a stop to Vegas, off to California! and lets not forget...Easter Weekend!

After leaving after at 5am, we headed to California! I was so excited because Cameron had never been to Vegas, so we got to stop there for lunch! Of course we had to go to Cesears Palace to do some shopping!

I am glad Marc Jacobs got it right! 

A sky inside!

After some fun shopping, we got to eat at the cheese cake factory! yum!

A yummy pizza with a shadow on it! All of us got pizza and salads! It was a good choice!

Thats alot of crunchies! and yes...Jake ate them all!

Taking a little walk outside in the amazing sunshine! Oh I love the sun!!!!!! After some fun four hours in Vegas we headed off to California! The amazing thing is...we got there so fast! We were there by 7! It was amazing! We need to leave really early for every trip! I was so nice to have the night there! After getting settled in, we went to go get some yummy dinner at Pollo Loco. They have sweet potato fries there and they were really great!

After dinner, we walked over to yummy Yogurt Land. With so many choices, everyone was having a hard time deciding what to get! 

My favorite thing about Yogurt Land is the SPOONS!

After dinner, everyone was pooped and went home to bed. On the other hand, I was ready to party!!! So Jake was a trooper and stayed awake and came to play with me at Amber and Johns! I am so glad we got to because I missed that one on one time with my sister. Bryce was so excited to see Jake and play Pokemon together. I am so glad they are such great friends and love to spend time with each other. Bryce's hair was so long! I was loving it!

Cutest boys! After a great time at church we got to head over to Amber and Johns for an Easter Feast! They were so sweet to have us over! I was looking forward to Johns AMAZING bbq skills!

Lets talk about Ambers fantastic presentation(always). She is the cutest! This was the yummiest mix of fresh homemade breads and spreads!

Cute Treats! Her chocolate dipped marshmallows are so yummy! Even if you didn't like marshmallows, you would like these ones! 

A huge variety of drinks!

Tuna was hiding. I was cracking up because Jake took this picture and I didn't see it until, I downloaded all the trip pictures.

Cute Brandon. 

Jakes family loves there Ipads. Hahaha Just kidding, Cameron is emailing Wesley!

I thought these fruit drinks were great!

My cute new mom and dad!

Amber!!!! She is such an amazing sister! and yes...I wear this same outfit everyday.

Of course the boys got right down to business to play nietendo right away!

Lets talk about this amazing spread! Grilled asparagus, funeral potatoes, amazingly roasted/grilled try tip, fresh pasta, yummy strawberries, breads, treats and faboulsness!

Perfection!

I loved Brandon's choice of meal. All meat! Such a cute boy!

Ok lets talk about another reason why Amber is so amazing! Not only did her and John invite just our fam over, she invited some other really fun families in the ward over! It was so fun! And, Amber got over 300 eggs together full of treats and fun to have a huge easter egg hunt! She even had buckets for everyone! We all got to participate! This was a no age limit, and everyone got to play!

The hunt is on!

Tuna found a snail. He wanted to eat it. We told him snails are not candy.

Full bucket!

And another full bucket! Each kids basket was over following with candy!

After a great hunt, it was topped off with delicious ice cream cake! Yumm!

This was the candy from my eggs! Yumm! 

Oh yes, and more nitendo after the hunt! Cute boys! I got to to do a puzzle with Amber and some of her friends.

After we got home, it was time to sit and relax around the fire and have a treat!

 SMEESES! That is a smore, but instead of a Hersey chocolate bar, you use a Reeses. 

We were so fortunate to have a new guest with us in our home! This is Andrew to the right. Bryce was so kind and let us adopt Andrew from him. We have been so excited to have Andrew with us! We are going to bring him to Disneyland tomorrow! Hopefully he will not be to overwhelmed with all the new changes in his life.  Seeing Andrew next to Tuna, we realized.....it might be time for Tuna to shower. But well see.....I just love Tuna the way he is.

I love burnt black marshmallows! I think they add an extra great flavor to a smeese! This was a great way to end the evening! Now time for bed to get some good rest for tomorrows exciting events!

Seder Service!

After a great day of graduating! wahoo! We were on our way for dinner to go to the Seder Service. On our way to the building we were supposed to be at, we couldn't help but love all the beautiful trees around! So pretty! A painter named Carl Bloch who is known for his paintings of Christ were in the Moa Museum on campus! Mom really wanted to see it but all the tickets were sold out. Since we were in front of the building we decided to go threw it and they said we could go see the paintings! We only had five minutes to get to the Seder Service in time, but that was ok because this museum was worth seeing! Mom loved seeing the huge beautiful paintings of Christ! She was so excited and overwhelmed. They really are amazing! So three minutes later....we sprinted to the Wilkinson building and made it on time to the service.

Last year Jake and I got to go to a Seder Service at BYU, and this year with family in town, they all got to come to! Wahoo! It made it even better! Ok so what is Seder Service? A really neat thing! It is a holiday celebrated by the Jewish Religion. It is a time of tradition, celebration, and waiting for Elijah to come. This holiday is celebrating the passover.

http://kelseybang.blogspot.com/2010/03/cultural-weekend.html ( I think you can right click that and open it as a url?)

If you want to know alot of information about Seder Service, you can look at last years Seder Service post and it will go into large detail about all the neat traditions of this service. Here dad is breaking the Matzah bread that will be the Afikomen that is passed secretly around the table. At the end, the Afikomnen has to be paid for and bought by the man of the table. This symbolizes Christ death, and how we were each bought and paid for by his sacrifice. At the end of the service, guess who had the Afikomen??! ME! So, I put up a hard bargain.....for dad to take me bike shopping and teach me the ropes of street bikes!

The part of the service that seems most memorable to all is the tasting of the bitter herbs. Bitter herbs are a con-caution of horse radish and other hot items that make the mouth and throat burn. What ever you take of the bitter herbs on your plate is supposed to be all eaten......As you can see from eating the bitter herbs Camerons face is on fire and dad in the background is making quite the face. 

This is not my favorite part of the meal....I only ate a little bit of it....

Each year, the family having a Seder Service will have a table of items. This is what it could look like. Each item has symbolic meaning.

Tuna came to! We had him on the table and a guy on another table said he knew some of Tunas family of rally monkeys.  That was a great treat! Since Tuna stuck his head in this picture we had to take another one.

Left white stuff is the bitter herbs. Don't let appearance fool you. This is no apple sauce. Bread is Matzah, and the brown chunky stuff is called Hillel and its really yummy! It is an apple tasting item.

Next is the large meal! It was a chicken with veggies and traditionally made potatoes. I don't remember the name for them..

Last but not least, Deserts! Of course...we were full and could not eat them all and mom wanted to bring them home! They had no to go boxes, so mom remembered a better idea! She had a bag of m&m's in her purse and so she emptied the bag of them into her purse and filled the bag with the brownies! My mom is hilarious! I love her so much!

M&M's in the purse! Cutest mom ever! Well, the Seder Service was great, but it went over on the time till about 10:30 pm, so we raced home to meet my cousins that were coming over to show my mom their new baby and say hello!

Now back at our place, mom got to meet Brooklyn! She was loving her! I do admit....she is a super cute baby! She has so much hair and beautiful big blue eyes! 

The happy fam!

So cute! Mom loves holding Brooklyn! She seriously was such a good baby! Thanks Mitch and Rochelle for bringing her over! We love you guys! Now it is time to pack up for California and wake up at four am to leave! Disneyland here we come!