Easter

We made a last minute decision early last week to go up to Maine for Easter. Jack's family got a contract on their house after just 9 days on the market which is unheard of up there, so we want to get up there as much as we can before they close and then move back here! We headed up on Thursday evening with an iPad strapped to the headrest using 2 elastic headbands hoping it would keep Evan busy on the drive. He hadn't been on a road trip since Christmas and we had to stop about every hour to keep him pleasant. Well, it worked! We only had to stop once on the way there and the way back!

We had a great visit with Jack's family, and of course missing Regan and Strom terribly for our first visit there without them. The weather was beautiful for the most part and we enjoyed the outdoors. Evan loved the basketball hoop and loved stepping on the stones lining the house. He put on a dance show on the back deck.

(We missed you like crazy, Regan & Strom!)

Easter was a glorious day in multiple ways! Of course because of the reason for the season. It was a beautiful weather day. The company was great and the meal was fantastic. After Evan's nap, we "hid" the sport-ball themed eggs outside with goldfish and raisins hiding inside and he "hunted and gathered". That is until he remembered there was a basketball hoop. We had a good long skype with Regan (and Strom when he pulled his eyes away from the XBox!). Evan felt very connected to Aunt Regan through the computer, complete with fist bumping and kissing the screen! He is a bit confused now though, and wants to pound fists with every character on TV!

Sunny Florida

Jack approached me a couple months ago posing the question, "How would you feel about me going to Belize with the church?" My response? "How would you feel about me going to Florida while you're in Belize?" So that's how it worked out. Jack went to Belize with a team from our church to build a house for a needy family, and you can read about his adventures on this blog.

So Evan and I took off on April 1 on a direct flight to Orlando to visit my parents in Lakeland. He did great on the plane and being on Southwest with open boarding left us with an open seat in the middle on both flights. Who wants to sit next to an antsy toddler on his mom's lap? Clearly no one on a less than full flight!

We kept very busy! Only had 1 rainy day. We had a beach trip one day. We spent most other mornings doing an activity with Evan- 4 different playgrounds, feeding the water fowl (when Evan stopped eating the bread and threw it to the birds), had some lunches out and about. When he went down for a nap, I went to the pool. It was a pretty sweet setup! We were pretty spoiled!

It was a wonderful preview of all the fun we can have with Evan this summer. He loved splashing in the pool and wading in the shallow sandbar area at the beach. He had a blast shoveling sand and dumping it in his pail. He became very proficient at climbing the playground equipment and going down big slides by himself.

A huge thank you goes out to my parents for hosting us for 8 days, driving us to countless activities, treating to lunches, dinner, and ice cream. We can think of no better way that we could have spent our time away from Jack!











Doing the twisty slide all by himself!



Rainy Day Bubbles. He couldn't figure out why these new "balls" kept disappearing when he touched them.



He kept losing the sand he was trying to throw in the backswing!