Easter Weekend

We had such a fun Easter weekend! It started on Friday evening with a visit from Ken's best friend from childhood, Howard. ( they lived 1/2 block from each other and were best friends all through school, roommates, he was Ken's best man, etc) He came to introduce us to his new wife, Veronica. It was so nice to reconnect. Kristen and Jared arrived later that evening. We pulled out the stuff and colored the eggs. Little Nathan LOVED that activity and immersing both hands into the colored water. Saturday, we went on a fun hike and picnic at Red Cliffs. The picnic (using Joan's rating system) was in the high nines. It would have been a 10, but there were a million (no, I'm not exaggerating) tent catepillars. Nathan thought they were great. It was so fun to watch them find the Easter eggs. That evening the men beat the girls in "All" and we had a yummy dinner of soup and pasta salad. Sunday was busy, busy. We had Easter in the morning, then church at 1. I am choir director, and wrote and directed the Easter program. It turned out nice, though three of the men from the choir weren't able to be there so we only had four. But it was fine. Then, I was also supposed to teach the RS lesson. It was on Liberty Jail, so I invited Melanie Hinton to come (she was SO kind and drove from SLC) speak on Liberty Jail. She works for the church historic dept. and has been researching and writing about Liberty Jail. She was awesome! There's got to be a better word. She was SO,SO good. She had everyone eating out of her hand. We all learned so much and felt the spirit so strong! At one point, she said she was about out of time. There was an audible groan and protests from the sisters. If you ever need a good fireside speaker, I volunteer Melanie! We then went home and had a nice ham, asparagus, Mormon potatoes(thanks to Jared), roll dinner. Then we had to say goodbye to the Mackrory family. Two of my favorite Brielle quotes from the weekend: 1) She was playing with the knob on the woodstove downstairs, pretending it was a microphone. Her parents encouraged her to say the 1st article of faith for me. She got up to the microphone and then asked, "Is that the one with the ghost in it?" 2) She brought home a bag of candy from Primary. When we got home, her daddy teased her, saying, "You brought that for me?" She answered, "No, that's for my baby brother." She was so cute about taking care of Nathan. What a good share girl. It's so fun to see her growing up. My favorite Nathan moment: After dinner on Sunday, Ken had to go to a meeting and the rest of us were exhausted. Jared was trying to get a little nap on the couch before the long drive home. Nathan was running around being very noisy and into things. I said, "Nathan, Nathan, why don't you come sit down and visit with Grandma for a minute. He didn't do it immediately, but pretty soon he went over and climbed up on the chair facing me and started "visiting." It was so cute! Thank you, Mackrorys for coming and sharing the holiday with us!!!!