Our New Paved Driveway

After 3 years of laying tiny rocks across our driveway, dealing with potholes, mud, rocks tracked into the house, muddy cars, and people's cars getting stuck in the piles of snow, we have finally paved our driveway!  It is an amazing transformation!!  It took the workers 1 day to prep it, and 1 full day of work to lay it.  There were 5 or 6 cement trucks and 15 or so laborers--a huge job. But it was all done in a day.  There were huge piles of dirt that the kids had a blast digging in and climbing up before the project was done.  Now, There are actually spaces to park and plenty of room to turn around rather than chancing driving backwards to get out. There's even tons of space to ride bikes and play basketball.  We absolutely love having a paved driveway with parking.  Now we can have fun planning what trees we want to plant along it and our landscaping.  It's a lot of work to develop some land into your own, but so fun and satisfying as it slowly comes together. 

Easter 2014

Happy Easter!! This was a wonderful Easter.  We spent time talking about the Savior with the kiddos periodically throughout the week so they understood what Easter is really about. I am so grateful for my amazing husband, who truly is amazing at everything he does.  I am also so blessed for our four little angels who make our lives worth every minute. I love them to pieces and have been excited all week to share Easter memories with them.  

We spent time decorating eggs at preschool and also painting eggs with Q-tips.  Saturday we spent all day in Kendallville with cousins and family.  They prepared a massive egg hunt outside in the beautiful weather for the kids.  Each kid searched for 10 eggs of a particular color.  After all 10 were found, they could search for the special big black egg that held a prized $5 bill.  Cooper searched for orange eggs, jaxton searched for yellow, kaylee for hot pink, and Dawson looked for the metallic eggs with Dad's help.  Jaxton was the lucky finder of the prized money egg!!

Easter morning we gathered for breakfast in the kitchen.  We watched the sun rise as we ate breakfast and taught about the symbolism of the sun rising, and the Savior rising, and what that means for us.  Then the kids discovered Easter baskets on the front porch filled with new Easter dress clothes and journals.  All their clothes matched with a baby blue theme.  They really enjoyed the journals.  The boys were going through the writing prompts and were writing the sweetest sentences.  Kaylee spent much of church drawing in her picture journal.  It was a wonderful day spent together as a family:) 

Cooper's First Lost Tooth

Cooper lost his first tooth!! Hooray!! He was worried that the tooth fairy would take his tooth and he'd never see it again.  He was afraid to part with his tooth at first, so he told Dad to keep it in the ziploc bag and NOT to put it under his pillow.  He kept it safe in a ziploc until he was ready to part with it.  Then under his pillow it went.  Indeed, the tooth fairy took the tooth, but left a dollar!

Las Vegas ISC West

Nate I got to take a little vacation over spring break to Las Vegas!  We doubled it as a Simplx work trip and an anniversary vacation :-).  Every year in Las Vegas is a conference called ISC West for the entire security industry.  It really was an amazing show with an expo 10 times larger than the Fort Wayne Home Show was this year.  Every security company was there and we got the opportunity to meet with and converse with those we usually speak with over the phone, from all the major companies and affiliates that we have.  It was a lot of fun being alongside Nate as a member of the Simplx team and his partner in business.  It was also very fun spending time together without the kids.  It was strange only having to take care of ourselves and carry nothing but what we needed for the day, rather than a whole diaper bag full of spare clothes, diapers, and snacks.  It felt very odd.  But it was very refreshing. 

Nate ran into his old boss from BYU, Wayne Beck, that had made a difference in his life.  He had met Wayne in Spain on his mission, and he told him to contact him when he got out to BYU.  Nate did, and got a job with him working Library Security.  He became a lifelong mentor and friend of Nate's and it was super fun  to run into him randomly amidst millions of people at this show! 

We were able to see some exciting Las Vegas shows while we were there.  We saw Circe de Soleil Mystere, which was full of amazing acrobats and athletes.  They were so very talented.  Pure talent all around, it was amazing!  We also went to see David Copperfield, a magician, who did all sorts of crazy magic tricks that really were impossible!  He had a live duck, but he constantly was making the live duck disappear.  It was an impossible trick that I simply could not even guess how it was done.  He also made a bunch of people from the audience disappear.  Keith, our employee, got to participate in this one and somehow he was on stage, and then a moment later, he was in the back of the theater! Incredible stuff!  We enjoyed walking the Las Vegas strip and watching the Bellagio water & lights show.  That also was more incredible than I ever remember.  Everything in Vegas is just overdone!  The architecture of the buildings and every where you look is over done.  Such intricate detail everywhere in paint, filigree on the buildings, and design on every wall and ceiling.  There is so much to see; we were in awe.  

David Copperfield Magic Show

As part of the trip we got to participate in events sponsored by the ISC West conference.  There was an event at one restaurant with a country flair.  They had a mechanical bull riding contest that Nate and his 2 employees Keith and Tim participated in.  It was really fun to watch, but they were sore for days afterward!  We also were able to participate in a 5K Race.  Being 6 months pregnant, this was a challenge, but we all finished the race in good time!  Other events that we were invited to allowed us to see other parts of Las Vegas and buildings and rooms and beautiful patios that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see.  So that was awesome!  We also made it to the Las Vegas Temple which was a great and overdue experience!  Overall, it was a great trip!!