Easter in Arizona Part 3 of 4

In between Saturday General Conference sessions, my Dad, brother, and I trimmed the fruit trees on the side of our house. Michelle came out side to take some pictures, but she also wanted to pick some oranges to make into fresh orange juice. I only received a little flesh wound during the project, but my allergies started to act up.

After the second session on Saturday Michelle, Rachael, Scott, and I took time to color Easter eggs. It has been years since I have participated in this activity. Michelle and I might start making it a part of our festivities next year. We enjoyed decorating and coloring the four eggs we each got.

After we finished with the eggs it was our job to hide plastic eggs for all of the grand kids to find. All of the kids were excited to search for the eggs and they were surprisingly good sports. I didn’t hear any crying.

At the end of the hunt some of us men got together and attended Priesthood Meeting together, followed by dinner at Joe’s Real BBQ. It was some good eating and we didn’t get home too late. That is one of the benefits of being in AZ. Everything starts an hour earlier than Utah so we get out of Priesthood at 7pm instead of 8pm.

Easter in Arizona Part 2 of 4

Today was full of family togetherness. It began with a birthday party for Jacob. In Arizona the schools have Good Friday off. We got together at a park near Christin’s house for lunch. All the kids played together while we had pizza, fruit, and pasta salad. Jacob opened up some gifts and then we had ice cream and cake. I took the opportunity to use my new camera along with the larger lens. Once again the weather was wonderful. We can’t wait to have this kind of weather in Utah.

The birthday boy, Jacob

Ryan with his little girl Alexis

Becky's little girl Julia

Emily, Michelle, and Rachael

My niece, Summer

My nephew, Dean

Kate

Scott acting all cool

Rachael's close-up

Joshua and Rachael are all about the cheese

Hailey, I had to take pictures of her when she wasn't looking because she would just hide.

Mom and Dad with some of the grand kids

Party!

Peyton and Kate

Taylor

Mom with Jacob and Joshua

Scott acting all cool again

Don't ask me what I was doing. Michelle got hold of the camera. Brian swore Scott was copying him.

After a quick nap we embarked on our second family gathering, family pictures. This has been a talked about event constantly over the past week or so between my Mom and the rest of the family. I didn’t know it had to be so complicated. The location was nice for the pictures and I think the photographer might have gotten a few good shots, for the price my parents were paying. Noah, my brother-in-law’s son, wasn’t able to make it to any of our activities this weekend, including these pictures , so the photographer would have to take his picture later in the same spot and Photoshop him in. I’ve included some of the shots that I took myself.

I think they are pretty good. I can’t wait to see what the professional ended up getting. After the pictures we all headed out to Tia Rosa's for some Mexican food.

I think it was a great day and Drew handled it well for a kid his age. I imagine it could be a while till the next family pictures. Who knows.

Easter in Arizona Part 1 of 4

Michelle, Drew, and I headed down to Arizona as soon as I got off of work on Tuesday. The drive was very windy all along I-15 and slowed us down quite a bit. Once we got onto the 89 it was smooth sailing. Drew did a fantastic job at staying asleep the whole trip, except a few times to eat, until we were a little less than an hour away from home. It took us a little more than ten and a half hours to get to my parent’s house and into bed.
Wednesday was a pretty easy going day. We had a visit from two of my sisters and some of their kids. Hailey and Peyton couldn’t wait to hold their new cousin, but after a few minutes they had had enough.

Later that night Rachael flew in from Utah and joined us for the rest of the trip. We would have the whole Cardon family in Arizona for Easter. Before bed, Drew gave us a scare with his umbilical hernia. We weren’t able to get it to recess and he was getting fussy. The doctor had told us to call any time this happened. We gave the on call pediatrician a call and he told us to try for an hour to slowly work it down, but if it didn’t work we needed to go to the ER. He was so hungry Michelle started feeding him. While he was relaxed he passed some gas and we checked his belly button. It had recessed all the way down. We were relieved that it didn’t turn out to be anything major.
Thursday was a beautiful, sunny day. Utah had received a good amount of snow the day before and we weren’t at all missing the freezing temperatures. We had more time with my sisters sitting around talking and then we took a little shopping trip. We had plans of attending the Mesa, Arizona Temple Easter Pageant and sent Rachael and Christin to try and save us seats. Because they now don’t allow people to save seats, Christin was the only one there and there would be no guarantee to get seats together. Luckily Emily and her family, along with the rest of Christin’s family, arrived and we got 4th and 5th row seats in the center section. Michelle and I arrived a little less than an hour before it would start. We brought our dinner and enjoyed eating and talking with everyone.

The Easter Pageant talks about the life, from birth to death, of the savior through spoken word and song. It is the most well attended of all pageants of the church, and includes a cast of over 450 people. Although it got a little cold, all of the kids enjoyed the production very much. Drew didn’t fall asleep as we had planned and we spent most of the time bouncing him up and down to keep him quite. Near the end Michelle got up to take him to the side lines.

Before the pageant started I told Michelle that my favorite part is when Jesus flies at the end of the production. Michelle made sure to come back to see this part. Unfortunately it wasn’t what she expected. Jesus really doesn’t fly he is just lifted above the angels as if he is floating by himself high above the stage surrounded by mist, and all illuminated. It looks cool because he is in bright white against the dark of night. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it.

Michelle’s favorite thing about the pageant was that it only lasted just over an hour. It was the first time she has ever stayed awake for one of these things. I guess having to take care of Drew might have had something to do with her alertness, but she was glad we were able to see it.