Work Conference!

Almost right after Michael got the job he found out about this work conference he was going to in Yakima at the beginning of April. They encourage spouses to come so he asked me if I could. Of course I wanted to, but my parents were away so who was going to watch the kids for us?!? He decided to reach out to his Dad and see if he would be willing to watch the kids for us from Tuesday - Friday. For never having watched our kids overnight that was a big ask, but Papa Martin was up for it!!! I was able to work it out where I could take the time off work and make it up later. 

After lunch on Tuesday we headed out for Yakima! We were staying at the Hilton. We got checked in around 4:30 and then we went over to a nail salon so I could get my gel nails done. I had wanted to do them myself before we left, but I just ran out of time. It was so nice actually having my nails done. That's not something I do often! 

That first night we were taken out to dinner by an Engineering Firm at the Yakima Steak House. Oh my...can you say yummy! 

My whole goal of this trip was to 1. sleep in and 2. blog! I love my blog. I love blogging and I love having these memories, but it is always something that just gets put on the end of my to do list and then usually gets cut from the list altogether. There are only so many hours in a day and by the time I get done with all the things I need to do I'm too tired to blog! 

Wednesday morning Michael went golfing and I slept in until 9am!!!! I got out of bed and went right to my laptop to start blogging. I didn't eat any breakfast....I wasn't even hungry after the dinner we had the night before. I did start to get hungry around noon so I ordered room service!!!! 

I posted these two pictures on Facebook! 

Doesn't that salad look amazing?!?! It was!!! 

Michael got back from golfing around 2ish and I was still in my jammies. It was a dream! 

I did get showered though and we headed over to the convention center to peruse the vendor booths, have a bite to eat and get a drink. After that we drove out to the fairgrounds where they were having dinner for all the water and sewer workers. It was catered and they had 3 different buffet lines....Italian, American and Mexican. We went with Italian! 

They had these fun beads to wear when we first got there. After dinner they had some prizes for the golf tournament that was played earlier in the day. Then they had a raffle drawing. Michael ended up winning a ball retriever which will come in handy when he plays golf! :) 

After the raffle one of other managers announced that this would be Dick's last conference and Dick got up and spoke a few words. 

On Thursday I slept in again! Michael had a breakfast to go to and then one class. For lunch Michael and I went out to Cowiche Canyon on a friends suggestion and it didn't disappoint.

After lunch we came back to the hotel so I could blog some more and Michael could have some down time. Around 4:30pm we headed over to the convention center where they had a reception with some finger foods and drinks. For dinner that night we went to the Red Lion for a catered dinner with a different Engineering Firm. 

It has been great getting to meet and chat with so many people that Michael has talked about and it's been such a treat getting wined and dined as well! 

It's also really nice seeing my hubby's name with General Manager listed under it....even if it does say  'In Training' next to it! ;) 

Easter Sunday!

Unfortunately I did not get one picture of our family together in our Easter clothes! I was singing in the choir at both services and by the time I got home Ella was out of her dress and she had already ruined her tights. Oh well! 

Ga-Ga & Pa were out of town for Easter this year and with me singing at church there was no way I would have time to get dinner ready so our lovely friends/family the Kuch's decided to host us for Easter this year. It was so much fun to spend the day with them! 

The moment Ella walked in the door the girls were there with a gift for her. They all had these cute girly hats! 

The girls had also helped with setting the table and making name cards for everyone. It was so cute! 

After eating and visiting for a while we decided we should probably have the egg hunt with the kids. This year I decided to do something different with the eggs. Normally Ga-Ga has enough eggs for each kiddo to have 7. We usually tell the older boys to make sure to leave the easier to find eggs for the younger kids and go for the eggs that are higher up. In all the excitement it can be hard to stop at just 7 eggs though. I just happen to see this idea on Facebook....it's where you put numbers on the eggs and then assign a child a certain number. I went with order of birth. Owen was 1, Jack was 2, Caleb was 3, Ella was 4, Anna was 5, Addison was 6 and Zeke was 7. They each had 8 eggs with their number on it. 

The weather was really gross out so we had to have the egg hunt inside. We had the kids stay upstairs and then hid the eggs all around the first floor. Then we had them gather on the stairs for the obligatory picture! 

Since the kids had to find their exact number they really had to find almost every egg. 

If they found an egg that wasn't their they were supposed to leave it so the correct person could find it. 

What I thought was fun was that kids would find an egg that was a certain number and then they were helping the person who was that number find it. It was sweet! 

A few times the kids were getting frustrated since they felt like they were never going to find their eggs. 

I didn't pay attention to where I hid each egg so some of the kids had quite a few eggs that were harder to find. I should have tried to even it out a bit so they would have had some easy ones and a couple harder ones as well. 

I tried to keep the eggs to the living room, front room, and bathroom. 

The shoes in front of the sliding glass door were the only place I hid eggs in the dinning area. 

The kids were hunting eggs all the while Michael and Bill just kept right on visiting! :) 

My dear friend and I! We do not get to see each other enough though! 

Eventually the kids were able to find more and more eggs. 

Christina and I would help by giving hints. 

Like Ella maybe you should check out the shoes over here. 

Or Owen you should go see if your coat needs to be hung up. 

Or Addison you should go sit in your mom's office chair.

When it was all said and done the kids each got 6 eggs with candy and 2 with money. 

Each kiddos got $1.10 in change. The best part about the number system as I could guarantee that Ella wasn't going to get any candy she couldn't eat. I really liked it! Hopefully next year the weather will be nicer so we can go back to having the egg hunt outside! 

Thank you Bill & Christina for opening your home to the Martin's. The food and fellowship was great. It's always wonderful to spend time with family! Love you guys! 

Egg Hunt!

Our church Egg Hunts were on Saturday, March 31st this year. We went back and forth on whether we should go to the 10am hunt or the 1pm hunt, but we ultimately decided earlier was better and chose the 10am hunt. 

Right when we walked up to register we saw the Chocolate Easter Bunny. This is actually a bear costume that one of our members changed the ears out to look like bunny ears. We just need to put some sort of wire in the ears so they'll stand up. :) 

Sitting in the auditorium waiting for the festivities to begin! 

Me and my man! 

I love getting individual pictures with each of my kiddos. 

Cute Zeke Man! 

Owen getting a taste of his own medicine....aka bunny ears! 

The event leaders for the day....L to R....Ms. Gretchen, Easter Bunny, Ms. Colleen and Mr. Scott. While in the auditorium they talk about all the upcoming family fun events and then they did a raffle drawing for all the prizes sitting on the stage. The kids tickets were so close a couple times, but no winners! 

Michael and I always split up for the Egg Hunts. He takes the older boys up to the upper field and I take the young two to the lower field. 

Ready to hunt some eggs! 

Michel snapped a picture of us from the upper field. 

Go!!!! 

There were over 10,000 eggs for each hunt so there was not a shortage of eggs by any means! 

Everywhere they turned there were more eggs! 

And more eggs! 

And more eggs! 

This was Ella saying...."I'm done!" 

She had a nice full bag of eggs! 

All done Zeke?!?!

The big boys getting ready to go! 

And their off! 

And just like that it's over! Michael doesn't really take pictures during the actual hunt part he takes videos instead. 

All done and ready to head in and check out his candy. 

Once Ella and Zeke's hunt was over which was literally around 1.5 minutes we booked it into the church to get to the room with the faceprinting. Most of the time right after the hunt people stay outside to take advantage of the bubbles and the inflatables, but once they come in the line for the faceprinting is CRAZY. I never take the kids to get their face painted because of that, but I thought I we would try this time around. It totally paid off because Ella was #2 in line and Zeke was #3! Mr. Joey was the one that painted Zeke's face. 

While Ms. Cindy painted Ella's. 

The outline for his batman mask! 

So pretty and sparkly! 

Zeke Man aka Batman! 

We met up with the boys in the now empty auditorium and dumped all the eggs out to see what candy they got. 

Of course we had to go through Ella's and have her siblings trade their chocolate candy for her dye candy. They love it and so does she! 

I was back to volunteer for the 1pm hunt passing out cotton candy and I was so glad we were at the 10am because it was so much busier at 1pm. All in all there were over 1225 people registered between both hunts so I would say it was a huge success!