January 2009??

No, this picture was not taken in January. I took this Wednesday morning (April 15), just before the sun peeked over the mountains. Gotta love Utah in the spring.



Now, contrast that with today. I'm not sure how warm it was, but I did get a little bit of a farmer's tan while sitting outside and enjoying a lovely Sunday afternoon. By the way, it's supposed to snow again on Saturday I hear.




When I went to sit outside today, this is what I found in the bushes next to me. We have a lot of rocks and bushes around our home, and these little garden snakes have found a home. I have no idea how many there are, but it's a lot. Now, I don't really mind them because I figure that they eat spiders, and, as we all know, spiders are evil and must die. So the snakes are my friends. Mark, however, is not as fond of them as I am. Every time he's out weeding or mowing the lawn and I hear a high-pitched girlie scream, I know he's come upon one of our reptiles. So there's a debate going on as to whether we get rid of them or let them stay. I do realize that it could be very startling for someone coming to my door to find these guys sunning themselves on my front walkway (as they often do), or wrapped around each other in the top of my bushes that line the front walkway, like in the pics (there were 3 of them today). But really, most people walk by them and don't even notice them. And they can't hurt anyone, right? Emotional scars can always heal. All I know is that I give them all the glory for me not having very many spiders in my home, so if it's up to me, they will be our pets forever. My kids like them, as Janie is showing here by petting these guys.



By the way, painting on our basement begins tomorrow. We are getting so excited to get this done.

Easter

We woke this morning to a beautiful, sun-shiny Easter day. It's still pretty cool outside, and the wind never stops blowing on our side of the valley, but it's a pretty day. The Easter Bunny even visited our house while we were at church today. As I am typing this, we are waiting until it's time to go to two different Easter dinners today. I guess we're lucky to have that many people that want us to come over! Hope everyone has a great holiday and we are so thankful for our Savior, whose resurrection we celebrate today.

Well, the first day of spring has come and gone, and I I'll be darned if it still isn't looking like winter here. I've been meaning to go outside countless times in the last 2 weeks to take pictures of my spring flowers buried in snow, but I never did. I decided I didn't want to remember it.
On a happier note, we have a new nephew/cousin named Gehrig Jo Roden, born March 4. Janie believes strongly that she is his favorite cousin. He's pretty cute,huh?














The only reason I am a little sane considering the cold weather is that we got to go to St. George last week for Meghan's dance competition. The weather was great for our annual girls trip. Meghan did a great job, and the pool was fabulous. We did have some horrible weather from Nephi to Provo on the way home, but we made it safely.














Finally, there's been a lot of progress made on our basement in the last few weeks. The drywall is done, and after the finish work is done, we will be ready to paint. It's going to be so great to have the extra space.















Life goes by pretty fast around here. Meghan just started her last quarter of 7th grade. Derek starts baseball this week, so there goes all of our free time! I wish spring would get here soon so we have time to enjoy it.