Easter 2017

Easter was so gorgeous!  Such pretty weather, and spring was at it's peak.  It's the prettiest Easter weekend I can remember, though I don't have that great of a memory. 
Our Friday of Spring Break we had a fun evening at our friend's house, the Weilers, eating outside, playing and visiting.  I took a picture, but my phone went dead the next day after falling in the creek in West Virginia.  I thought it might stay alive since it worked for a few days, but no luck.  My track record for keeping a smart phone isn't good....at least my last phone I had for over a year. 


Saturday before Easter Lee and I went to the temple.  The grounds were spectacular. And of course inside the temple even better.


Lois let the kids dye Easter eggs, which was really fun for them.  I don't think about ever doing that activity.  My kids loved it.








We pulled Clark in to dye an egg too.










After dinner we went to Reed's scrimmage. 


It was fun seeing him out on the field.




After we stopped at Opy's, an ice cream place near Lois' house.








We took off after Opy's to go to a mall.  I needed to return some sandals to a store. The boys went to the Lego Store while the girls came shopping with me.  At the Lego Store they had a little hunt where if you found the location of the Lego Eggs, you received a Lego Chick that you could build.  Very fun!


We enjoyed a lovely Easter Sunday at church.  That evening we were invited to our friend's house for dinner.  We had a wonderful visit with friends.  The sister missionaries did a fun little egg hunt inside with scripture references and candy inside them.  They had the kids read some scriptures and then we watched a short movie about service and love.  It was a neat little Sunday Easter activity for the kids.




Monday after Easter was the last day of spring break.  We hung out at home and didn't really do a whole lot actually!  The kids had fun on the neighbor's "squirt bike". 






Our last spring break hurrah was a hike in Shenandoah National Park on the Bear Fence trail.














Such a fun picture that Lee took.




A heart attack picture.  I didn't see this till afterwards...








Another heart-attack picture.


Cal getting in on the fun.


After the hike we had our Family Home Evening lesson up in the park, then headed home for ice cream.  It was a great end to spring break.  We are looking forward to another fun one next year!

Spring Break, Part II Seneca Rocks & Spruce Knob

Spring break this year was really fun.  Normally we don't do hardly anything, but we finally made some plans this year and decided to explore a little in West Virginia. 

On a Tuesday afternoon we took off for Seneca Rocks, about two hours away.  We stopped in Franklin, West Virginia for a pit stop and ice cream.


We bought another bike "rack".  It's super easy and very ingenious. Basically it's a pad that goes over the truck tailgate, with designated indents of sorts, to place the bikes.  We also bought a cable lock that locks in the bikes.  Anyway it's pretty cool and can hold 6 bikes--and it's easy enough to throw the 7th bike in the truck bed. We'll keep our other bike rack too for long-distance trips and such.  This new bike "rack" will be great for things near our house.


First official stop, a hike up to Seneca Rocks.  We hiked about 3 1/2 miles.










We hiked up to the platform for a fun overlook of the small valley and pretty mountains.










Here we are at the base with Seneca Rocks behind us.






We camped at Seneca Shadows campground in Monongahela National Forest.  Elden's bike tire was balding so Lee put a new one on before the bike ride the next day. It was fun going camping.  And I love our 3-minute-set-up tent.


After yummy foil dinners, we had cupcakes and roasted marshmallows.  I bought some snacks at Trader Joe's the night before which included some peanut butter cupcakes.  My sister told me how good they were so I bought some and saved them for the campout.  They were good, but for me I didn't love them.  Now I know!




We tried to play Dutch Blitz that night but it was too windy and our cards kept blowing all over.

Elden did a trash run for us the next morning.


After breakfast and packing up we went to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia.  It was an easy walk to an overlook.  On the way we saw some cool moss covered rocks.  They looked more green in real life.


The highest point in West Virginia.












It was SO cold up there!  The kids loved playing around in this rock area. Cal and Elden built little forts.




We had fun exploring the area.










Our last West Virginia adventure was a bike ride along the trail by Seneca Creek.  We didn't get the directions before we left and didn't have cell phone coverage.  We actually were really close to the trail up at Spruce Knob, but only realized that later after stopped at a little post office, then gas station to get directions.


We found the Seneca Creek Trail!  We did an 8 mile bike ride...well, we did 7.6 and Lee and Cal did 8. 




It was pretty riding along next to the creek at times and in general riding on the trial.  It was nice that we went early in the year when the plants weren't overgrown.


We had to go through three creek crossings. 


I did not want to get wet and managed to get across the first water crossing without incident.  The second crossing though I didn't make it and got my feet wet. 


Cal and Clark helped take bikes across, and Cal took across the girls on his back.  It was really sweet.


We made it to our turn-around point.






The whole way down was slightly downhill, and it was very noticeable on the way back.  Uphill.  It took us awhile longer to get back.  It was great though that no one got a flat tire!


On the way back we stopped in Harrisonburg for some scout things and ate at Popeye's--we've never eaten there before.  We had a fun get-away.  There are a couple more Spring Break happenings, but I am going to post those in the Easter post.  We loved the get-away to WV and can't wait to go exploring more!