Dustin Turns 3!!

Dustin celebrated his 3rd birthday on Saturday. He was so excited! He was very specific about the things he wanted. He said he needed a grass trimmer. He already has a lawn mower and he follows Todd around the yard when he is mowing. I guess it only makes sense that he would need a trimmer to help out with that too. The other "need" was a motorcycle that makes sounds and lights up. He was thrilled to get both as well as other fun gifts. This year he chose to have a pirate cake, but only after we talked him out of a racetrack cake. He wanted the same cake he had last year and it took a while to talk him into trying something new. Then to top it all off we got to take the boat out for the first time this year. It was a great day!

Washington D.C.

Todd and I were able to spend a few days away in Washington D.C. this month. We could have spent even longer if we had more time. There is so much to do and see there that we were amazed. We were also amazed at how much we were able to see without our kids. We visited a few of the Smithsonian Museums (Natural History, American History, National Archives and Air and Space). We toured the Capitol. We saw the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument and the various war memorials. We didn't get to tour the White House, but we took a picture and went to the visitors center. On Sunday, we spent most of the day at the United States Holocaust Memorial. It was all incredibly interesting, but definitely not a place to take small kids. We would to take our family back when they are a little older.

We forgot to take the camera so all of the pictures were taken with Todd's phone. Sorry, they aren't the best. The picture of Todd blowing a bubble with the Easter Island statue was especially for Lauren. If any of you have seen the Night at the Museum movies you may understand. In the first movie the Easter Island statue says, "Dum, dum give me gum, gum." Lauren thinks that is hilarious, thus the bubble blowing with the statue. Also, it was neat to see the second Night at the Museum movie after having just been to the Smithsonian.

Not only did we have fun, but I think that we both gained a new appreciation for our founding fathers and all those who have sacrificed to make our country what it is today.

Cinco de Mayo

We had a fun weekend at the Cinco de Mayo celebration last Saturday. They say that St. Paul has one of the biggest celebrations in the country with roughly 100,000 people visiting the street area where they have the feastival. Our favorite part is the parade and the Salsa Contest. Here is what the kids thought of the Festival (sorry I didn't bring the camera so I used a picture from the website).

Whitney's favorite part was the parade and the jalapeno eating contest (more on that later). There was a lot of cool stuff like Aztec dancers that had cool shells (aka nuts) on their legs that made noise as they danced.

Katelyn's favorite part was the trampoline-bungy jump ride. She was harnessed into the bungy so once she got the hang of it she was doing front and back flips. She also won a Twin's bobble-head at the Twins booth.

Lauren's favorite part was when they were throwing candy as part of the parade. And boy do they give out plenty of candy. She also went on a trampoline/bungy jump ride that she really liked.

Dustin liked the big fire trucks in the parade. He also like the fact that his sisters gathered candy and shared it with him while he sat in the stroller. Dustin won tickets to a twins game for he and his dad!!!

My favorite part was the Salsa Contest and the Jalapeno Contest. For the salsa contest you get to rate several local business' salsa according to the hotest, the smoothest and the most unique. My favorite are the hotest but this years standout was a cherry salsa that I voted for the most unique. I also entered the Jalepano Eating Contest this year. There were 10 contestants in the contest and you had to eat 1 jalapeno and wait 1 minute and then eat the remaining 9 as fast as you can. These were the big 4+ inch jalapenos right off the vine and they were smoking. Once the contest got started I cruised into the lead by downing the jalapenos as fast as I could chew them. Believe it or not they didn't seem that hot to me. I soon realized that the contest was between me and another gringo standing next to me. Everyone else didn't really get past 2-4 jalapenos. It was fun having my cheering section in the crowd with the kids and some friends from church.

As it got down to the last few peppers the hardest part wasn't the heat but the fact that my jaw was tired from trying to quickly chew so many jalapenos. The contest came down to the last pepper and it was a photo finish -- unfortunately the judges decided that I came in second by a millisecond. So I just missed taking home the shiny flaming trophy but I did get to have a flaming experience later in the day... It's nothing I didn't already experience on my mission...

Dustin's Handiwork!

On Saturday as Kelly was getting ready to go run some errands with Dustin she had to go back into the house to get one more thing and left Dustin, Lauren and Katelyn in the car. Shortly after getting in the house Katelyn came running in the house yelling "Mom, mom! Come see what Dustin did!"

A bit alarmed that Dustin might have hurt himself Kelly ran out in the garage to determine the cause of the commotion. She found that Dustin had been playing in the passengers front seat and hit his head on the front window creating a nice big star of cracks in the windshield (see the picture to the right). Poor Dustin was so worried that he was in trouble he keep saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, ..." while Kelly was trying to figure out if he was okay. She checked him a couple of times and didn't find any big bumps on his head or dilated pupils. Here is Dustin's explanation below.

Whitney summed it up very well in the end when she said "I always knew that kid had a hard head."

Easter Festivities

We had a great Easter!! It started on Saturday morning when the easter bunny made an early visit to our house to hide the easter candy and baskets for us. That inventive little easter bunny had set out a yarn trail for each of the kids that they had to follow around the house, weaving through the bannister, out in the garage, behind couches in order to find their easter baskets. We had each of the kids go one by one and they had great time following the easter bunny trail. We took a video of each of them but they are kind of long so we'll have to see if they make it to the blog.

We also had a great morning of coloring easter eggs! I included a picture of Dustin holding our football easter egg. He thought that was pretty cool and I was afraid that at any moment he was going to throw a long bomb!

On Sunday the kids got dressed in their easter clothes and we took this great picture just before we left to got to stake conference. They created a new stake in the Twin Cities and as part of the shifts and moves we will be moving from the Oakdale Stake to the St. Paul Stake.

In the afternoon we got together with some friends and had a great Easter dinner and easter egg hunt in the backyard. Here are a few more photos of our hunt.
I think I had the most fun after we were able to come home and relax as a family. The kids had been wanting to play baseball all weekend so we took a little time to play a family game of baseball which was a lot of fun. We even has some neighbors join in.

Hope your easter was a great time to reflect on the life and sacrifice of our Savior as well as spend time with family and loved ones.

Dustin's Hopes and Dreams

In the car yesterday Dustin was telling me all about what he wants to be when he grows up. I'll let him tell you about it.

Skiing and Funny Faces

Whitney has picked up skiing this month. As part of a class field trip Whitney's class went to to a local ski hill, Afton Alps, and went skiing for the day. Turns out that Whitney really enjoyed it so her and Dad went skiing again last Saturday and had a blast! Sorry no pictures of the skiing - here is one of us sledding the back yard.

Believe it or not this is the first time that I have ever skied in Minnesota--it was such a shock to go from skiing in Utah to the small hills in Minnesota that I could bring myself to go skiing here until almost 12 year later (lost time). Whitney did a great job going down easy and medium slopes while I got to go down some black diamonds and prove that I still have it! We had a great time and Kelly and I have already discussed getting the other kids out skiing sometime. Maybe some day we'll have a tradition like the Andersons of skiing all day Christmas day.

We do have two snowboards that the kids will use in the backyard on our sledding hill. Katelyn is getting pretty good at it so we'll see where that takes us.

On the lighter side we took this funny video of Dustin and Lauren making funny faces after seeing Madagascar 2 the other day. These two are quite the pair with all the things they dream up. Rare is that day that I don't come home to a new fort begin built some where in the house with any material they can find. Sofa cushions seem to be their favorite materials right now.