April Happenings

 We had the most wonderful Easter weekend. It was all the way at the beginning of the month, so it might be hard for me to even remember what we did.  I do remember it was wonderful though, as previously mentioned.  We were lucky enough to have house guests.  The girls played and played and played and played with their cousins from Utah, Lyla and Troy.
Friday night, Chloe had a swim meet, and she had quite the audience. Rey and Mary, Greg's family, Curtis, and Rey and Paloma, all came out to see Chloe swim.  She swam her fastest times yet and we had so much fun watching her race.  After that we went to Manuels for some Mexican food. The kids all sat at a table all by themselves and actually behaved  better than normal.  I think they felt like they were being treated like grown ups, and acted as such.

After dinner we came back to my house and the girls danced for all of us in my living room. Macie was a little upset at first that she didn't get to dance solo to "let It Go" but eventually she "let it go" and joined in the fun.

 We all hated Don in the morning when we woke up at 5 AM to go hiking (it was his idea, he even hired a babysitter for us).  We were glad we did it though. It was a nice brisk morning and we actually ended up enjoying ourselves.  Don and I are hiking the Grand Canyon in about a month, rim to rim, so we are in the process of training for it.  I am not sure why we are doing it.  Our friends invited us, and I think we were too prideful to admit that we were too out of shape to go.  we are trying to change that.

 After our hike, we came back and had breakfast and then watched conference, which took up most of the day.  Then the Mortensen men all met up at our church for Priesthood session and after, we had a chinese buffet over at my house.  Kirsten and I stayed up way too late preparing for the Easter bunny to come.  But it was worth it in the morning.  The kids were so excited to see their Easter baskets and see that the Easter bunny had left them an Egg hunt in our front yard.

 Later that afternoon, we went over to Julie's house for the family Easter dinner.

 The Easter bunny brought these pretty pastel Easter dresses, and I could not convince the girls to wear other shoes besides their red sandals.  Oh well.  They still looked adorable.
After the family party, we came back home and crashed.  Greg and Kirsten left the next day, and we were all sad to see them go.

 Luckily "Disney on Ice" was the day after their cousins left, so they still had something to look forward to.  The girls liked the show, although they kept asking when Elsa and Anna were going to come out. They never did.  I guess the "Frozen" show isn't until next year. The girls were highly disappointed. Awesome when you spend a ton of money on something for the kids, and they leave disappointed.

 This is a stupid picture that illustrates how much taller the Phoenix Suns are than us.

 Don and I are enjoying our preparations for the Grand Canyon, surprisingly.  We went on a fun hike a few weeks ago.  It is torture getting up so early, but once we are out hiking, we like being outside and having some time to talk.  This is the hike that I almost got hit on the head by a large falling rock.  Some rude lady who saw the whole thing happen, made sure to make me feel like an idiot that I didn't dodge fast enough from the falling rock. I have a problem. You know that whole fight or flight response? it never works for me. I just freeze. People will be yelling at me to do something, and I just stand there like a dummy.  I don't know why this happens to me.  But Don said he is going to start practicing with me by just yelling at me randomly to "move!!" or "duck!" or "save the drowning baby!"

 Later that day we attended the wedding of Don's cousin, Melissa Mortensen. Not me. The other one. Now I am the only Melissa Mortensen in the family.

 The girls loved dancing at the reception.

 This month was also the school talent show. This year Chloe and her friend Olivia, sang "Do,Re, Mi."  They were adorable. They picked the song and worked all the details out themselves.  I played the piano for them and they sang and did actions to the song.  Chloe was very particular in what she wore, of course, because that is my Chloe.  Her dress had to be pink.  Her teacher came and gave the girls flowers, which was so sweet.  After the talent show we tried to go out to dinner, which is a whole story in and of itself.

As we were walking back to our car, Macie fell and skinned her knee.  It was a bad one.  She immediately started screaming like her leg had been chopped off with a machete.
She continued screaming (and when I see screaming, that is no exaggeration.  It was like a mix between wailing and screaming. It was blood curdling.) while Don, my Dad, and I tried to think of a place to go get dinner.
We decided our best bet was to go to the IHOP by my Dad's house.  He said he would run home to get a bandaid for Macie and we were to meet him at IHOP.
We made the 15 minute drive to the IHOP parking lot.  During the drive, not only did I get to enjoy the melodious sounds of Macie's wailing, but Oscar decided to join in with sympathy crying, and Chloe took it upon herself to be Kid Mom and spent the whole drive yelling at Macie to stop yelling.  It was so pleasant.  I tried unsuccessfully to quiet Macie down, but she just kept yelling "I can't stop crying!! It hurts!!"
We make it to the IHOP parking lot and I don't see my Dad, and I figure it will take him more minutes than I was willing to wait, for him to get there.  But I saw a Dollar store in the same parking lot, so I drive over to the other side of the parking lot, thinking I will just go in and buy some bandaids.  I try to motion to Don to follow me as he is in another car, but he was on his phone and not paying attention.
So I drove over to the Dollar store anyway, hoping Don would figure out what I was doing and follow me over there.
I ran into the store and bought some bandaids and some neosporin.  In the meantime, I left the screaming kids in the car.  I deemed it an emergency, and I was not about to unpack 3 wailing children and take them into the dollar store.  Especially when their Father was somewhere in the parking lot.
I am thinking that now that I have the bandaids and the neosporin, that Macie is going to finally stop with the hysterics, but after I placed the ointment on her knee, her misery only intensified.  And the bandaids I had bought were of course too small so I didn't even bother putting it on.
I call my Dad and ask him how close he is to IHOP with that prized bandaid.
"Oh I am just trying to round up Chelsey."
I knew that meant I could still be waiting for another 20 minutes.
I tell my Dad, "Nevermind. we are just going to go home."
He says, "No, no. Just wait. I am bringing the bandaid."
So we wait.
He finally shows up.
He pulls out the bandaid.
It is too small.
But my Dad refused to admit that it was too small.
He told me, "Well if you hadn't put the neosporin on it, it would have been just the right size."
He put the bandaid on anyway.
By this time Macie had quit crying hysterically and had now switched to whimpering "I want to go home."
Don and I decided the most logical solution was for him to take Oscar and Macie home and I would take Chloe out because she still wanted to celebrate after her talent show.
As we were switching cars my Dad asked what we were doing.
We informed him of our plan to which he responded..."Well, you can't do that..." Meaning, it was a mean thing to leave out Macie.
So we pretended to all just go home.
But we didn't. We just switched cars at Dunkin Donuts.  And Chloe and I went to Panda Express.
It was the most ridiculous night ever.  Basically it took over and hour to find a bandaid.
The end.