April 9th through April 13

April 9 (Sun) - we had our lenten tea to celebrate for Easter.  We eat symbolic foods to go through from Palm Sunday through the resurrection using different foods.  It is some work to get it all together (and a lot of grocery shopping), but we all love it and it's a nice way to talk through the Easter story.  Our home teacher also came over.  Otherwise, a nice Sunday at home.

April 10 (Mon)  - normal day.  In the evening, we had our Passover type dinner.  I found a reading for LDS families that go along with it and we really enjoyed that.  The boys loved dipping their fingers in their grape juice and looking for the hidden matzo.  We had matzo, grape juice, lamb cooked in barley (which was delicious), radish for bitter herbs, parsley (from the garden), hard boiled egg, and some haroset.  After the reading, we add our Jerusalem dinner - we usually break this into two nights, but we were crunched with going on a trip later.  So, we had food like Jesus would have eaten - goat cheese, apricots, olives, etc.  The kids loved it.  Noah was exhausted so Katsu put him to bed and the missionaries came over to give us an Easter lesson.  We made Easter lilies with them and put them in a jar.  It was a nice evening and a good way to get ready for Easter.

April 11 (Tues) -   Logan went to preschool and then Noah and I had a crazy morning.  We ran to Plant and See and bought some plants.  We planted some of the plants and then I decided to make hot cross buns.  But the dough was super sticky and it was time to leave and it was a little crazy getting to preschool in time.  I always read the recipe for hot cross buns incorrectly and put in to much liquid and it's crazy, but I wrote it on the cookbook, so hopefully next time ...  Logan had a soccer game (Noah insisted on me taking him to the bathroom over and over, which is tricky when Katsu isn't there) and then there was cub scouts and it was just another long day.

April 12 (Wed) - Another busy day.  Seth had a big project due on Tuesday - they had to make an animal habitat at home and he made one for penguins.  He painted his shoebox blue and made snow of cotton balls and drew penguins on manilla folders to make them stand up in the box.  On Wed morning, they presented their habitats.  I had to work, but Katsu was able to make it.  They had a button in front of their habitat and when you pushed it, they would talk about their animal.  He also had PE day with your family, but none of us could go to that.  I went to work first, and then I went to the preschool to go to Noah's Easter party.  He was pretty surprised to me there (even though I told him I would be there).  His class had a little story about Jesus' resurrection (kind of like a plan of salvation sort of lesson) and then ran out to find eggs on the play ground (which I helped hide).  He was excited to look for them (though I am not sure if he got quite as many as the other kids).  Not everyone put candy in the eggs, so he got little toys and lots of seashells, which I dumped in the sand box for some extra fun.  The boys got their report cards on Monday and Katsu was going to go out to dinner with someone from work, so we went to Chick-fil-a for dinner (they give chicken nuggets out with a report card), but we didn't get there in time to play because we were too busy playing with friends before we left.  Then, we went to Seth's soccer game.

April 13 (Thurs) - Another busy day as we got ready for our trip.  Logan went to preschool and then Andrew had an awards day at school, so we went there.  Andrew got an award for getting all A's.  We took pictures and then went home.  We picked Logan up from preschool.  Both boys fell asleep on the way home from preschool.  Then, we woke up Noah in time to go to Seth's awards ceremony at his class.  We brought in drink boxes for the little party afterwards.  Seth got an award for all S's.  We signed him out and took him home.  I didn't pick up Andrew yet because he wanted to stay and do his Math masters practice.  Noah wanted nothing to do with that and threw an enormous fit because he wanted Andrew to come home, too.  He was dressed as Spiderman and everyone just kept saying, "Spiderman is not happy".  Oh, yeah.  I could barely get him to come home because he was throwing himself everywhere and trying to get out of his stroller.  I got everyone home in time to walk back to school and pick up Andrew.  Then, we loaded up the car and drove to our vacation rental in Luray, VA.  The drive went pretty well.  We finished listening up the 39 Story Treehouse (we listened to the 13 and 26 ones on the way to and from soccer games).    The older boys played video games and we spent a lot of time looking out the window at the pretty scenery.  Noah was super excited to see the mountains and kept saying "I see a mountain!".   We ended up having to stop at Taco Bell to use the bathroom and get some dinner.  We had wanted to leave early enough to get there before dinner, but didn't quite.  But it didn't get dark until about when we crossed the mountains.  The scenery around the mountains in the valley was just beautiful.  Lots of rolling hills and cows and pretty green grass and all the trees blossoming.  I loved it.  The rental was easy to find.  Noah fell asleep right before we got there, so we just brought him into the bedroom with us, the boys were pumped to watch Disney Junior (they watched hours of it every day on our trip).  And then we finally got to bed.