It's all over

Aerial view

Happiness is...

Big boy conquers the upstairs

He matches the walls well :)

His search was downstairs

The Search Party

Us on Easter morning!

brighter than the sun....as it was actually raining

Special music...brass quartet

So many colors...so few eggs

 Family fun

Eggstra-special coloring :)

He also played with the 6th grade band

& we had a little better of an angle to see him

Their guest conductor

for "Rainbow Connection"

Ready to take a bow

Under the direction of Mr. Lucas

They were great :)

He could see us too

This was in his special ensemble group that played Star Wars!

A familiar face helping to set up :)

Great to hear, but tough to see...5th grade intermediate band

He can fool you

He was less than pleased to pose for this pre-concert picture

Concert Go-ers

Get there early to stake out the best seats..& twiddle your thumbs

Welding was not the fun part

 ...but they did it anyway!

Good thing these flowers stayed inside!

Dinner time!

Eating at the Golden Corral could sometimes be compared to sending cows to the trough....it was quite the mob scene.  The kids like having all the options and we hope that they the right choices.

Jesse's beautiful bowl

Wonderful craftsmanship! Mine was not as good anyway, but did not make it out of the garage to even capture an image of the finished product.  Breakables are called that for a reason, especially when in my hands.

Sunday afternoon picnic

Apparently, Eric still wants to swing like a baby, on occasion

Fast March Cadence

Not sure what made this month go by so fast, you would think time FROZE...the temps certainly did! We had lots going on as usual.  We have our upstairs bathroom mostly redone with the help of Jon's Dad.  Eric and Jesse had a couple band concerts.  Eric also helped out with the Lenten after school program at church, continues on with TKD, YDP and SHOE (he likes acronyms).  Jesse took a cartoon drawing class at the art center and spanish after school and, of course, continues on with his piano...getting jazzy.

& then there is our whirlwind vacation plans.  All of a sudden, we are going to FL, leaving right after school lets out.  I had submitted an abstract and outline proposal back in January for a conference breakout session related to the project that has been my life for the last many months. It turns out, they accepted it and I will be speaking at the IBM Innovate 2013 conference.  I'm excited as I actually presented at a different conference at the same location nine years ago.  So, in theory, I should be less nerve-wracked being so old and wiser now, haha.  Anyway, most of our adventure will actually be at Universal and Discovery Cove this time which will be a change for us.  However, given our kids ages and interest, we are ready to move on and indeed looking forward to our fun in the sun.  According to Eric, FL is the next best thing to CA in terms of vacation (however, he has never been to HI!!!).

So, our month finished out with a relatively quiet and relaxing Easter.  We stayed home, Eric played his trombone in a quartet arrangement while Jon sang in the choir and we had a "Thanksgiving" kind of dinner with my Mom and Larry visiting.  They were pleased with their Easter basket treats, even if the Easter Bunny didn't hide them (very well, according to Eric) and I was still able to spoof them in an egg hunt held next door.  We saw and enjoyed the movie, the Croods together too. On Monday morning, I think I played my first April Fool's joke on Eric.  It went so well, I may have to try to outdo myself next year/going forward...lol.  I came across it (on the internet, of course) about cutting out Brown "E"s and giving them to someone as a treat.  Eric is always a great candidate for such a trick and although he was disappointed, I think he appreciated how clever I was on playing that joke on him (not that I don't think he'll eventually get me back).