year!

My one little creative act this year - Nate loved it! He brought the sign around to show everyone

Mmmm...marshmellow from the farmer's market!

Easter Day games at Nana's house

Easter meal! This year we decided to pay someone to have our meal ready - we got it pre-cooked from Whole Foods, then just had to re-heat it. It was great! And EASY. Hmmmm....

I found an egg, I found an egg!

Yep, sometimes we have to dig to find them

I found the golden one

The E.B. hid baskets at Nana's house, too. Yay for summer bouncing passes!

Bubble whistle wars with daddy

Digging the water ball 

And lastly...a visit with the Easter Bunny himself!

 

Aaron was too scared to even go up to him this year, and wouldn't do it even if I was right there, so we left him watch. 

The holiday wasn't even done and Nate was asking what holiday was up next. Always something to look forward to!

Plane Fun with Nana and Pap Pap

A few weeks ago our city had an open house sort of event for the local airport. The past few years the boys have gone and loved it, so naturally they wanted to go again this year. My parents always enjoy taking them to it, getting to look inside (and go in some) planes.

Just this past weekend my dad's work (he works for Boeing) had an open house for family members. We got to see the different military helicopters, including the Apache (that my dad works on). We weren't allowed to take pictures but again the boys were fascinated! Unfortunately this is our last year being able to do that as my dad plans to retire at the end of the year. Well, the boys will miss the planes, but will be glad to have Pap Pap home! :)

A Little Break

Last week was unusual for me, in a good way! I had the opportunity to have a staycation of sorts with my older sister for three nights, during the week! That left hubby and my mom with childcare duties. All went well and smooth.

My older sister got an award for work - they send their winners and a guest to a destination of the company's choosing for a few days. This year the destination was Phoenix, so naturally my BIL didn't want to go and take days off of work to stay in town. I was glad I got the chance to go, though it was in town it wasn't a typical work day for me! :)

While poor sissy went to a conference the first morning there, I got to enjoy the pool (and some reading!) Like I said, I was thrilled for my different kind of day :)

We made sure to make Roy's happy hour before the awards ceremony and dinner that night.Yum!

At the award dinner - we weren't allowed to take pictures of the ceremony, but it was pretty cool that sis got to have her pic taken with the CEO of the company!

 

 

The following day we were able to choose an "excursion" - so we chose wine tasting in Scottsdale

Lots of fun - we were able to taste/fill up our glasses as much as we wanted. We also bottled up our own wine to take home.

And of course, we squeezed in some more pool time

It was a pleasant few days. Everything from transportation to food and hotel was covered for our stay. And like my title, a nice little break!

Time with Daddy in Colorado!

Nate and Josh spent the last three days in Denver and Colorado Springs, CO! We had plane vouchers about to expire that we wanted to take advantage of, and Nate has always wanted to go on a plane (and now I felt like he's at the age where I was comfortable with the idea, that entertaining would be a lot easier!)

So bright and early Friday morning they left to catch their flight at 7:30am. They spent the majority of the time in Denver that day.

The pilots let him sit in the pilot seat, showed him buttons and screens....he enjoyed that!

Easy entertainment - he spent the whole flight just looking out the window!

They visited a railroad museum -

Then they drove the 1.5 hrs to Colorado Springs. The temperature dropped forty degrees, and, just for Nate, it snowed!

Of course a child from Arizona is going to try and catch snowflakes on their tongue!

Saturday morning they had tickets to ride a train to the top of Pike's Peak. Because of the weather, they weren't able to make it to the very tip top but still made it pretty close.

It snowed again that night - Nate was excited to help daddy with the car the next morning!

Then they explored caves -

And visited a children's museum in Denver -

Room with bubbles

And lastly, headed back to the airport! Nate had a great almost 72 hrs with his dad. He enjoyed the plane ride a lot - thankfully, no turbulence, though he thought upon landing the first time that it was going to be like a roller coaster landing down - but we're glad that wasn't the case ;) Of course now he wants to move to Denver. Hmmmmm. I'm not quite so sure that mama could live with the actual reality of bears being in our backyard....

Spring Break

We're just ending our 2.5 week long Spring Break. Nate goes back to school tomorrow for the last eight weeks. We discovered that actually a lot of people stay here over this break - and why not? The weather is actually decent to make doing activities outside nice. We spent a lot of the time outside.

We began the break with one of our favorite activities - that I usually try to do every few months - breakfast and plane watching at the local airport!

Over the course of the break we visited numerous parks -

 

We also went to a bounce house place one morning (I realized Nate hasn't been since the summer!), spent quality time with both grandmothers, had a playdate with Nate's best bud Braedan, Nate did a fun drop off play camp at one of our favorite places one afternoon, and one day I took advantage of free admission into the Desert Botanical Garden.

The last few days of Spring Break deserves a complete post of its own ;)