Lost April: Joshua Tree, Palmers' Visit, and Utah Temple Trip

For reasons that I'll explain near the end, most of these pictures are scrounged from Ryan's phone, Facebook, the Palmers' phones, and a few I took on the iPad.

At the beginning of April, we all accompanied Ryan and Connor on a Cub Scout field trip to the fire station.  It was a good deal more interesting than the preschool ones I've done.  The firefighters showed us all their equipment and vehicles, and talked about their jobs.  They also instructed Connor and Daniel Kenny how to properly fold the firehouse flag.
   

At the beginning of Conference Weekend, we took another trip to Joshua Tree.  We went up on Thursday night, stayed in a motel, and climbed a bunch of rocks in the morning.  The kids had to wear their bike helmets to make Ryan and I feel slightly less nervous.

    

After rock climbing and lunch, we went on a hike to see an abandoned mine.  It was pretty isolated and quiet, and I came around a boulder to see what looked like my family dead on a rock.  They were taking a cozy nap.  After finding our way back, we joined our friends for a potluck dinner and campfire.  Then we went back to our motel room.
  

Can you see them?

  

Evan lost his shoes here somehow, and hiked in slippers the next day.

  
In the morning, we watched the Saturday morning session of Conference, then intercepted our friends as they were finishing a hike.  The kids climbed around like crazy, and ended up finding a network of boulder-caves to explore.  It was like something you'd see at a theme park - complex enough to be exciting, but well-lit and safe.  Ryan impressed everyone by climbing the biggest rock-hill and hanging out there for awhile.
    

Ryan's Peak

Boulder Caves

   

After the boulders, we drove to a nature-walk area.  It started out flat and peaceful, but ended in more nerve-wracking rock climbing by dads and kids.  Most of the moms stayed with the littles and watched.  Corinne had a great time in the sand with Daniel Menssen.  We had planned to spend Easter at home, so we left our friends by early evening and drove back.
      

Ryan found this striped racer in our backyard woodpile.  They're shiny black with a yellow stripe, and are super fast.  They mostly eat lizards.
   

In mid-April, our friends the Palmers came up from their San Diego timeshare to go to Universal Studios, which is relatively close to us.  Most of the rides there aren't little-kid oriented, but pretty much everyone loved the tram tour.  Corinne was scared, but didn't cry at all.  She just wrapped my arms around her head and hid whenever it got to be too much.  As consolation, she did get to meet her hero, Dora, later in the afternoon.  She was so excited and shy, it just broke my heart.  She went up and gave Dora a big hug, then talked all day about how, "Dora hug me and kiss me!"  "Dora my friend!"
   

  

Tram Tour

Airplane Crash

The following Saturday, we went down to the timeshare to swim and hang out.  This was actually the same timeshare we stayed at during our trip to San Diego in 2011.  On our way home, at 11:30 at night, Ryan decided to wait in a half-hour line at The Donut Man in Glendora to try it out.  I was mad about the choice, but the donuts were amazing.  The best were the strawberry-filled and tiger tails.
   

At the end of April, we drove up to Utah to visit my family and attend the Payson Temple open house.  After several days of fun, including the open house itself, my phone malfunctioned and wouldn't turn on properly - it just kept cycling and flashing red.  I tried to find a solution for days, but had to give up.  All my pictures from April, including Joshua Tree, Universal Studios, and Easter, plus the Utah trip, were lost, and I was not happy.  I bought a cheap prepay phone in the meantime, and retook a few pictures using the iPad. 
   

I texted this Rhino picture to Ryan, which preserved it for posterity.

The temple open house was a great experience.  Mom, Chuck, Grandma Cloe, and our little family all went together.  We were able to take our time and chat with the kids a bit about what the temple means and why it's important.  I got annoyed with Connor for awhile, because he was rushing ahead and missing the discussion, but I realized that my grumpiness was destroying the Spirit.  I sat with him and told him I was sorry, and explained why I wanted him to stay close.  He said he had only been going ahead because he wanted to be alone to look at and think about things.  I'm so glad I took the time to talk to him, rather than just getting mad.  It instantly changed the tone of our interactions that afternoon.  
    

  
The kids got to spend a lot of time playing with Lincoln and Felix, and met baby Arya for the first time.  Elise wanted to hold her about every five minutes.  I also got to take Elise to an anxiety workshop Kelli did for her work.  Due to a scheduling error, Kyle, Felix, Elise, and I were the only ones there (the real class was the next day.)  It was super helpful for me to learn ways to help Elise with her worries.  We need to make sure she gets more sleep, more exercise, and knows what her daily and weekly schedule is ahead of time.  We did a great cognitive psychology exercise of turning "poison thoughts" into "antidotes", among other things.  It was also kinda fun to see Kelli at work!
   

A few days after we got home, we were able to replace my iPhone.  I'll be backing things up more often from now on!