Welcome Home, Elder Anderson!

Today is the day, people! My little bro is on his way home from the Dominican Republic as I type! I wish I was in Utah to watch him come off the plane. Instead, I'll settle for talking to him on the phone tonight. Then we'll get him to Seattle ASAP! I can't wait to introduce him to Justin and to see him get reacquainted with Joseph.

Our wonderfully long weekend

Q. What's a girl to do after tax day when her husband is a tax accountant?
A. Get out of town for a long weekend!

Thanks for getting married, Stephanie! It was perfect timing for us and the perfect excuse to get down to Oregon and hang out with family and friends. We left on Thursday and stayed in a hotel outside of Portland just for fun. The boys enjoyed the pool:Then we went to this beautiful wedding at the Portland temple of the Jolley's long-time family friend and neighbor, Stephanie. It doesn't get much better than attending a sealing in the temple; it's such a powerful spiritual experience.The other great thing about this trip is that we got to hang out with a lot of family too! Darren's sisters came from Idaho and Nevada for the wedding. Here's my boys with their cute cousin, Easton. The boys loved walking around the ledge of the fountain, making their mothers very nervous.Check out game night at the Jolley house. These guys are serious Scrabble players and I was honored to play with and also lose really badly to them.Joseph is a Scrabble player in training.We visited the Saturday Market in downtown Eugene where you can see a lot of hippies, buy their art and a lot of yummy food, too. Isn't my sis-in-law, Emily, an adorable pregnant woman?We left for home on Sunday, but our extended weekend wasn't over yet. On Monday, my cousin, Terri and her family trekked out of the mountains where they live to spend the day in the city. And I'm so glad she called so we could hang out. We spent the afternoon at Alki Beach while our kids played hard.Konnor and Joseph were fast friends and were obviously way too busy to look up for the camera.Sigh. Now I'm refreshed and ready to dive back into normal life.

Happy Easter

Another great Easter come and gone. Sticking with Seattle tradition, it was a very WET Easter weekend. We enjoyed a Primary egg hunt on Saturday where it did stay dry enough to hunt outdoors. Joseph opted out of the bunny whiskers and Justin opted out of the bunny ears.On Sunday, it was NOT dry enough for an outdoor hunt, so the Easter bunny had to hide eggs inside. It was fun to see Justin understand the concept of hunting for eggs. But after a few good finds, he headed right for the candy inside.Darren had the fun job of giving the Easter talk in Sacrament meeting and he did a great job, of course. I got to sing in the choir. Lucky for me, it turns out it's pretty hard to mess up a ham. I just threw one in the oven for Sunday dinner and it was tasty! We had a very relaxing, uplifting and fun weekend!