Easter Pictures

I have finally gotten around to posting some pictures from our whirlwind Easter trip to the Tri-Cities. It started with the 8:30am church service at Abundant Life here in Oregon, then the 3 hour drive to Kennewick to see my mom and Jim's new house for the first time- which is amazing! She has done such a great job decorating it in 2 short months since they've moved and gotten their furniture from Hawaii. We had a nice Easter dinner with Mom, Jim, Grandma Clarette, Bryan, Robyn, and Cassidy. I actually think it was the first time we had all three of us kids and all three grandkids in the same place, at the same time- and we didn't even get a picture! The Easter bunny visited the kids at our house that morning, at my mom's that afternoon, and again that evening at my dad and Gayle's! It was an eventful day!

In our super-short visit, we were able to get in a quick visit with my friend Michelle that I grew up next door to, her husband Steve, and their son Owen. We also made the drive to Walla Walla to see my grandma and have lunch at the restaurant that bears her name, "Clarette's". She and my grandpa used to own it and the current owners have kept the name and it's fun to eat there when we visit! The four and a half hour drive home from Walla Walla wasn't the most pleasant with both kids in the early stages of a cold- thank goodness for the DVD player in our van! I think Rick and I were both pretty sick of listening to "Finding Nemo", "The Little Mermaid", and "Cinderella" by the time we got done with our road trip.

My only wish is that we would have had time to visit with more people while we were in town. The short time we were there just went by so quickly! We are looking forward to more and more visits as the weather improves and Rick is on summer break from school. We got home and that night I was blessed with a nasty flu bug that had me up most of the night and stuck in bed or on the couch the entire next day. I'm doing much better now, but also battling the same cold the kids have.

We are planning on putting our house on the market in the next month or so- crazy, out of the blue decision- so there is so much to be done around here to get the house ready to sell. Rick has spent the last two days we've been home repairing a wall with water damage from last year, re-caulking around the kitchen, and picking up all the slack with the kids since I have been down for the count with this flu. I'm sure it's not the way he envisioned spending his spring break, but I hope his birthday tomorrow makes up for all the hard work he's been doing around here! He has been amazing! Getting work done around the yard has pretty much gone out the window since we've been enjoying winter weather around here. We woke up to snow this morning and drove home in a massive hail storm this afternoon! I guess the yard work will have to wait a while.

So, here are several pictures from Easter and our spring break week...