The family spent spring break at Lake Mead with most of the Smith gang.  Grandma and Grandpa, Jake Nate and Ava, Jared, Kat and their kids along with us stayed on a great houseboat.  We drove to Mesquite Monday night and spent the evening playing hide & go seek in the hotel room with Jake & Nate.  I had no Idea you could find so many places to hide in one hotel room.  Tuesday morning we continued our drive to Callville Marina, loaded up the houseboat and headed to the beach.  Jared drove the Houseboat, using his patented zigzag technique, and reminded us all why we usually bring Justin with us on these trips!  Tuesday was a nice day and the kids loved playing in the water and sand.  By Tuesday night the wind came in and rocked the boat to sleep even Jon on top with Ben, who had Hurricane flash backs all night, fell right to sleep.  Most of the week was to cold to do much in the water but we did get out to ski on Thursday.  Ben did great and swore that Byron's new boat was the best he ever skied behind until it was my turn to practice driving, I'm going to need more practice before I can confidently pull anyone other than my husband and still have them love me when they're finished!  After hearing weather reports of rain we decided to pack up early and leave Friday.  Even without perfect weather we loved the trip and would gladly do it again!

The day I've been looking forward to for months was finally here!  Carrie, Jordanna, Jennifer (Emma's School Teacher)  and I spent Friday the 13th at the Scrapbook Expo.  As it got close we all worried that Carrie would have her baby and not be able to come but he held out just long enough (she had him Sunday morning).  We loved sitting in the VIP section where we ran and ditched our abundance of scrapbook stuff to hit the booths and SHOP!   After picking up all the smashing morning deals Jordanna and I attended a Photoshop digital scrapbooking class which was great and I can't wait to try everything I learned.  We ate shopped more and of course scrapbooked!  Jennifer joined us as soon as school let out.  (Emma left class asap to make sure she got out in time)  Carrie left early in the evening and the rest of us worked diligently until midnight.  Over all a great day and I can't wait until next time!

We had a great Easter.  We got home from our camp-out just in time for Grandma Rhonda's Easter egg hunt everyone had a blast doing the family hunt race and we came in third.  The easter bunny came Sunday morning leaving baskets and eggs everywhere!  Emma looked beautiful in her new Easter dress for church.  And after church we had an excellent Easter dinner at Grandma Rhonda's and Grandpa Byron's we ate, visited and napped.  A Great Easter!

We took out trailer out for it's first camp-out Easter weekend.  Our hitch for the van came in the mail Thursday and we spent Thursday night and Friday installing it and the hooking up the wiring (thanks Sean!). Then set out white knuckled that the van would actually pull the trailer, but it did fine!  Everyone had a great time it got a little cold at night but we survived and had a great time hiking and throwing rocks in the water in the morning.  Jonathan declared it was funner than watching movies or playing video games!!!  All in all it was a great success and we can't wait to go out again! (click camp-out above to see the pictures)