9 April 2023

Happy Easter! Helen and Gibson were good sports about posing for our annual Easter Sunday photo. Easter reminds us of our blessings piled on blessings. Because of Christ we will be resurrected, along with our beloved families.

We got home from our Spring Break road trip on Thursday a week ago, then Helen and Becky left Friday afternoon for Utah to spend the weekend with Sofi. The main event was celebrating Sofi's upcoming wedding at a shower hosted by Nate's aunts. We enjoyed a lot of other fun activities during our visit, including a fantastic general conference weekend. On Friday we went dress shopping at a giant mall in Farmington. Utah has experienced record amount of snows this year, but the snowstorms stopped while we were in town.

We found a dress for Helen for the wedding. Becky shopped online while Helen tried on dresses and found a dress she liked. We ate delicious rice bowls and falafel for dinner.

On Saturday we went to a used bookstore in Bountiful between conference sessions. Becky generally resists buying books, but found some amazing books at bargain prices that she'll have to squeeze into our overflowing bookshelves.

After general conference, we drove to Lehi for Sofi's shower. Lots of family came to celebrate. Spending time together was a highlight of the party. In the back row from the left are Becky, Maggie, Salem, Sutton, Helen, Becky. In the front row are Sasha and Sofi. Sasha dislocated her arm earlier in the week when she tripped and was wearing a sling.

Sofi's best friend since middle school, Johanna, also attended the shower.

Nate's mom, Debbie, woke up at 3 am and drove all day to make it to the shower. Sofi is joining a special family. The more time we spend with them, the more we like them.

Here's a photo of Sofi with Debbie's sisters and one cousin. From the left are Rebecca, Camille, Sofi, Debbie and Autumn. Autumn hosted the shower at her home with her other sisters and her mom's help. Grandma Judy left before this photo.

On Sunday afternoon, we played conference squares as we listened to conference, a very portable conference tradition. Brandan and Gibson played conference squares at home. Helen was the first one to get 5 in a row.

Brandan and Gibson started a very challenging puzzle which the Hatches sent us. All of the timbered pieces of the puzzles look the same.

Gibson made a tree from a rock and some copper wire while he listened to the talks. Conference was a spiritual feast. The talks on becoming a peacemaker were the exact messages we needed to hear and learn from to navigate challenging circumstances at work.

Helen was inducted into National Honor Society on Thursday night.

Several conference talks encouraged us to make our Easter celebrations meaningful, expansive and Christ centered. We have always used Easter as a time to teach and talk to our children about the Savior and now we are motivated to up our game. For this year we kept to our original traditions. Becky prepared an Easter countdown for the week before Easter before we left town so it was ready to begin on Monday of this week. The countdown was inspired by a terrific talk by President Thomas S. Monson called "Ponder the Path of Thy Feet" from October 2014. Every night this week we have studied part of the Savior's life, teachings and attributes and talked about how we can become more like Him. We wrote our ideas and impressions on footprints to symbolize our desire to follow Him.