Coming Clean

Fun with shaving. I will say that the final beard turned out looking better than I thought it would and the goatee was pretty ok. After some shaving, it got scary. I'm just glad he didn't wear only a mustache.

And then, it all got better. I got my Tom back. Ahh, this is the man I married :) I guess I learned my lesson that I can never leave him home alone while I go on vacation. That's how this began--remember the trip I took to UT all the way back in January??? That's how long this beard-growing thing has been going on.

I kinda cornered him into shaving it off. My birthday was coming up and guess what I told him the best birthday present in the whole world would be? Hooray--I got my clean-shaven husband back. Thanks to all in the ward, etc. who gave him a hard time about it. Fun was had by all! And now we can move on to other things...

So, for my birthday, we went out on a family hike overlooking Simi Valley. There was a beautiful view and the kids did a great job getting up there.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a Brazillian BBQ dinner party with a friend who was celebrating his birthday the same day. The food was AWESOME and swapping Brazillian mission stories was even better. Here's to #31!

Our Easter in Pictures

An Easter Egg FHE

Preschool egg hunt

We got free tickets *shout out to Rebecca--THANKS for the fun morning event!* to the city's Easter Egg Hunt, which included a pony ride and a carnival game! What a treat for the kids. Allison had actually brought her stuffed animal horse with her and they belted it in with her to ride the pony. (She's in the background of this picture.)

3 kids anxiously awaiting the hunt.

Game faces on...

And...score! Look at all those eggs!! Yet, in reality, the eggs were empty. They turned them all in at the end and everyone got a coloring book. A little disappointing for the kids, but everyone won, I guess.

Our backyard egg hunt.

Shake-a shake-a eggs. Gideon's 1st "fun" Easter! Yeah for yummy candy!

Enough secular stuff?? We had a great holiday, complete with a ham dinner with friends. One thing that really stuck out to me this week was during FHE when we pulled out our pictures of Christ and the events surrounding his death and resurrection. The kids actually remembered many details and we were able to go into more depth about the Garden of Gethsemane and that Christ suffered for each one of us. What a blessing to discuss the Resurrection and know that Christ lives!

Amy Running

This isn't even an April Fool's joke! Yes, I did run a 5K last weekend and it was awesome! I truly enjoyed it. I was pleased with my time of 28:35 -- I beat my goal of under 29 min and no walking. I didn't even think about walking. It was a great run.

And I was running with a cause: in honor of my late friend, Ginger. She ran this race last year and a large group of friends and relatives joined in the race this year to remember her. We were all wearing red shirts with the word Happiness across the front. This is what Ginger emulated in life and it was the title of her last blog entry, written the night before she unexpectedly passed away. I was overwhelmed with the number of people wearing these shirts and I didn't even see everyone. What a blessing to think of and be motivated by her memory as we all ran along.

I don't think of myself as a 'runner' in any way, but I have enjoyed training for and running a few of these races as they come along. I'll leave you with a parting shot of my cute stretching partner: