Bakersfield part 1

If you asked my children where their dream vacation destination is, they would say Bakersfield. Luke had friends that were going to Hawaii and some that went to the Caribbean and he said, "Yeah, but I get to go to Bakersfield! " I agree--it's my favorite place to be. I think it's the people. So, they kids and I went to south for Spring Break.
On the way down, it rained and rained. It was even raining when we got into Bakersfield. The children were disgusted. One said, "What! We came here some sun!" Luckily, the sun arrived the next day.



There is a Black Bear Diner where we stop for the night on the way down. The kids love to go there. I think it's because they can get breakfast for dinner and ice cream sundaes. This time the kids were a little wound up. I think Allie is being a bear. Kate is probably under the table. 

Kate was supposed to sleep with me but she didn't want to get left out from Luke and Allie. So, Luke was going to sleep with me, but she wanted to sleep with Allie AND Luke. So, they all slept together. Allie and Luke are so good to her!


We pretty much spent all of our time outside enjoying the sunshine. We launched rocket balloons one afternoon.


Aunt Peggy came down and brought dogs to play with


Allie gave manicures.



Grandpa had a great pile of dirt from a project in his yard. Kate and Andee spent hours playing in the dirt.


When everyone was exhausted from playing outside we cleaned up and watched cartoons.


Every night Kate would pray that we could get a job in Bakersfield and live in Bakersfield.

Book of Mormon

Last year, the Primary challenged the children to read the entire Book of Mormon. We believe that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ.  We believe it stands with the Bible to teach us about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we believe that it contains the words of God.  Luke diligently read it by himself  all year and then finished this year in February. We knew along the way where he was, but he didn't say anything about finishing it. We found out when he came home from  Primary with something for finishing. He said it was sad at the end, but he knows it is a true book.

His super cool Primary teacher made him a Star Wars tie tack to mark his accomplishment. I think it goes well with his scripture case. 

***PS If you would like to read the Book of Mormon and find out for yourself if it's true, send me a message and I'll send you one!

Easter

We actually had a sunny Easter this year! It just seems right that it would be sunny and light on the day when we remember the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.


Decorating eggs on Saturday





Kate was the first one up and let us all know that there were eggs downstairs and we should get up and see them.



Right before church--Allie and Kate's dresses from last year still fit. Yes!



Can you just see how happy everyone is about the sunshine!

Elite 8 for the Radical Reading Rockstars

The "Radical Reading Rockstars"  had the Regional Battle of the Books Competition this Saturday. They made to to the Elite 8 round of the competition. For Battle of the Books the kids read 15 books and then are quizzed on the books. The questions are difficult, most likely things you would not remember in reading the book once. In the first two rounds of competition their team won by 40 and 50 points. In the next round they played a much larger private school and won by 5. In their last round, they played OES. another private school.  They tied--neither team missed a question. So it went to 4 challenge questions and Allie's team missed the very last one. It was information from the afterward in the book.
This is such a great group of girls. They worked hard reading and re-reading the books and spending lunch recesses preparing. Our school librarian really spent a lot of time helping them prepare.  They set a school record for how far they got. As a side note,  the school that barely beat them charges $30,000 a year for tuition. Way to represent public schools!

Picnic

Last week we had sunshine and tolerable temperatures. Kate and I had a picnic after our trip to OMSI. Can you tell she isn't used to sunshine?

Battle of the Books

Allie's team won their school "Battle of the Books" competition so Michael said that she could pick a restaurant to go to celebrate. (For Battle of the Books the kids read 10-15 books and then teams compete answers questions about the books) She chose Olive Garden because she loves their soup and salad. We all had fun except for Kate who was tired and thought the restaurant was too loud. Now Allie's team is on to Regionals in a week!



Even tough it was several days past her birthday, Kate was still wearing her happy birthday hat.

Blue and Gold Dinner

Luke was supposed to bring a bug themed dessert to the cub scout dinner. We made spider cupcakes together. We found the cupcake idea on Pinterest. He wanted to do Black Widows, so we used fruit roll ups,  chocolate cupcakes, and candy eyeballs. (Man, those things come in handy) We used chocolate covered pocky that she cut and "glued" together with melted chocolate chips.





We took a picture of Luke and used it for the display.