Easter

We had a pretty low-key Easter this year. The kids had Easter jammies from Abby, which confused Adam because his didn't have any bunnies on them. Apparently dinosaurs are not appropriate Easter wear to him. The Easter bunny brought the kids some candy and toys and two movies - Dumbo and Annie. He hid 30 eggs, and we found 29. We are pretty sure that the gophers got #30 - the Easter bunny thought it would be a good idea to hide some of the eggs on top of the ever-increasing gopher mounds in the yard - it wasn't. Jonathan (the baby) had absolutely no desire to either hold a basket or look for seemingly inedible colored things in the grass, so he just wandered around the yard yelling things. The other three kids did great though and had a lot of fun.

I drew a picture of each of the three older kids on an egg just for them, and that egg they had to find themselves. Unfortunately for Anna, hers was the egg that went missing. I am including a picture of the eggs that I switched to a negative image so that you can see the drawings more clearly.

This year, Easter fell on Jon's birthday, and so I made him hunt for his presents while the kids hunted for eggs. Yes, that is my husband skipping around the yard with a huge basket. I question why I document these things for other people to see. In Joyner tradition, Jon got to pick what he wanted for dinner since it was his birthday. The result was an excellent meal of Carne Asada complete with homemade salsa, guacamole, rice, beans, and an assortment of meats. YUM. To those of you Joyners who weren't here to partake, we all ate enough for you. Since we forwent the traditional ham dinner for Easter, Mom made a nice brunch where the ham made its appearance. Overall, it was a good day for food and fun.

The Zoo

To start off Spring Break, we took the kids to the Sacramento Zoo to visit the animals. I know, I know, I live in a zoo, so what would possess me to pay to get into another one? Well, after looking at all those animals, I did gain some appreciation for my monkeys - at least they don't throw poop at us - well, most of the time. I also came away with some great ideas for a couple of plexiglass habitats for them...


We had a good time seeing all the animals, (side note - Sacramento Zoo doesn't even have elephants or a hippo -it was pretty sucky), and taking pictures. Adam is such a ham - there were tons of places that he would stop and pose and tell me to take a picture of him. I liked his conquering pose in this one. His favorite animals were the monkeys. That night at the dinner table he turned to me and asked "Did you see the monkey butts?" and just broke out laughing. Yep, that's my son.


Hailey really liked the flamingos. We stopped to look at them several times from different points around their pond. At one point, there was one that was laying on its side in the mud with its head flopped over. Hailey thought for sure it was dead. Nope, turns out they just sleep that way. She was very happy to see it get up again.


Anna liked all the animals. Being the oldest, she paid the most attention and was the most interested in the animal's habits and diets and everything. She carried the zoo map all day and told us what each thing was we were seeing.


Overall, we had a fun day and really enjoyed the time we got to spend with the kids - we rarely get to have that much time as a family. We went home hot and tired, but it was worth it.

In the orangutan compound, there was the biggest orangutan I have ever seen. Jon looked at me and asked if it was real because it was so big and hairy and just sitting still. It reminded me of Jabba the Hut.

Yay Blogging

Ok, well I have joined the rest of the world and created a blog. I'm not sure who will read it, but maybe it will be therapeutic for me - anyone who knows me will definitely confirm that I need any kind of therapy I can get! At least this way it is free. So here goes nothing - hopefully soon I will have some pictures up and stories to share.