Family pics

 On Easter, since we were all dressed and looking pretty we got some family photos, just out in front of our house. We invited my parents over, too, since it's been a while since we got pics with them. They turned out pretty good overall (though I still want professional, or semi professional pictures done this year before Rachel graduates). 

Easter

Since we've been invited to celebrate Easter more like we do Christmas, we tried to think of some things we could do to make it more of a season instead of just a day. For Palm Sunday we made some homemade palm fronds and decided to "egg" some houses. At houses with little kids we hid eggs in their front yard, at ones with older kids or just adults we just left a basket.

Youth temple trip! 

Annie participated in the youth choir for the Lamb of God this year. She enjoyed the process, practicing most Sundays leading up to Easter, with the performances the 2 days before Easter. It was really a great way to celebrate the season and the performances were amazing. 

We got together with Grandma to dye eggs and make special bunny cars with varying degrees of success.

Easter morning the kids enjoyed their baskets and an Easter egg hunt as normal.

Mini vacation

 Megan and Ryan have been begging to go to Great Wolf Lodge for ages, and since we didn't plan on going on any other vacations we decided that it would be a nice thing to do as a family. After awhile at the water park we went to Red Robin for dinner. Then we came back to the hotel room and watched The Croods. It was late by the time everyone was in bed and asleep since the movie finished at ten O'clock.   

The next morning me and Megan woke up early so we decided to walk around  and we found this bench. Then Megan also found Dunkin Donuts and so the bench trip ended and and we got donuts for breakfast.

Megan showing off how easy it was after watching a bunch of people fall off.

Since the two big fun family rides where closed Ryan got so bored that he decided to do one hundred laps around the lazy river. He deflated one a lot and had to switch it out around lap eighty five.

Youth Conference

 I'm the Stake Young Women Secretary, so I got to be involved in planning the youth conference this year. It was a pretty cool event, and lots of miracles happened to make it all come together. The theme was Look Unto Christ Around the World.

Brother Mooney donated a TON of snacks for the kids to eat in the "VIP airplane lounge."

Sister Simkins created a super cool passport for all the places the kids would visit during the youth conference.

And I made stickers of Jesus in various colors to add to the passports after they visited each class.

Friday night we kicked things off with a Luau. It is so awesome to work with these ladies in this calling. They're wonderful. Beth Hills, Kenia Simkins, Julie Bytheway, and me.

We started off the Youth Conference on Friday night with a Luau and some awesome Fire-Knife dancers.

Saturday as the kids arrived they got a boarding pass with all the destinations they would be visiting that day. The stake center was turned into an airport, and 6 rooms (or 5, plus the lawn) were turned into different countries that the kids visited and learned about differences in culture and how people living there look to Christ.

Taiwan:

Saudi Arabia:

Fiji:

Lunch was Italian.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy learning about different cultures and the classes were really cool. 

We wrapped up the evening with a HUGE regional concert that our YM president managed to convince the Church performing artists, Strive to Be, to come perform at. It was a huge undertaking, and the first of its kind, and we ended up with 2000 people from southern Arizona in attendance.

We wrapped up the conference on Sunday with a fireside. All in all, a great youth conference and the purpose of coming together to feel a sense of belonging and come closer to Christ was definitely accomplished.