Easter weekend was so fun this year! I swear my girls have got to be the sweetest kids on the whole planet sometimes. They are just darling and delightful--a lot of the time. :)
Haha, I wrote those last lines a couple of days ago, and since then Holland sure has given me a run for my money. They are still darling though.
It was so fun to do our Easter Egg hunt in our backyard this year. I don't know why it felt so different and enjoyable, but it was great!
We're still loving our little corner and especially the desert rose that we planted. It's gorgeous.
These darling girls with all of the loot. I always go overboard, but I love a fun hunt that isn't all about the candy.
Of course our little ones had to put on a hunt for us. I don't know what house project we were doing (taking our a tree stump?), but we were definitely in our work clothes. This year I wised up and got some special parent candy (read: yummy chocolate) for them to hide for us. They also put in about 50 "I love you" notes.
It was a special Easter weekend not just because of the fun hunts and delicious Easter dinner, but because it was also General Conference weekend. There were wonderful message as usual, but we also had the opportunity to sustain President Russell M. Nelson as the new president of the church. I really felt the Holy Ghost bear witness that he is supposed to be the Lord's prophet, especially during the solemn assembly and during priesthood session. I really felt like my heart and mind united and were at peace about the new prophet and also about the new changes he announced in the sessions. The new ministering program was announced as the next level of home and visiting teaching. They also announced that at the ward level there would no longer be a high priest's quorum.
This affected us directly because the Tuesday after the conference we got a visit from the Stake Presidency member calling John as the new Elder's Quorum President. There have been several people that have shared with me how strong the revelation was that John was supposed to have that new calling. He is doing a wonderful job. He is so obedient, humble, and prayerful about all things church related that I am not surprised at all that the Lord wanted him in this position at this time. I know, you might think I am biased, which I probably am, but it's true. I definitely have no desire for him to have any kind of leadership calling (seriously, can we just get called to teach together in the primary?!), but I can't deny that he is a thoughtful and inspired leader.
This was also the time that my dad had a pretty bad scare. It was just about one week after he arrived home from being in Scottsdale at the art show for three months. He woke up in the middle of the night with a lot of pain in his chest and some disorientation. My mom took him to the hospital the next day, and they didn't leave the hospital until he had a 5 bipass open heart surgery a few days later. Apparently, there is no doubt that if he hadn't had the operation, it would have been fatal. So that was a pretty big scare for all of us. He was really sweet on the phone the day before when I talked with him. We got a little teary. Thankfully, the operation was a success. He seems to be recovering well.
Now only if my mom could get some relief from her falling. She is seeing specialists, and they don't have answers. Just two days ago, she fell and ripped up her face. The ear people think it is neurological and the neurology people think it is an inner ear issue. She just needs some relief. Both of these health issues with my parents are making me appreciate our good health and how fragile that is. Also, it makes me appreciate how awesome my parents are. They better last a good long while yet.
After we got home from Hawaii we jumped right back into the furnace with school starting back up from Spring break. One event that happened right away was the school art show. This is a fun event that we really enjoy going to. They get their art displayed like a gallery, and there are fun art activities.
String art and circle drawing.
It is so convenient that they both go to the same school this year. Last year we had to go to two of these.
Then a few weeks later we found out that Miriam's Clay-D-Bug made it into the district art show. She was pretty proud. :)
I have been having some fun recently too, trying to devote a little bit of time each day to working on calligraphy. I don't know if I am getting better, but it feels nice to do something creative everyday. I even joined this calligraphy group and have an Instagram page about it. Although in all honesty since the end of school I haven't found the time to do it as much. Three kids need a lot of attention! And they are pretty self-sufficient, all things considered. I don't know how moms with a zillion kids do it. I really don't.
Volcanoes National Park day was awesome. We started off the day at the visitor's center where we found out that the lava in the lava lake was being particularly active (no kidding, see my last post!). So the good news was that we could see the lava splashing from the observatory and wouldn't need to hike to see lava. However, if we wanted to see lava another place we could hike 10 miles round trip to see it. Yeah, nope.
So we grabbed a map and planned out our day. We started at the lava tubes. I think these are so cool. They form because the top of the lava cools while the hotter lava flows out from under it. Check out how big this tube is. And look how jungley it is outside of the the tube's entrance. It wasn't terribly long, but long enough that it would have gotten dark without the foot lighting.
It was a little bit of a walk to get there. I had to get a few photos of the Hawaiian jungle atop a volcano.
So much foliage! I liked all of the fern plants at this view.
More cool stick, root trees. No idea what they are actually called.
They were everywhere though. It was raining here.
It didn't seem overly crowded at the park, which was so nice.
Next we went up to the observatory. These photos were taken with the telephoto lens on the nice camera. It was so fun to see the lava actually splash around.
This is more what the crater actually looked like. We weren't very close. I wish we could have hike closer to the edge to look down better.
That's actual lava we are looking at!
Next we went on a drive down to the coast. It is called the Chain of Craters Drive. It had lovely views down to the ocean over the lava rock fields.
We walked out on these fields and were once again stuck by how sharp and rough this type of rock is. It was hurting my feet through my tennis shoes. I
This is up at the top again. The lava lake was so far away. Makes me wish we could have seen it closer. But at least we didn't have to hike for miles to see it.
This was the coldest day we had while we were in Hawaii. Particularly this stop to see the vents was windy and chilly.
Awesome view from the Chain of Craters drive down to the coast.
And here is one of those craters. We love each other. :)
How many pictures is too many of the cool landscape? We're not there yet. :)
t was also so interesting to see the different formations in the lava field. There were collapsed lava tubes. I liked the wave and swirl patterns in the rock. And occasionally there would be a plant growing in those desolate field.
Don't fall on my head. This was a partial tube we could see back into. Also, it was fun to see the large heart shaped rock next to me.
We made it down to the coast where it was substantially warmer. It was fun to see the different kinds of plants there. We saw a bunch of lantanas--a flower that is common in Phoenix. We had torn out overgrown ones in our yard and even planted a new one. It is actually growing like a weed--no wonder the others seemed overgrown.
We had heard about the sea arch at the end of the road, but it was way cooler than we thought it would be. The pictures just don't do it justice.
It was so big! The NPS says that right now it is 90 feet tall. Crazy! We loved the crashing waves around it. We walked down the road and got an awesome view of the craggy cliffs.
It was fun to watch the birds swoop in and out of these cliff caves. We could tell the different rushes of air made flying hard. I kept waiting for one to crash, but the birds handled.
Don't get too close John!
Next up was visiting the black sand beach on the southern point of the island on the other side of Volcano National Park. The sand itself was pretty spectacular. I can't even imagine how much for takes to beat that hard volcanic rock down to soft sand. It was a fun place to walk around, but the real attraction of the place was that it is known for being a place you can see sea turtles. When we first came, we didn't see any, but then one came up on shore!
It was fabulous! Honestly, we were just thrilled! It pushed itself up on the sand and closed it's eyes and rested. At one point it opened its eyes and maneuvered a little farther up from the water.
Not only did we see this one, we saw four others playing out in the water. They were rolling around, turning body rolls in the water. We were hoping another one would come ashore, but the rest just wanted to play. Ah, it was so cool!
This was surprisingly difficult because a larger wave would come and wash it away before I was done. I had to write fast! :)
That night we had one of our favorite meals of the trip. John had another yummy burger, and I tried the Thai coconut shrimp. Yeah, it knocked our socks off.
We took a couple of pics of our cute rental. I hope it is still okay with all of fissures opening up in that neighborhood.
See the fresh flowers they picked for us. :) We loved everything about this place except that they didn't have curtains on one of the windows . It was one facing the driveway, thanks for that. I wanted to use some of the pictures from the listing, but it seems to be taken down because of the volcano activity. I hope it's okay!
The next day it was time to head home. This was our view of Mauna Kea from the plane. We were just talking last night about easy it is to travel without our kids. We just read our book together (holding it between us and reading silently), dozed, and ate food. Speaking of reading that book, we discovered a couple of funny things about reading together. First, we found that every hour or two we need to switch sides so our necks don't hurt. Also, we found out that in general I read faster than John does. This is especially true when the story is exciting, and I rush to find out what happens. John, on the other hand, slows down when things are exciting to make sure he doesn't miss anything. It was pretty funny to see how varied lengths of time would be that I would have to wait to turn the page.
We made it home to our babies! We sure missed them! While we were in Hawaii, Grandma was here taking care of them during their Spring break. It looks like they stayed crazy busy. We owe her big for taking care of them for 8 days. We brought her back a cutting of a plumeria tree and some chocolate covered pineapple. I think she liked it. :)
For our sweet girls, Holly got this cute dress and a cute stuffed sea turtle. Eliza got a little rock collection and a necklace. Miriam got a fun mini sea shell collection and a matching necklace to Eliza. It was sure good to see them again, but we keep wishing we could go back to Hawaii. Holland has a darling way of putting it that has really stuck, "'Member Ha-why?" It is so sweet.
