Caleb's Spring Break Trip and More

A few other things happened in April besides me and Avery going to Florida!

Caleb's Spring Break Trip to Florida

While Avery and I were in California, Caleb was in Florida! The way that happened was that my dad had been bugging us to come visit again for quite some time and with all of our other plans including me and Avery going to Disneyland and Gabe getting home in July and then going to Wisconsin at the end of July, and then going to Spain in September, I just really wasn’t seeing a possible way that our whole family could go visit Florida this year. We all went as a family last March when we were going on our cruise with the Matthews and so I just said, “Maybe Caleb can come out there and visit you by himself.” My dad had really been emphasizing how much he wanted to see Caleb specifically before he leaves on his mission so I went online and I was able to use some Skye miles and book. Just Caleb the ticket to fly from Jackson to the airport near my dad‘s house in North Port, Florida. Caleb actually left the day before me and Avery, which was Thursday, April 9, and he stayed there for about four days. He came home on Tuesday, April 14 I think. He spent time riding around on the golf cart in my dad‘s neighborhood, going to the beach, going to church on Sunday, and also visiting with my uncle Jim and aunt Terry. He actually stayed at their house the first night he flew in because their house was close to the airport and it was late at night and then the next day they drove him to my dad’s house. Then he stayed there again the night before he flew out. He actually had a lot of fun there, and I think would consider going out again and staying with them too!

A Visit from Joao's Mom and Sister

Another crazy thing that happened in April was that Gabe’s mission companion, Elder Cabrera, had messaged us and told us that his mom and sister were actually going to be in Utah around general conference weekend! I guess his older sister lives in Utah and his mom had flown out to visit her for a couple of weeks from Brazil he said that they would love to meet us and that they would be willing to drive up to Rexburg and spend Saturday afternoon with us so on Saturday, April 4 they drove up here and we had some lunch ready and we chatted for about an hour then we got in Josh’s truck and drove around up to the campus and stopped at the temple and showed them all around Rexburg. I wonder if part of the reason that they wanted to come visit was because Joao has talked about coming to school at BYU Idaho and they probably wanted to check us out and see if we were normal too! His mom and sister were both very nice, but we couldn’t really talk to his mom much because she didn’t speak English. His sister, Nicole, spoke English well, and so we would communicate through her though. At the time, Elder Cabrera was still with Gabe for about another week and so his mom was flying home from Utah and then he was getting home a few days later from his mission! It was fun to meet them and to show them around. We will see if Joao ends up coming out to school here!

Easter and General Conference

For Easter this year, we were watching General Conference a lot of the weekend. Like I said, Joao’s mom and sister were visiting on the Saturday of General Conference. Then the next day was Easter Sunday. We watched conference at home and I actually created what I thought was a very fun Easter/conference activity! I had a list of words hanging on a sign from our fireplace. These were common words that were often said in conference, such as “atonement”, “ priesthood”, “ repentance” and about 30 more words. I had hidden about 60 eggs outside and each egg had some money in it. Most eggs just had one dollar, some had a five dollar bill, a few had a $10 bill and I think two had $20 bills. Every time Caleb or Avery would hear one of the words on the list they would get a checkmark and they could go out during the song and they would find that number of eggs and bring them inside and open them. It was supposed to motivate them to listen to conference, which I think it did until all of the words had been said, which Caleb seemed to get most of them first! In the end, it worked out with them getting almost exactly the same amount of money, though, which was good! I think I had spent about $120 total on all of the eggs and I think they each ended up with about $60.

Josh's 46th Birthday

On April 18, only a few days after me and Avery and Caleb had all gotten home from our trip trips, we celebrated Josh’s 46th birthday. I honestly can’t even remember what we did, but I think we just went out to dinner and then had some cake!