Fran finally busted out the trailer! This was the first time I saw it hooked up to the Yukon- looking good! Destination-: Goblin Valley for a rendezvous with the Wilson family (no plans to push over any rock formations though). I’m not a four hour drive to visit sand kinda guy so I opted out of this trip.

Fran needs to come along and fill in some of the captions in this post. Usually I write something and she’ll read through the post and say “That’s not what was going on there!” I wasn’t there but I’ll give it a shot. Here’s Chloe walking through bacon. The kids loved climbing on the Goblin Valley rock formations. Mike & Gabe resting under two rock mushrooms.

But seriously- the rock formations are really cool. Some of the kids adopted frogs. The landscape almost makes me wish I’d gone…

A good time was had by all. The kids had a blast playing together and everyone came back dusty, bruised and tired (all the hallmarks of a fantastic trip).

While the family was gone I decided to tackle the repair of our basement couch. The kids had jumped on it so much that part of the frame had broken- although I didn’t realize this until I got inside. Since the couch had originally been pinned together I had to use right-angle braces (16 of them) to reattach things together. Then springs needed to be stretched and hooked back into place. I wasn’t strong enough to do it (they are are tough!) so I had to wrap rope around the springs and tie weights to them. Makes my top 10 list of most difficult projects. Elapsed time: 8+ hours.

And since I was on a project role I redid some of the caulk in our upstairs bathrooms. Caulk seems to wear out pretty quickly so it’s important to keep an eye to make sure things remain properly sealed. Bathtub tip: Fill the bathtub up with water before you caulk. This will help mimic the weight the caulk will experience later and help prevent it from pulling apart.

Activity Highlight: Marshmallow towers. We go all out on our FHE activities. Who built the tallest tower? Please.

Activity Highlight: In addition to the basement couch the kids also ruined the couch upstairs. Since the repair was such a nightmare I decided to have my kids help me with this repair. Haha… that made it so much worse. They really tried, but in the end I just gave up.
For another FHE activity we did some limbo! I can’t really compete with the kids so I got to hold the stick (I actually resisted the urge to conk anyone).  Fran and the kids all put fourth a valiant effort but in the end it was Claire who became the limbo champion.

In honor of the resurrection of Christ we colored eggs. Nice eggs, kids.

And then, in an effort to continue our Easter worship, we hid the eggs and tried to find them. It’s very similar to the Biblical account of Christ rising and then Mary being unable to find him. Except in that story Christ appeared to her and the eggs rarely reveal themselves to the lookers.  Although religious leaders would probably agree that Christ is not hiding from us it is a good reminder that we must seek him out. Maybe. I don’t know how the rabbit fits in.

Here are a few pictures from Easter. We went to my parent’s house for Easter dinner where we ate and made merry with some of our extended family (Uncle R2 D2 was present but is not pictured).

What do I like more than spending an evening doing something enjoyable? Why making a rain gutter regatta, of course! As responsible parents it would be all to easy to let our son become a victim of his failure to plan and prepare. But naturally Fran and I helped get the regatta preparation moving along. Michael kicked in some spray paining at the end. A fine water craft indeed. It’s not about whether you win or lose- it’s about whether you have a boat at all.

Check out this hole. Legend had it that a small neighbor child fell in the hole and skinned his knee. It took his several minutes to find his way back out. Luckily they filed the hole up with this foundation (more on that later… maybe). We’re on our way! Scheduled completion of our new residence is mid August. Frankly if they get it finished that quickly I will have to assume it sucks. I waved to an old guy and he waved back- great neighborhood to boot!