Easter and "spring" (and I use that term loosly) fun

Coloring Easter eggs turned out to be a bit hit, even if neither child was interested in eating the eggs.

 

The Easter egg hunt and hunt for baskets was also a big hit before we all headed to church.



 

 Following a rather non-traditional Easter dinner with some church friends, Chad & Suzanne had some work to do to prepare for the contractor coming later that week to install new floors in the kids' bedrooms.  Here are the (emptied) before pictures.



 And the kids' temporary bedroom while the work was being completed.

And here are the after pictures!  The kids each picked out their own rugs, and the rooms (shockingly) have been kept almost this clean since!

Spring seemed to never come this year, as evidenced by yet another snow storm mid-April.  Actually, the most recent snow fell on May 23, which we are really, REALLY hoping was the last snow of the season.

Chad has continued brewing beer, his most recent experiment having great flavor but less alcohol than the beer sold in Utah.  But seriously, his brewing has mostly been successful.

Winter Fun

Winter got off to a bit of a late start, but once it arrived it was not in a hurry to leave. Thankfully the kids were helpful when it came to clearing snow and other outdoor necessities.

Ida took a stab at cross country skiing this year and did really well. We didn't get out as often as we wanted to, but she had enough fun that we might give SkiCats a try next year.

February brought more snow, cold and sled dog races! This was the first time the kids and Sandy had witnessed the excitement of these races and it was a great time!

Ida went to her first Valentine's Tea and greatly enjoyed the juice and treats with Lotus and the older girls of the church.

Henrik completed another session of swim lessons, passing to the next level. The final day of lessons meant that the slide was open, much to his delight!

A Tale of Two Disneys, take 2

So in between all the fun, Chad & Suzanne ran a little race called Goofy's Challenge:  a half marathon, followed by a marathon the next day for 39.3 miles of running in about 30 hours.  We probably would not have considered such an adventure, but in true Disney-style it was a great time (if you can call running 39.3 miles in just over a day "fun").  This is before the 1/2, 4:30 am Saturday morning.  We had been up since around 2:30.

 

 After ditching our long-sleeve shirts, we were headed to our corral for the start of the race.

 

We were not at the front, by the way.

The race starts near Epcot,then heads to Magic Kingdom.  There was plenty of entertainment along the way, including Jack Sparrow (unfortunately it wasn't Johnny Depp), bands, characters and a variety of other distractions/entertainment.

 

Main Street USA was packed with runners and fans.

 

Then on to Tomorrowland before circling back around and running through Cinderella's castle before heading back to Epcot for the finish.

 

 

 

 

We took it easy for the 1/2 Marathon, knowing that when we crossed the finish line we were only 1/3 of the way done.  It was a comfortable pace and we really enjoyed it.

 

Twenty-four hours later the alarm again went off at 2:30am and by 4:30 we were again on site and heading toward our starting corral.

We again headed to Magic Kingdom, following a similar route as the day before.

Then on to Disney World Speedway, 

where we were cheered on by the owners of a variety of antique, oldie and other cool cars, including none other than Herbie the Love Bug!

We then ran to Animal Kingdom

where we reached the 1/2 way point of the day.  Did I mention how hot it was by this point?  We had been training in the UP winter, through at least one blizzard and mostly in 20s and 30s.  It hit 80 this day and was in the 70s at the time we finished the race, and there was no way we could have prepared for this kind of heat in the fall/winter in the U.P.

 



The next stop was Wide World of Sports, which admittedly felt like it was miles and miles away.  We ran around the track and around the field where the Atlanta Braves hold their spring training.

After leaving the Wide World of Sports we were treated to some mile 20 entertainment.

And a few short miles later found ourselves at Hollywood Studios.

We ran along the Boardwalk and found ourselves at the back of Epcot, quickly approaching the finish line.

 

Ahh, sucess!  We are now proud owners of the hard-earned Goofy medal!