Tax Collector in the Family - Risen

The church put on the annual Risen walk-through (thanks to the mastermind Heather H, absolutely incredible), and we have been part of various volunteer aspects of the production.  Karis helps with the construction, Amy helps with the volunteer t-shirt distribution and bathroom cleaner-upper, and all of us helped with the tear-down afterwards.  Addison this year decided she wanted to be part of the marketplace with her friend London, so she got a costume for the day and spent the day out in the "brick-maker" tent.   After a while she wandered off and found the tax-collector booth and decided that participating in asking for money for the poor would be right up her alley, and she raised quite a bit of money throughout the day much to her delight!  The tax collector had fun with her hanging out with him for the day, so it was a win-win and great memories for sure.

Ready for their part in the show!

Taking a little break from stomping in the mud to make bricks

She and Jackson were calling out for money with her hat in hand

With the official tax collector.

One of Amy's dear friends Phyllis was down visiting her Florida friends, so we had supper together (yay!) and she also got to see her with at her olive booth that she was helping her friends out with for the day.

Catching up together at Positanos

For Easter Sunday, we always enjoy going over to the Grodack's place to visit, eat and of course the kids do the easter egg hunt.  The big kids don't do the easter egg hunt per se, but there are two eggs that actually have money in them, so those are the ones that the big kids hunt for!

All ready to go!

Lots of loot

Kaleb and Kohlden found the money eggs this year! 

Giving Miss Jennifer a hug - so sweet!

Amy's high school bestie Carmen is moving down to Florida in June, and came down in March to close on their new house.  She already has quite a group of friends so she already has a head start in that department - it will be so fun to have her close by!

Pastor Alex, Vickie, Amy, Theresa, Carmen and Kim

Miss Jennifer took us to Trader Joe's for a gluten free shopping trip educational tour - it was quite something!  This was the first time that Amy had ever been there, and indeed there were a lot of gluten free options!

The girls with their mini grocery carts!

Random picture:

Evan and Kaleb were together after school one day - always fun to catch up with each other!

Vail, Colorado

March always bring the annual CFO conference in which we get the joy and blessing of going skiing, much to our delight.  We headed to Vail Colorado this year for the second time, flying out on Southwest to Denver, staying overnight to then drive up the next day.  Cs were with us again this time (after a hiatus when they went over to the Holyland the prior year).

Being on Southwest we were able to sit with the Js and Cs, which was nice to know the people you were sitting beside.  On the way out, Amy sat beside Deanna B and had a lovely conversation the whole 4 hours - filling Amy's "talk cup" up with joy for sure!

Sitting in a row together

Addison, Erik and Elin were sitting in a row together.

We were able to join the Endersons at Maggiano's for an adults-only lunch - visiting for about 2.5 hours before we realized what time it was and that we needed to hook up with our kids (who went with the Js to explore Red Rock Park)

These are great people - what a blessing to have worked for Dan for several years!

The kids enjoyed hanging out with their friends and getting lunch and then hiking up and around Red Rock Park.  It is a natural amphitheater with some beautiful views.

We ended up with 2 condos this year with the Zs taking one and the Js/Cs in the other larger one.  It is hard to find adequate sleeping arrangements for 13 without a LONG lead time, but they were within about 0.5 of a mile so very easy to get back and forth, and we took the same public bus every morning to hit the slopes.

Ski buddies for many years now!

The Z family

The whole group

The weather was absolutely perfect the first two days but after that, it became cloudy and one day there was even lightning up at the top - shutting down the chair lifts - thankfully we were able to hang out in the chalet up there with lots of room to visit with fellow colleagues and friends.

Love you girl!

After the blizzard Amy and Addi decided we'd had enough of trying to fight the elements (you couldn't see anything!) so we rode the gondola down.

Bushed!

This was actually when it was starting to get a little better, but you can see that it was hard to see the lifts and runs in the background.

Vail is an uppity ski mountain, kind of looks like a Swiss village.  It is a bit higher elevation so we did have some elevation sickness in the group which wasn't so much fun - but the Zs just had to deal with nights of having a  hard time sleeping - Amy resorted to the couch most nights so that her tossing and turning didn't bother Karis.

Erik was with us on this particular chair lift.

The Zs all on one lift - doesn't happen very often as we have very different skiing levels (with Amy being the most cautious!)

Another family that we enjoy very much - the Azevedos - came out this year as she spoke at the CFO conference.  We were able to go out for dinner one day and then also went up together on the mountain one day as we each went looking for our families after the meetings.

And back on the ranch after the ski trip, Kaleb did an interesting geometry project in which he built a globe, 3D printed satellites circling the earth and then had to calculate the distances between the satellites and certain cities.  He did a great job!

And no post would now be complete without a cameo appearance of Aria - we are in the thick of potty training (lots of accidents, glad we have wood floors) and the kids are enjoying bonding with her.  She is growing fast!