Spring Break Travels

This year Jena had Spring Break after the Easter holiday.  We spent Monday taking care of her heart check-up at Primary's (it is in great shape) and then we went to the Hale Theatre with Gary and saw the "Pirate Queen".  It was great.  I had never seen it before and I think it was the first time it had played in Utah.  It is based on the true story of Grace O'Malley during the conflicts between Ireland and England back in the 1500s (I think).  The music was great and the dancing was amazing.  If you have a chance to see it you should go. Now I want to read more about her and that time period but I am holding off until the end of the this semester.  No time for much reading for fun at the moment.

After Jena did her two days of service on her mission, we headed out to visit the Ipsons in Mesa, AZ. This trip was originally organized to take my dad down with us so that he, Valerie and I could have some family history days together. Karla, his wife, was going out of town to join some friends in their yearly get-away so it was perfect timing. Jena was coming to have cousin time.  Then Ben decided he wanted to go so then we were all going and bringing the motor home.  Karla then became sick for about three weeks with some virus going around and Dad soon followed her.  In the end, they stayed home to recover and Gary stayed home to manage the house and dogs, and the three of us headed down in the car.

We left about 2 hours later than planned because I ended up at the doctor's office that morning.  I had had a cold about 3 weeks earlier that had left me with a very plugged ear.  If I even tried to lay on that side my ear would plug and pop throughout the night.  When it felt plugged my hearing was very impacted.  And my ear hurt. Gary who himself had had both of his ears cleaned about 2 months ago was worried about me driving up and down the elevations without clean ears.  It had taken 45 minutes for Gary's ears to get cleaned and I wasn't looking forward to that.  But I went anyway and I also had to get both ears cleaned (in only 10 minutes however.)  I couldn't believe how much better I could hear in both ears.  And the one that hurt the least was the most impacted with wax.  Our doctor thought it was funny that we both needed our ears cleaned so close together.  So a point for Gary as he was right.  I was so glad as we traveled that my ears were working properly and popping when they were suppose to and I slept so much better.  Husbands are nice to have around.

We didn't do much family history but we had fun playing games and hanging out with family.  We watched Conference together which was nice.  They also got me hooked on the"Relative Race" which is a show about four couples racing across the US visiting unknown relatives who have been matched to them through Ancestor DNA.

Ben with Dottie (Jarom and Starla Ipson's baby)

Although the weather was definitely warm enough for swimming, cooler weather the week before had mad the water cold (65 degrees).  That didn't stop Ben and Jena but I didn't swim in it.

 Ben teaching Jena some diving skills.

A snapshot of Dance Mania on the XBox.  The girls met during the Priesthood session and had pizza and did Dance Mania.

I only got pictures of Ben holding the babies.
This is Justin and Tosha's baby Jayden.

 April 4th is Valerie's 55th birthday, so on Sunday night their kids came over and we had dinner and cake/cheesecake to celebrate.  She had lots of help blowing out her candles.

Morgan, Tamara, Evanie and Parker are there to help their Grandma.

Valerie's birthday was Monday so we took her out to breakfast to celebrate before we left to make the trip back home.

We got home in about 11 hours of driving and I had to hurry to finish and submit a homework assignment before midnight.  It was a nice little trip, beautiful weather and countryside. America has its problems but it is a privilege to live in a place which allows us freedom and safety to travel around as we wish.

It is good to be home and now (almost a week later) I can say that I have finally caught up with the laundry (which--to be fair-was behind even before we left).