Saturday, April 14, 2007

Originally Written for the Cousin Chronicle

Since we have a little boy who loves trains, it's become a tradition to do something train related the Saturday before Easter. One year we went up north where this hobbyist has a museum and working passenger train on his property as well as many smaller model trains. They had an Easter egg hunt at that time too. Matthew had a ball. This year we rode the Heber Creeper. Matthew was soo excited. He composed a song especially for the occasion that he sang while "cleaning" his room.

When we got on the train Matthew and Melissa both had the biggest grins. This was their first actual train ride so we had to investigate the entire length of the train many times. (Up and down through the passenger cars, the snack car, the open car, the caboose, the observation deck, ect.) The train blasted its horn at various intersections. This dismayed Matthew who covered his ears, but Melissa just grinned and said "Toot toot!" I think she is used to noisy things being the younger sister of a very loud brother.

We went on the 90 minute ride which is the shortest one. It was just long enough for the kids to enjoy without the novelty wearing off. Afterwards we met with an old friend of mine from WA for hamburgers at the "Dairy Keen." The resturant was train themed with a little train table to play with, and the shakes...just divine! I'm starting to drool on the keyboard thinking about them. It's just as well that we don't live in Heber though- the shakes were 14% cream...

Easter morning the kids went on a hunt with the Galbraiths, friends of ours. Lest any cousins think we're prolific, these guys have us beat hands down. They've been married 5 years and have 4 kids under the age of 4. Yup, they're busy. Raising kids, I mean. So anyways, the kids cleaned up the eggs in record time this year. (And virtually had a breakfast of jelly beans and chocolate despite our efforts. So far they don't show signs of permanent damage so I guess once a year is all right.)

At church the music was especially beautiful and Matthew was so good through the service. Melissa was patient through about half of sacrament meeting. What I heard on forgiveness and kindness was wonderful. Jonathan says the rest of the meeting was good too, but I was baby walking in the halls at that point. I also got tapped to teach Matthew's primary class, again. Knowing the class has a serious case of wiggles, I decided to use the Easter story egg hunt. (Thanks Mom!) Jonathan hid the eggs outside before class. The hunt was a hit, with only 1 scrapped knee to bandage. Pretty good. I think the kids even learned something about Jesus and the resurrection.

All in all a great Easter.

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