Vacation, continued

Here are a couple of pictures from Colorado Springs that I didn't have last time I posted. (From dad's camera.) This is what the truck looked like after our drive through Wyoming last week:

And here's a pic of my oldest niece, Katie. (And me) She's so grown up! (By the way, Katie, "Mooooo! Ribbit. Ribbit.")

Vacation day 7 - Thursday - Hanging out at Dennis'.

Ran some errands with Dennis and with Amber; bought my own 'Imagine If' game; finally got around to experimenting with using my phone to take videos; spent the day being thoroughly entertained by Emma and Will.

Here's Emma in her strawberry towel...

And Will being his charming self...

And this is a clip of Emma talking about what Easter is.

Vacation day 8 - Friday - Still hanging out at Dennis'.

Another great day just spending time with family and being entertained by the kids.


Vacation day 9 - Saturday - Easter Madness.

We took the kids to an Easter-egg hunt that turned out to be almost a total waste of time. I like my cousin Amy's description - more of a 'gather and grab' than a hunt. We got to the park and stood around outside the 1-2 year old enclosure waiting for the signal to start. When the siren sounded, there was pretty much a stampede of parents herding their toddlers through and scooping up as many eggs as they could. I don't think very many of them were actually picked up by the kids. The entire spectacle took about 30 seconds.

Emma got tired of waiting before the 'hunt' started. She went to play on the slide. William did manage to get two eggs, one for him and one for Emma.

After the official hunt ended, we took the two eggs that Will got and hid them a couple of times for Emma and Will to pick up

And Emma did get a pink balloon out of the experience.

After we got back to their apartment, we broke out the food coloring and the boiled eggs and had some real Easter fun:


Vacation day 10 - Sunday - Two melt-downs and family time.

After church on Sunday we "hid" the colored eggs and let the kids hunt for them, then had a Family Home Evening lesson about Easter, which, if the video from Thursday can be used as evidence, they have discussed before.

While the kids were still taking their afternoon naps, the grownups took (shorter) naps, and/or read and then we played 'Imagine If', so as not to waste the effort of buying it. Later, after dinner and after the kids were in bed, dad slept for a few hours while mom, Dennis, Amber and I visited. Then at about 10:30 Milwaukee time, we left.

Oh, yeah, the melt-downs. Emma wanted to wear her 'dancing' skirt to church instead of her dress, or even under her dress, but it really didn't match. Melt-down number one happened when I foolishly took it off while I was putting on her dress. Disaster averted when she was promised that she could wear it after church. Melt-down number two happened when she bit her finger during dinner. We just had to wait that one out. It was a long couple of days for her with a lot of excitement and too many people invading her space. Other than those two short incidents, the kids were amazingly well-behaved. (What can I say? My family is totally be-awesome!)

Vacation day 11 - Monday - Drove all night.

Dad drove all night, and then we stopped for breakfast at 6:30, switched drivers, and kept going. We arrived back at Uncle Alma's at about 3:00 this afternoon, and I'm currently updating my blog. :-)