trip to beeeeeea-utiful california

So since I finished my student teaching and don't have any other pressing responsibilities at the moment I decided to take advantage of my situation and headed down to California for a little bit to visit my family. Unfortunately my very responsible and awesome husband had to stay home and work while I went and had fun. Love you honey buns! Anyway, California is even more beautiful coming from Vegas..... no offense :) I never forget how much I like California but it was so nice to go there and take in the scenery again. It was a very relaxing trip, I enjoyed that a lot! We mostly hung out, went shopping at a few different places, had a movie night, went to Wood Ranch BBQ (a must!), and went to California Adventure. That was my first time; I've only been to Disneyland. I loved it! It was so much fun. I'm so glad I got to spend time with my family!

Always have to have an ice cream break at theme parks... love Tollhouse ice cream cookie sandwiches!

Does anyone else remember this? It was like one of my favorite movies when I was young haha

Only kids can manage to sleep in crazy positions like this.. amazing talent!

THE annual easter egg launch

So, another Hartshorn tradition is the egg launching at easter. On Saturday, we colored about 10 dozen eggs - with the only purpose of being destroyed the following day. Then on easter, we watched general conference at Bryan's house with Rob and Kayla and Boston and also Trevor and Shannon (James cousin). We had a great easter feast thanks mostly to the efforts of Mel (shout out Mel!!!). After we all stuffed ourselves we headed out to the middle of no where to launch eggs. All in all we had 13 dozen eggs to have a go with. My eggs were by far the cutest :) We all had a great time and we had Trevor and Shannon who were first timers so that was fun to do that with them. This is officially my third year participating in this tradition so I would consider myself a veteran now. The launching went well, besides two minor casualties on me and James (the sling shot back-fired and the eggs hit us and exploded on our legs.... it hurt! evidence shown later). This year's easter turned out to be another great one. Can't wait for next year!

James' egg launch injury

Just two of my magnificently decorated eggs :)

the sister-in-laws launch

valley of fire

This week was spring break here in Vegas. The kids had no school and Bryan and James were both home from work (it was James' weekend) so we all went to the Valley of Fire State park here in Nevada last Wednesday. James and I drove down with Bryan, Mel, and the kids for half a day to go check it out. We climbed rocks, looked at the petroglyphs (is that how you spell it?), had a picnic with hot dogs and hamburgers, and just enjoyed the scenery! The weather was great besides the major wind gusts. We had an interesting time at lunch keeping our grill lit, the food on the table, along with all the cups/plates/napkins. Made for a fun and engaging lunch. We even got to play with the chipmunks. One came right up to James and took a chip out of his hand, it was cute :) Climbing and exploring in addition to my last three months of pretty much inactivity led to a bit of sore legs the following day. All in all, the day and we all came home with sand dunes in our shoes. Seeing the rock formations and geological wonders was really fun and really cool. James and I kept trying to use our limited geology knowledge to explain why everything looked the way it did lol. It's nice to look around, once in awhile, and appreciate the beautiful nature that was created for us. It always amazes me how complex and intricate the world is; how everything works together according to the physical laws of the Earth. Crazy! How could there not be a God, seriously?

The first place we stopped James took to initiative to be the first one to climb the highest rock there. Of course he would :)

Look at us we go! We're naturals.