Our fun times in Mantua and Reno!

Emily dressed for her ballet lesson. Dad took care of the boys while we went to Brigham City. The class practiced for their recital, and she did so well!
Assembling birthday gifts is a family affair! Deven got his birthday gift a little early as we didn't want to have to mail it.
What can I say to these next 2 pictures? The kids really did get to ride also!

Jen's window sill seedlings - and they tell her not to plant until the end of May due to frost!!!! She'll be picking peas before then! She planted melons, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, beans, corn, etc.
Jill practicing to be a Mommy? She'd made some yummy zucchini bread and muffins which we all scarfed down!
Dad and the boys had several exciting animal domino games, as well as war with Ben! I'm counting on Jen to blog some of their pictures and experiences in Mexico. Dad and I left these games after much fun with the Blaine Gang and Jill and Thain for Reno. It was a lucky trip! Dad won $4000. on a penny machine the first night and $1500. on another penny machine the last day. Mom went car shopping!
My new wheels - as of yesterday! I need some feedback! Shall I name her Merzie or Sadie? The dealer needed to move merchandise; it was the end of the month, and he knocked off $12,000! I looked at Lexus, Acura, BMW, Corvettes - but this one captured my fancy!

The Blaine 17

Emily really wanted to show you all her bunnies.


Nate and the kids in the snow tonight. Nate is wearing a large smile! He lives in the right place. I am wondering if I do!



The kids on their short and fun fishing trip with Dad.

Hiking with Mom up on Table Top Mountain.

1. With her fun money yesterday, Emily bought a Puppy in my pocket friends toy. It was a mommy bunny with her babies.

2. Ben lost his third tooth last night. He asked Daddy to pull it out and didn't even make a peep while Nate pulled, twisted, yanked, resulting in a bloody mess. The tooth came out though, and Ben is a dollar richer.

3. Deven got third place in Mario Cart on the Maple Tree Way race today. He got extra Wii time because of the big snow storm outside.

4. Nate is overjoyed about today's snow storm.

5. Jen is finally typing this blog entry after Jill got after her about it. We LOVE the internet. I too, wouldn't know how to live without it now. We also love finding good movies on netflix. The last one I really liked was "Miss Potter".

6. Emily can't wait until spring is finally full blown.

7. Ben's favorite food is pineapple pizza and asparagus.

8. Deven's favorite food is salad.

9. Nate loves Jen's cooking. On his birthday he would rather eat at home than go out to a restaurant.

10. Jen would rather go out to any restaurant most nights than fix dinner. It's a real treat for me! Lately my favorite is Indian food. I love the naan bread they serve. I stay busy with planning my preschool turns, planning primary lessons for church, and helping out with PTA stuff at the kids school. My latest assignment is planning the carnival booths for the school carnival on May 4th.

11. Emily can't wait until Grandma and Granddad come out in a few days. She would like to play with them.

12. Ben collected worms for fishing yesterday. When Nate went out with him after work to find the worms, "they had squiggled away". The kids and Nate went fishing with other worms they found, but didn't catch anything. They did find old rotten beets while digging for worms in the garden.

13. Deven says he likes to water the garden, and eat in a restaurant.

14. Nate likes to run outside when it doesn't rain or snow. He also keeps busy with his church calling as elder's quorum president.

15. Jen and the kids went to baby animal days yesterday. They got to pet and hold lots of different animals. The most interesting part for me was watching a cow protect her baby calf from a ram. She actually growled at the ram! Then the calf went up to the ram and was licking it's horns. That poor ram! He stood very still though. That mama cow must have made an impression on him.

16. We would love to have another baby. Jen wishes she could bypass the pregnancy and delivery, of which she has bad experiences. We do love the kids though, and would love another one in our family. It hasn't happened though, and we have been trying for over a year.

17. Nate and Jen are really looking forward to their anniversary get away next week. The kids are excited to have Grandma and Granddad here to take care of them. What a treat for everyone. Hopefully it's a treat for G&G. :)

That's all for us for now. We love reading your blog posts too!

Hey, hey, hey, more pictures are uploading again! This is out of order, but if you look closely (Be sure to click on the pictures to magnify and see them better!) at Zoey's eye and top of her nose, you will see red! No, it's not blood, but strawberry jam. She was licking dirty dishes on the bottom rack of the dishwasher while the measuring cup on the top rack was dripping jam on her!
Alisa, Justin, and Zoey about to leave for an outing!
The Blaines dyed brilliantly colored brown and white eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide. The colors and decorating were original and vivid and fun!
Friday, the Blaines and I hiked at Table Mountain (or Table Top Mountain, as Jen and Jill call it!) and saw the greatest display of wildflowers I've ever seen! We walked to the water fall that Jill, Thain, and I had seen last year and hiked down the steep side of the hill to the bottom. We enjoyed a picnic there. Emily is pointing out a lovely pink specimen here that Dad identified for me as rose clover!
Walking up from the falls, I got a picture of Deven and Ben (two little mountain goats!) sillhoueted against the sky which had cleared from about three days of showers.
Justin is making freezer strawberry jam, much to the delight of Jen, Ben, and Emily!
The rest of this blog follows below!

Easter Weekend

I'd rather not publish a whole new post before we see a couple by Jeremy and Kathryn and Jen and Nate and their responses to:
1. Jill and Thain's activities for Utah and
2. their contributions to our 100th blog information. But I do want to share some of our pictures from this weekend.

Fiddle sticks, this blog was going well but now won't upload any more pictures!!! So I will publish this one and try to finish on a new one! I was finally getting the hang of choosing the last pictures to be first!

Ben, Kathryn, Jeremy, Justin, Alisa, Dad, and Emily having tilapia for dinner Friday. Mom wouldn't have served such if John and Jill (before she decided she liked some fish) were present. We did miss the Andersons and the John Dunlaps who spent their holiday at Disneyland!
Justin, Emily, and Ben during the hunt for eggs. When asked by Jen if they wanted to go to Grandma's for Easter, Emily and Deven said yes, but Ben said no. When Jen asked why not, Ben replied that because she lives on a mountain, when the Easter bunny hides the eggs, they will all roll down the hill.
Our beautiful granddaughters in their pretty Easter dresses before leaving for church.
Benjamin, Aiden, and Deven were making giant bubbles from goodies the Easter Bunny left in their baskets.
Emily feeding some chickens, while Granddad and Ben and Deven are in the background gathering eggs.

Activity Ideas for Utah Vacation

Ok well despite the fact that Jen and Nate and Jeremy and Kathryn haven't been good kids and done their 17 facts yet I guess I will go ahead and post this but we'd love to here the 17 things soon guys!! Thain wrote down some ideas for activitys he knows of here so that all can get an idea of what they might like to do while up for Utah, anything you want him to make reservations for he can or if you want any aditional information on anything please let us know so we can get that to you or just let us know wich ones you'd be interested in doing so that we can make them happen or if there's something else you'd like to do that might be available :). Ok here's the list.
1. River Tubing
2. Mountain bike riding
3. Tram ride with down hill hike or bike ride
4. Horseback riding
5. Boating and wave runnering
6. Parasailing
7. Lagoon amusment and water park
8. Raging waters water park
9. Broadway style play "Hello Dolly" at hale theater during those times
10. Symphony
11. Dinosaur Museum
12. Mountain camping with hot dog roast
13. Extreme river rafting at Jackson Hole class 4 and 5...4 hr. drive.
14. Ski Diving
15. Indoor I fly (artificial sky diving)
16. Ice blocking
17. Go carting, mini golfing, laser taging, mini golf at Toads recreation park
18. Golfing (6 different coarses close)
19. Demolition Derby
20. Mud bog racing (watching I think)
21. Car show (Logan)
22. 4 wheel riding or motorcycle riding in mountains.
23. Kayaking (cozy damn pretty reservoir close) we have kayaks
24. Lots of July 4th festivities localy.
25. from Jill.....spa going pedicures or facials or such...something I can do :)
That's what Thain could think of so far and all are very doable here but there are a few
like the extreme river rafting that require a few months notice ahead as you have to get some dumb permit so let us know asap who is interested in what numbers :). I will be doing very few of these but have done and enjoyed a lot of them before. Tubing down the river here is really fun and we have the tubes :). ....we also have the 4 runners and kayaks and things and a few mountain bikes, but all those might need a little checking and maintance so again any pre knowledge of what you want to do would be really great and helpfull. Hope everyone has a super duper Easter!
Love Thain and Jill