April

I'm officially a month behind so it is time to get caught up. Near the end of March Jenna and I were in Idaho for Gem State, the last Ballroom competition of the season. Jenna's team spent most of their time preparing for Nationals which only allowed medley routines with 3 or more songs put together.  Gem State doesn't let you do medley routines, they only allow showcase routines with 1 song so Jenna's team had 2 weeks to learn 2 new routines and perform them.  Because of the lack of rehearsal it wasn't their best competition, but for so little preparation they were amazing.

Jenna and partner compete in a syllabus competition

Jenna's last team picture for the season.

We stayed with Heather and Aaron and family and had a great time, but of course none of us thought to take a picture. Oops.

Spring break was the first week of April and Adam took the kids to St. George.  I stayed home to work on things that I never have time to work on so it was a dream come true. The kids loved being in St. George and seeing Grandparents and cousins, and I loved getting things D-O-N-E. It was a win-win.

Coloring Easter Eggs

AJ's first Easter

Jenna and Britton showing their egg hunt spoils.

Korinne crafting

AJ LOVED swimming in Aunt Bethany's pool.  He turns into a crazy person around water.  He stayed in a full hour after everyone else got out and even then it was a struggle to get him to stop jumping into the pool.

They hit up a splash pad, but the water was still quite chilly.

Cccccold water.

Cousins lined up on a bench.

Jenna, Britton, Gramma, Korinne

They got home from St. George on Wednesday evening and we headed out to Lagoon for the first time this season on April 7th.  We got super lucky in that the weather was absolutely terrible for our first day.  That means NO LINES. I always say if it's pouring rain grab a poncho and head to Lagoon! Bad weather days definitely make the best Lagoon days.

I had a feeling AJ would like the rides at Lagoon and I was right.  AJ is a little boy who has a need for speed  When Adam is pushing AJ on a swing at the park and he is going as high as he can go, he will still cry that it isn't high enough.  When he wants to ride down our cul-de-sac on a bike, he will go up the Huntsman's driveway first just to get that extra lift so he can go even faster.

The only problem we encountered with AJ at Lagoon was that at the end of each ride he would refuse to get off the ride and I would have to go in and pull him off kicking and screaming.  Since there were no lines he could get right back on, but he felt it was a waste of his time. True, but still not allowed at Lagoon.

Adam and AJ

Britton, Korinne, Jameson and Jenna

This was the first time Jameson was able to go on all of the big rides so as soon as we got through the gates he took Adam and marched straight to Cannibal which is the biggest ride in the park.  He loved it and rode on it about 5 more times before the day was over. He loves being able to go on all of the big rides.

That night a friend of Britton's gave him 3 tickets to the RSL game so Adam took Britton and his friend Duncan down to the game.  

It was a little rainy, but our ponchos came through again!

I left for a quick trip China on April 14th and Britton went to Prom that night.

Ready to leave. They had already had a huge nerf gun war earlier in the day.

The boys: Duncan, Britton, Jayden, Ryan, Collin, Tavyn and Quinn

Britton and his date Kimberly

I traveled to China to help Jen and her 3 kids on the long flight home but was able to enjoy a few days there before heading home again on Wednesday.

First stop on Monday morning after Will and June went to school was JB's (Jamaican Blue). I got the almond croissant with some hot chocolate.  I liked the croissant so much I went back each day to get one and even got one for my flight home!

Lunch with Taylor.  It's a good thing he was around to order for us.😊

This was a noodle house Taylor recently found and liked.

That night Jen, June, and Preston were jet-lagged and sleeping when dinner rolled around, so Taylor and Will took me to a restaurant with a lot of yummy fresh foods.  As luck would have it the salads were buy one get one on Monday nights.

Tuesday morning on a quick tour of Taylor's office we saw the actual bike that was used to win the 2014 Tour de France.

Taylor's office

Jen and I came up with a spontaneous plan to go to Shanghai Disneyland Tuesday.  We left a bit late because we needed Jen's passport and Taylor had taken it to his office the day before because they need to work on renewing it. By the time we got to Taylor's office and retrieved it we were about 2 hours off schedule, but in the end it didn't really matter anyway.

Hilary and Jen with the Disney castle

We had Preston with us and thought we would be able to just switch back and forth using fast passes and single rider lines, but it didn't really work out because pretty much every Chinese person in the country decided to go to Shanghai Disney on the same day we did.

Jen and Preson

So basically it went down like this.  We finally got into the parkaround 10 a.m. and went straight to Soarin'. Preston was hungry so Jen told me to hurry and get in the line and she'd go when I was done.  I waited for 3 HOURS and then found Jen who was ready to go home because Preston wasn't as excited about our plan as we were.  I didn't have a phone so it wasn't worth having me stick around and wait for hours to ride anything else so we left. Yup, that was our Shanghai Disney experience. I rode on 1 ride and Jen didn't go on a single ride.  It's a good thing it's a lot less expensive than Disneyland in CA.  We came, we saw, we almost conquered. 😜

You can see the castle as we walked back to our car.

That night Taylor and June me to a delicious Thai food place while we waited for Will to get done with soccer practice.

The Pad Thai was delish and the sticky mango rice was awesome.

And that brings me to the end of my trip.  It was a quick one, but I really enjoyed seeing where they live and catching a glimpse of the expat life inside a pretty dreamy foreigner bubble in Shanghai.

June, Preston, Me and Will

Just before I left for the airport we hit JB's one more time.  You can get anywhere you need to be on a bike and I loved that everything they needed was so close.

On the bikes in front of their building inside the complex.

I caught the 11:40 a.m. flight to Seoul where I couldn't help but be entertained by the signs in the bathroom.

I went to San Francisco from Seoul and then caught a small plane to SLC. It has been awhile since I've had to go out to the tarmac to board a flight.

I made it home safe and sound on Wednesday night. Adam did a great job keeping the "circus" going at home without me.  

With Prom over Britton lost no time in asking someone to Senior Ball.  Britton is funny, when he started talking about Senior Ball I asked, "Are you going to Senior Ball?" (In my high school only Seniors actually went to Senior Ball) His response, "Why wouldn't I go to Senior Ball?" That is Britton,  He is like the dance date doctor.  He is the one that makes sure all of his friends are asking girls to the dances and if they don't know who to ask he helps them figure it out. If they are wishy washy about going he will make sure they commit and ask a girl that really wants to go. There are a lot of girls that have Britton to thank for being asked to a dance. I've decided every class needs a Britton to get things going.  

He asked Eliza to Senior Ball on Thursday night and she responded on Friday night with "Not even an army could keep me from saying Yes!"  It must have taken her quite a bit of time to set up all the army figures in our driveway. She left a trail of army figures from our front door so he would know where to find the answer. Cute.

Britton has had a great soccer season which is quickly coming to a close.  They have their last 2 games this week.

This last week Britton ran for Junior Class Officer.  After he made the primaries he had to make 3 posters to hang around school.  Here are 2 of them:

On Friday it was announced that he had made it and was the Junior Class Secretary for next school year. He is pretty excited.

So that is what has been going on around here the last month or so, or at least what we had pictures of.  There is never a dull moment with so many moving parts, but we do our best to keep up.