Johnson Family Dish

March’s Dish

Dear Friends and Family,

March. March, March March, where ever to start? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (thank you Charles Dickens). I shouldn’t say it was the WORST of times, it certainly was not but it was exciting, every single minute! I would more accurately describe it as unforgettable times.

We had a really great time in southern CA. We went to a lot of neat places and saw some fascinating things. The ocean alone is something one could ponder all day. We went to the coolest zoo in the world, the San Diego Zoo. The animals there are so alive, sounds dumb but, I have never seen animals so active in a zoo setting. Whatever they are doing there they do it really exceptionally well. Makes our beloved Phx. zoo animals look very lathargic. This and visiting Disneyland were our favorite experiences. We went to a few other parks etc. while there but these two were far and above the most fun. We spent St. Patricks Day at Disneyland, it was really just another day there for Disneyland except they opened a brand new ride, a Buzz Lightyear ride that was a HUGE HIT with our kids. We had a bit of a hiccup in our fun on St. Patricks Day because someone broke out the window of our Suburban and stole all of the tools and diagnostic computer that Randon had in there, should we have mechanical problems. So we had the window fixed while in CA and we are putting in a claim for all of Randons tools, it was a very large loss to our family (for more reasons than financial, as many of these tools were Randons fathers tools)! So, we didn’t feel like vacationing much for the rest of that day. It was a good teaching experience for our children, they were very upset and shaken by this experience and we all felt very violated, but we all sat down together and talked about how we could buy more tools and we were all together and well. It was a really good time to focus on what is really important to us. So, we put it all in perspective and had a wonderful remaining vacation.

I have to say that my favorite memory of this vacation was the night that we all went swimming in the heated pool at the hotel It was an outdoor pool and the temp. was 60 F outside, it was night time and the girls had all been hounding us about swimming since we arrived so we agreed to go, to get the girls off of our case, and because it was a heated pool, we would be warm enough, right? No, wrong. Kelcie was of course first to jump in, followed by Morgan and Addi. They were not bothered by the tepid (at best) water. Scott refused to put his bathing suit on, even though he was on our case about swimming all day too, the boy had sense enough that it was much to chilly and breezy out that night for swimming. Randon and I knew it would be cold but we wanted our girls to get swimming out of thier system and I was trying to encourage my sensible little man to live a bit and do something a little crazy. He refused and as we were all freezing he was shaking his head and calling us all crazy heads. By the way, Randon and I did jump in and enjoyed a brisk 30 second adventure after which time we had to pry our ‘crazy head’ girls out of the water because the hotel used the term heated very loosely.

Randon and I think that the next vacation that we take needs to be a little more restful. We were up and going each morning with the sun and I had activities scheduled for each day that left little time for relaxing. A trip to Yelowstone park or something a little bit lazy is what we are leaning towards. We got the congested city and theme park thing well out of our system for a few years to come, we think.

When we got home it was a whirlwind to prepare for Easter. We had a family reunion of sorts with my Grandmothers children and grandchildren and great grand children. It was really nice to sit and have a meal together and celebrate this very important holiday, TOGETHER! Aunt Gayle brought an Easter basket for each of the 12 children that were there that day and Uncle Gary put on a fun Easter egg hunt. I enjoyed so much visiting with my Cousin Charlene who brought her family down from Montana and inspired all of us to get together. The children had a great time, especially since Charlene’s family includes two boys Scotts age. The three boys ALL slept on Scotts top bunk bed, we had a bed for them each but they insisted on sleeping together on the top bunk. Scott was really sad when they left, he mourned and moped around the house for days. The girls also loved meeting their female cousins, they loved sweet Valarie, and Kelcie especially, enjoyed following 13 year old Ashley around and idolizing her. The other children also got a long really well and had fun together but, these ones really were old enough that you could just see the enjoyment beaming in them. Charis was still finding, unfound eggs for a few days after Easter.

Randon and I celebrated our 11th anniversary the day before Easter. We were so busy that we decided to put off celebrating it for another weekend and we actually didn’t remember about it until we were very late in the day driving to see Grandpa Gatti in PHX. I know that this is a normal thing for many couples but not for us. Our anniversary has always been a day of great importance to us, and a big deal to us both. So it was an unusual year for us but we plan to go off and celebrate this weekend, and hopefully have some much needed lazy time. Randon has been putting in LOTS of time at work this past few months and it seems that the older our children become the more impossible it seems to be able to fit everything in to a day, week, month etc. that we want to. Time has definately put on its running shoes!

For the upcoming month we are hoping that the little girls have sucessfully contracted the chicken pox. We had a “chicken pox” party with a young man in our ward this last week who had the chicken pox. Don’t get me wrong here though, I am not looking forward to the fevers, the irritability and all of the yuck that inevitably comes along with the chicken pox but, I believe that it is better than the vaccine. I know that this contriversial so please do not e-mail me the merits of the vaccine, I have had this discussion a million times. I have researched this, by reading all of those articles and weighing the options, and through my own experience and what I have observed, I feel that this is the right decision for me and my family. If you want to know why I feel this way I would be happy to explain. Wish us luck!

So here is April and we feel a good month in progress!

Love to all!