Easter

Happy Easter to everyone. We have had a busy couple of days with BYU graduation down in Provo and then Easter, but it has been a fun busy. Courtney’s younger sister Erin and Erin’s husband, David, and Michael’s wife, Allison, all graduated from BYU. Will had to stay at work, but Whitney and I went down with my family to be part of the celebration. The graduations were fun; Elder Scott spoke at the big graduation on Thursday about working on our character and the importance of staying strong in the gospel. Then on Friday were the individual graduations where the names were read and everyone got to cross the stage. Erin and David went together in the morning and then Allison’s was a little after that. Congratulations graduates and good luck with future opportunities. Here are a couple of pictures from the graduations.

These are the three graduates all decked out in their caps and gowns. David’s gown was black because he received his Masters degree.

This picture didn’t turn out very well because of the strange light and our camera acted funny. But we wanted to get a picture of Whitney in a cap, so Erin let Whitney borrow hers for a minute. Maybe in like twenty years, Whitney will be wearing her own cap and gown.

Here we wait around between graduations. Those are David’s parents in the background. After the graduation, there was a little meet and greet in the Talmage building where families could meet different professors. We didn’t know anyone, so we just went for the free donuts and muffins and fruit. But we were glad that there was food for everyone because we hadn’t thought to pack anything and there wasn’t time to go back to Michael and Allison’s apartment in between the two graduations.



Allison’s family has really big Easter celebrations that we were all invited to attend on Saturday morning. It was really fun with games and an Easter egg hunt for the kids and a nice lunch. Here are some pictures from that morning.

The huge backyard was separated into three spaces for the Easter egg hunt. So Whitney was with the littlest children and there were tons of eggs for everyone. However, we didn’t bring a basket so we planned on just putting her eggs into our pockets so Whitney could collect more. But Whitney had different plans; she picked up two eggs, one for each hand and she wouldn’t let us take them from her. Here she has put one of the eggs into her mouth. Eventually she learned how to open them and tried to get into the candy inside, but for awhile she was content sucking on the plastic.

Another contest was a relay race for the older kids. Conner wanted to be part of it. You had to put a ball between your legs and move across the yard holding a spoon with an egg on top. It was really funny watching the children attempt this relay because they wouldn’t keep their legs tight enough together or they would take too large of steps and they would lose their balls.

Whitney didn’t mind though. She really enjoyed playing with all of the colorful balls and she kept going back and forth between different balls.

Erin and Conner were both in charge of chalk decorating. Erin drew an Easter bunny and Conner did an Easter egg. They both did a really good job. Whitney just stayed in the background and watched all of the children. She was pretty fascinated by this new place with lots of new people.



We spent Sunday driving back to Pasco. The time went by faster because we left at four in the morning and most of us got to sleep for several more hours in the morning. Whitney did really well on both long car trips, so I was very grateful for that. Having a screaming baby in the car is not fun. In Pasco, we did another Easter egg hunt for just our family.

Here Whitney finds some candy on the kitchen chair and she hands it to Will (who drove to Pasco on Saturday to be part of the hunt) to put in the bucket. This time Whitney did much better and grabbed a lot more candy and eggs.

There even were candy eggs on the staircase for Whitney to grab. She needed a little help from my mother because she has a hard time going down the stairs.

Whitney found a huge stash of candy underneath the kitchen table. This is just a cute little video of her collecting the candy for her bucket.

Finally, her bucket got too heavy and Whitney had to drag it behind her across the floor. So Whitney did a good job of collecting candy. There were only a couple of times where we had to stop her from putting the candy in her mouth, so I thought that was pretty good.

We also took a couple of pictures of Whitney dying some Easter eggs for the first time. We took off all her clothes, which was a good idea because she ended up liking to splash dye on the table and on herself. I wasn’t sure whether Whitney would like dying the eggs, but she did.

Here Whitney has put like four eggs into one cup of dye. Obviously, that didn’t work. But that never stops her from trying.

Here Whitney holds up her blue egg that she just finished dipping into the dye. She kept trying to put it into her mouth, but we wouldn’t let her. We did let her play with some undyed eggs though, so we aren’t completely mean parents.



It was a fun couple of days. I’m glad that we had the chance to go to Utah and to be able to celebrate Easter. It was so good to spend time with family. Now we have another long trip in a couple of days to Portland to spend some time with Will’s family.