APRIL

LDS CONFERENCE, APRIL FOOL'S DAY, & EASTER - This year April 1st was a triple whamee.  It was April Fool's day, conference Sunday, and Easter all at the same time.  Luckily out of three the event that got forgotten about was April Fool's day.  We were all excited for general conference this time because of how many new and exciting things were going to happen.  (We were given a little pre-info from Brad.)  We were all excited to participate in a Solemn Assembly to sustain a new prophet and find out who the two new Apostles would be.  My kids impress me so much.  I'm pretty much 100% sure I never sat and listened to a session of conference until I was a teenager (and then it was probably because it was an assignment for seminary.)  But my kids love conference and sit and listen with us.  They sometimes play quietly with toys or color or draw but they love being in with us where conference is playing.   All the talks were so good and Dallin was a big fan of the music.  Just when you would get comfortable, President Nelson would announce something new.  I was especially excited to hear about a temple in Russia.

We had a quick, easy lunch of sandwiches in between sessions and ate out on our deck for the first time this year!  It was still a little chilly.  We all like putting chips on our sandwiches, but Kinsley experimented with cheetos this time.  Then Kasen and Kinsley finished making a zoo in the basement they had started the day before.  They also performed a bird show for us just like the one we watched at the Tracy Aviary complete with birds flying over our heads (which ended up being birds getting thrown at our faces.)  Kasen even did a Q&A.

After conference was over we had Tresa, Jeff, and Tyler over for Easter dinner.  Then we had an Easter egg hunt.  That morning the kids had a scavenger hunt to find their Easter baskets.  Kasen was really excited that his basket finally had a bathrobe for him.  He has asked for a bathrobe for about 4 years and finally got one.

MEXICO TRIP - April 8th - 12th all of Jed's siblings, their spouses, and his parents were scheduled to go on a trip to Cancun, Mexico.  We were so excited for it!  In preparation for being in a swim suit and tropical weather I went to get a spray tan the Saturday before we left.  It went fine and then I was headed home and realized I was almost out of gas.  I got out to fill up and suddenly there was this massive rain storm.  It was crazy.  It felt like the rain was coming in sideways.  I was in a long-sleeved jacket, under the cover at the pumps and was still soaking wet from just getting out to put the gas pump away.  I got back in the car and took off my jacket to find my arms looked like I had a weird skin disease.  When I got home I found that my whole back looked like this too.  So I had to wash off my spray tan!  It was the weirdest.  Our kids were really clingy that whole week leading up to us leaving.  They always are, which makes it a little harder to leave.

Sunday - We flew out early so we left before anyone woke up.  We had a layover in Denver where we joined up with Jason/Gini & Tresa/Jeff.  When we got to Cancun we had to wait for a bit until our bus came.  Then the bus took us to the resort.  The driver drove so slow.  Cars were passing us like crazy.  I thought Jed was going to die!  We finally got to XCaret and it was beautiful.  You know it's going to be a great place when there are people walking around passing out mini Popsicles!  It was so nice and hot and everything was indoor/outdoor. 

We got checked into our room and then walked around the resort to check it out.  It was beautiful and so pretty.  There were so many ponds/waterways.  It was warm and you could hear the ocean everywhere you were at.  Our room was on the ground level and opened up to our own little hammock area.

There was one section that had all these hanging walkways over ponds.  I tried to get a good picture but mine don't do it justice for how pretty it was.

There were other hanging bridges out to the ocean.  This resort didn't have a ton of beach property, but it was still pretty.

We started running into familiar faces after awhile.  We decided to meet at the buffet for pre-dinner and then again for dinner.  The beauty of an all-inclusive resort!  There was also a little street taco vendor right outside the buffet that we all had to try too.  Those tacos were amazing!  The resort had great food overall and there were lots of healthy options, but there were some crazy stuff like octopus and goopy corn.  We had to take a picture of the octopus for Ava.  :(

I love the Latin and South American cultures for their colorfulness!  There were amazing decorations everywhere!  Also this really cool hammock cone was right up in the lobby.  It was huge.  Jed and I could both lay down inside of it.

The resort was beautiful at night also.  So many places to explore and see, but it didn't feel so overwhelmingly big that you would get lost or scared.  Everything was lit up nicely .

Monday - We thought we'd seen most of the resort Sunday, but we realized there was a whole other half we didn't even walk past.  This part had the cutest kid's pool and octopus slide.  There weren't many kids at the resort, but the few there were made me miss ours.  They would love have loved this place. We ran into John and Coleen.  John was having the time of his life cruising around!  I went to the gym and Jed went and played tennis.

We decided to go check out the kayaking and paddle boarding.  Jed and I decided we would do better in our own kayaks.  I'm not going to say who (Jed) but one of us was not very good at paddling the kayak.  We also decided to try paddle boarding.  It was pretty easy, but you definitely had to keep a good balance.  Jed graciously let me go first and had the camera ready for me to fall in!  Luckily I didn't.  So he decided to come out and join me.

We met some family for lunch down on the sand at a little place.  They had HUGE cheeseburgers!  There were also a lot of octopus on the menu here too.

All around the resort were cute little details: hanging swings at this eatery, parrots, etc.

Our stay included passes to about 5 different "parks".  We had no idea what that really meant though!  One of the parks was called "XPLOR - Adventure Park" so we decided to go try that one out that afternoon.  We were told to take a little boat to where the bus would pick us up.  The boat was fun and went through another resort (Xcaret Occidental). When we got off the boat we were at another park called Xcaret.  It was all really confusing, but now that we know it would be really fun to go back and know where and what you were doing!  This park was a wildlife park.  We didn't go through it, but stopped to look at some parrots before getting on our cute pink bus.

While walking to the bus we went under this amazing bridge and stopped by a really cool church. We loved everything!

Xplor park turned out to be so fun!  Everything you did there you had to wear a helmet for safety.  So we got our helmets and started walking through this underground cave system.  They had the coolest stalagmites or whatever they are called.  It reminded me of Fraggle Rock.  I'm not sure why but Jake instigated a belly shirt picture. 

The activities available to do at Xplor was jeep driving through the jungle, ziplining, xenote swimming or xenote rafting.  We decided to do the jeeps first and then we went and did the ziplines.  There were about 10 different platforms we went off of and it was so fun.  Since it was dusk as we were finishing up they started the fires all around the park.  So one of our ziplines we went through a ring of fire!  Our last zipline was into the water.  I was worried about losing my camera so I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. 

We got back to our beautiful resort lit up so magically at night.  We met all the family for dinner at one of the restaurants in a cave on the resort.  It was supposed to be amazing, but we weren't too impressed.  It was cool eating in a cave though.  Since the food wasn't filling enough we headed back to the buffet.  There were mariachi singers out tonight.  We finished the night off with some hammock swinging.  Jed didn't last too long into our conversation though!

Tuesday - We woke up early and caught a bus to tour one of the Mayan ruins nearby.  The resort also provided free tours to this location. We decided to go to Coba because it wasn't too far away and was the only ruin in the jungle you could still climb up.  The big temple there doesn't look too magnificent in pictures, but it was.  I can't remember how high up it was now but it was pretty steep.  We stopped midway up to look around.

At the entrance to the ruin area there were workers fixing the roof on the gift shop.  They were just up there with no ladders or anything patching it with grass. Here are some pictures from the top.  I loved all the information from the ruin tour because I really like thinking about previous civilizations.  It was also pretty eye-opening to look out over the jungle.  It made the Book of Mormon come alive in my mind in a sense.  Thinking of how different groups separated and went off and got lost - made a lot more sense!  Going back down the temple took a lot longer than going up.  The steps on the side going down were a lot narrower.   I was surprised that the ruins were so spread out here at this site.  I didn't really have any expectations, but this surprised me.

Because everything was so spread out we were provided bikes to go from place to place.  They also had little carriages that were pulled by bikes.  We stopped at multiple "buildings" including a stadium where they would play the game where they had to hit the balls through the hoops.  It was a lot smaller than I had imagined too.  We also saw a few more temples and a church.  On the ride back to the bus we saw wild monkeys swinging through the jungle.

From the Coba ruins our bus took us to another park called Xel-Ha.  This park was all centered around water activities.  They had a lot of things that cost extra like swimming with dolphins, scuba masks that were connected to a pole, water ropes courses, etc.  We went on a really interesting, really slow! river tubing adventure.  The beginning was really cool because we were tubing in this very viney part with a canopy of vines all around us.  We also stopped at a couple of fun cliff jumping spots, but the water moved so slowly that we spent most of the last half paddling ourselves back.  Jed's tube was flat so he was really hating that last half of the river.  We also went snorkeling and saw a lot of colorful fish.  There were a lot of blue fish like Dory.  There were bridges across the water and a giant waterslide, but we ran out of time to do it all.  One of the highlights at all the parks and our resort were the drinks!  Of course everyone's fruity drinks were filled with alcohol except ours, but they were still delicious.  I liked the Pina Coladas and the Miami Vices.  Everytime we would order a drink and say "No alcohol" the waiter would say "But you are in Mexico?!"  Everyone was so confused by our sober lifestyle. lol

When we got back to our resort we got changed and headed to dinner reservations at a theater on the resort.  There was a musical singing and dancing show of Mexican culture during dinner.  It was amazing dancing and singing.  The Mexican culture is so exciting and energetic! Dinner was pretty good too.  We liked almost everything on the menu.

We tried to get some pictures of all the cool pools lit up at night, but we got two very awkward selfies instead. haha

Since everyone was dressed up they decided it would be a good time for a family photo.  These were the two group ones.  We are quite the group!  It was so great that we all could be there.  With that many people and different schedules I had figured that someone wouldn't be able to go, but every single Erickson child came and all their spouses too.  It was awesome!

Of course it took a few attempts to get a decent photo with this group. haha Gini was very adamant that we needed to mix up the posing from their regular family pictures.  She did a good job arranging people even though the group "is really good at following directions" as Jed said sarcastically.

So far we had two very fun-packed days and had enjoyed every second.  One of our favorite things at night was to head back to our room and our little balcony oasis and swing in the hammocks and talk.  We would doze on and off until we got tired enough to go in to bed. The humidity at night was our favorite.

Wednesday - Our last full day - definitely not enough time at this place!  This morning we decided to explore the church on the resort before it got too hot.  It was a focal point no matter where you were on the resort and it took me 3 days to convince Jed to walk up the stairs to go see it!

The church was very simple and beautiful at the same time.  There were some amazing views from up on top too.

We walked around some more and tried a couple different restaurants on the resort for breakfast and lunch.  We went out to the beach to look for shells for the kids.  There were only a few really small ones.  We relaxed up in the lobby on the cool cone thing.  We even found a new pool we hadn't seen before!

We decided to finally get in the pool!  This was actually our first time swimming in the resort pool our entire time! The weather was nice in the morning but turned windy and stormy that afternoon.  It blew over quickly, but we didn't even swim for that long because of it!

Later in the afternoon we went back to Xcaret Park.  We walked through the zoo and saw all the animals.  Our favorite were the sea turtles.  They were so adorable.

It was amazing to see the animals in the environment they were native too.  They really were so camouflaged it was incredible.  We got lots of pictures of the jaguar for Kasen and some lizards for Ava.

We met up with our group for a Mexican horse show.  There were lots of performers and our favorite was the guy with the big lasso.  Jed also found a friend there.

The rest of the day we spent shopping for a few souvenirs and relaxing.  We listened to a cover band of 80s rock music upstairs in the lobby. Jed tried out the rock cushions.

Thursday - Our flight was supposed to leave early so packed the night before and woke up early to say goodbye before catching the shuttle to the airport.  The other group didn't leave until that afternoon.  When we got to the airport our flight got delayed 3x! So we were still there when the other group showed up for their flight.  Boo - they got a whole half day more at the resort than we did and we still left at the same time.  We definitely weren't ready to leave, but we were ready to see our kids again!  We were missed and Kinsley didn't leave our sides for a few days afterward. :)

My mom stayed with our kids while we were gone and she was such a good grandma/babysitter!  The kids were well taken care of and taken to all their activities.  She also managed to a lot of genealogy while we were gone.  It was awesome looking at her charts.  It is amazing to think that we are connected to so many people in such a few short generations.

ACTIVITIES & SCHOOL - April was jam-packed with events.  It always seems to get so busy as the end of the year gets closer. Kasen ended up winning our family's March madness bracket.  He was pretty proud to beat his dad!  The kids elementary school celebrated being 40 years old.  Which is older than me so I enjoyed celebrating it.  The kids were in the picture below.

Kinsley started her first sport activity.  She played on a soccer team with her friends.  They never could decide on a team name.  One week it was the Mighty Minions, then Mighty Dragons, etc.  Kasen also started the spring flag football season.  This time he was the KC Chiefs.  Their games were always on the same night and usually at the same time.  Jed would go with Kasen since he was coaching and I would go to Kinsley's game. A couple of times we were all able to go to both.

Ava competed in the state competition of NHD on April 14th.  She also had a volleyball tournament that day again.  She felt like her interview went so much better and they asked her a lot more relevant questions.  She didn't end up winning any awards, but wasn't nearly as traumatic as the district loss.  She was happy to be able to have the chance to compete at state and got back some positive notes from the judges.  Projects for Ava in GT continued as well.  She had to create a superhero for a project.  She created Cyclosporine: The Amazing Antibiotic Superhero. Five things to know about Cyclosporine...1. She uses her power to save citizens. 2. She is trying to solve the problem of organ shortage. 3. Her antagonist is Antibody who increases organ failures. 4. Her call to action as when her father died from organ failure and she ran out of the hospital room, accidentally crashing into an IV line which mixed with her blood. 5. Cyclosporine's super power is to alternate or regenerate DNA and cellular structures which fixes ruptured or failing organs.

The elementary school also held their walk-a-thon fundraiser.  Kasen and his two best buddies ran together and wanted to set a record - unfortunately Kasen had to leave earlier than they did for his football game so they got a few more laps than he did.  Kasen ended up with 50 laps which is over 10 miles.  Yes he ran 10 miles in one afternoon.  Kinsley did awesome too.  She ran 25 laps which is over 6 miles!  Plus they both raised some money for the new playground equipment.

Ava finished her club volleyball season this month.  She really enjoyed playing.  Her team improved so much by the end of the season.  It was a little sad because they were finally starting to find their groove and win a little more consistently, but then their last tournament was pretty rough.  So Ava went from being really disappointed the season was over to be being pretty excited! lol She was the only 6th grader on her team and the youngest, but you would never know with her height.

Kasen and Kinsley got their class pictures and their spring pictures back.  I'm pretty partial, but I'd say these two are some of the cutest kids at Eagle Hills Elementary.

OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS -We were invited to Tyler's bday party this month!  Tyler is so old now I can't even keep track of what birthday it is for him!  He was a pretty happy bday boy and we had some yummy pizza and cake to celebrate.  Ava was at a vb practice so she couldn't come with us.  Happy Bday Tyler!

Kasen had his pine wood derby event.  Jed found out about it the night before, so Kasen just had to use his car from last year.  He was a good sport about it.  Kasen won a few races and his car got "fastest looking" car which we all thought was really generous and funny since his car looks like crap.  Honestly. haha 

Kasen has been working hard at passing off his scouts requirements for Bear before his birthday and also his Faith in God requirements.  Even though the programs of Scouts, Faith in God, and Personal Progress are all being eliminated we've encouraged the kids to finish them anyway before they become extinct.  For one of his requirements Kasen had to teach a FHE lesson.  He did a great job and found the music stand to use.  Dallin thought it was pretty exciting.  You can see him casually get closer and closer until he just tries to take over. Kasen is a good big brother and let him act like he was in charge.  Kasen is such a kind-hearted kid.

DALLIN 23 MONTHS - Every month I feel like I say the same thing about Dallin - that time has gone by so fast.  But it is so true.  He is still the cutest sleeper ever.  He loves his sleep and loves his crib!

He fell asleep in the car one afternoon and when I looked back I couldn't believe how ginormous he looked! 

Dallin is so smart and like his sister Ava he never forgets anything.  He saw Jed get candy out of the cupboard above our fridge one day and does his best each day trying to figure out a way to get it out himself.  He loves sports maybe even more than Kasen.  He will watch Kasen or Jed do something with a ball and instantly try and copy it.  It is a constant fight keeping him from trying to shoot baskets all day long.  He doesn't care if it's raining, freezing, windy, whatever - he wants to be out on the cement with a ball.

This month Dallin has become obsessed with the blog book.  They are on a bookcase in our living room.  He only wants the orange book which is the year he was born 2016.  I'm not really sure why he always goes for that book.  When I point to pictures of him, he just says, "Baby!"  I don't think he associates the pictures with himself, but he will go through page by page and jabber and talk about every single picture and who is in it.  He does this multiple times a day with the same blog book.

Dallin still loves the tub and loves to slide on his belly.  He knows all the animals that get to take a bath with him and talks to them and sings to himself while he bathes.  When I ask him if he wants to get in the bathtub he usually drops whatever he is doing and runs as fast as he can to the tub.  One night the funniest thing happened.  Ava babysat for us and Jed and I went on a date to the movies.  She had put Dallin to bed and when we got home I went in to check on him and he was completely naked.  My mom had said that while she was here he had started taking off his sleeper and pjs when he was in his crib.  I was hoping it wasn't true.  But there they were and his diaper was tossed right out on the floor the same way he throws his bottle out at night.  It was pretty funny until I realized he had peed everywhere and everything in his crib was soaking wet!

AVA DAY - Our first time celebrating Ava and how special she is on April 21st!  For her day she chose to go to the library and then we went to Sodalicious for cookies and of course soda.  While we were at the library we decided to play a game where we all got 10 minutes to gather up as many books as we could find that reminded us of Ava.  We came back with some really funny ones and some totally fitting ones.  It was fun to see how we each (Ava included) thought of Ava.  Ava is such a fun, special girl.  She is unlike anyone else I've ever know.  She is brilliant, driven, imaginative, obedient, and fun.  She is also so conscious of other around her and is constantly thinking about how to make others around her happy.  She is so much more mature than other girls her age and at the same time I still get glimpses of a little girl.  She is so self-aware and in tune with her feelings especially from a spiritual nature.  She has grown and changed and bettered herself more than most adults are capable of.  If there is something Ava doesn't like about herself she works hard until she changes it.  Each year Ava sheds away layers of herself and becomes better.  It is so inspiring.  She is also very brave and isn't afraid to be different and be herself. For example, she has absolutely no interest in social media because she sees how obsessed other girls her age are over it and even transitioned to different friends this past year because one group would spend all their time on snapchat and instagram.  I love Ava so much as does her dad!  We couldn't have hand-molded a better daughter and would take a million of her.

EARTH DAY(week) - Anyone that knows my kids won't be surprised to know that they take Earth Day very seriously and want to celebrate it like any other holiday.  This year we did activities all week in honor of Earth day.  The kids wanted to play outside a lot, eat outside, have discussions about the environment outside, etc. 

The weather was pretty nice and some days felt so warm this week.  It has been fun to watch all the plants in our yard start to wake up.  The first weekend of April a year ago was when we first came to look at our house.  It has been so fun for me to watch and see which plants bloom first and what colors.  Our "popcorn trees" have been so pretty.  It is so peaceful to be outside - we love our yard!  The kids love being outside so much.  I caught these two cutely sharing a snack and a conversation about birds on the steps one evening.

One night we decided to take a ride past the temple to see all the flowers there.  It looked so pretty.  We've also been taking a lot of rides in our Ranger around the area.  Below are some of our pretty trees we love in our yard.

Our big event for Earth day this year was to plant our very first family garden!!!! I have been waiting for this day for so long.  The kids have been so excited about it and each have their own garden box to plant whatever they want.  They have all planned out what they wanted to plant and helped pick out the seeds.  I helped them each one on one plant their gardens.  Ava was the last one and I hadn't taken pictures of the other two unfortunately.  It will be so fun to see how our gardens grow this year.