Easter Happenings

We left Friday, April 18th and spent a brief one night stay in Missoula for the Montana Sports Legends fundraiser dinner/auction for Special Olympics Montana.  Grace graced us with a 2.5 hour nap on the way there, we stopped for lunch in Butte, and she watched a movie the rest of the way!  Makes for a nice 5 hour drive when the toddler complies.  

Jim O'Day (our athletic director at University of Montana during our college days) invited Tuff for the second year in a row to be a Sports Legend guest at the event.  

Go Griz!

Terrible quality photo but its the Sports Legends on stage at the event.

The next day we headed to The University of Montana campus to reminisce and happened upon the Easter Eggstravaganza.  50,000 eggs were placed around the university oval.  

From the ringing of the bells the Eggstravaganza was over in less than a minute.  Check out the video:

Post Eggstravaganza photo in the oval with Mount Sentinel in the background, aka the "M" mountain.

We headed to the "M" trail next to get in a little hike on a beautiful day.  

First switchback of 13.

That's the university oval in the far right, where the Eggstravaganza was.  And yes, that's a man in an orange suit hiking the "M."

He was nice enough to stop and take a picture with Grace.

Getting higher; just a few switchbacks left.

Made it!

The "M" is only about a third of the way up Mount Sentinel.  In the background, lower right, is Washington Grizzly Stadium where Tuff played football for the Griz in college.

Grace walked the entire way up but it was pretty steep so she rode on Tuff's shoulders for the way down.

With only four switchbacks left she fell asleep!

We stopped at the oval again for one more photo, with the "M" in the background.  You can see the switchbacks zigzagging to the top.

At the trail head before we started we ran into a former classmate of mine, Megan Fisher.  Megan is on Team U.S.A. for the US paralympics.  She has a pretty impressive career if you want to check out the link.  Just click her name above.  

Even though it was the perfect bluebird day and I didn't want to leave Missoula, we had to head back to make the Easter festivities happening in St. Xaver with Tuff's family.

The five hour trip back home worked out nicely too.  Tuff and Grace took a three hour nap!

Haha.  I thought I should get in there too.

Ok Easter Sunday best.  He is risen!  Grace ran around the house yelling "Jesus is alive!"

After church we drove to St. Xavier to spend Easter with family at Uncle Roger's and Auntie Darlene's home.

Donnie and Kassia bought each of the little girl cuzzies bouncy balls.

Katie, Amara, Grace and Kylee just before the Easter egg hunt.

The hunt.  This one lasted longer than a minute, unlike the day before in Missoula.

The cuzzies checking out their finds.

Ok now for the adult egg hunt.  Toni hid six eggs around the front of the house with money in them, enough incentive to get all the adults to participate.  Haha.

These eggs were hard to find!

Here is some video taken by Shawnee of the motivated adults on the egg hunt:



Grace and I brought our dyed hard boiled eggs to St. Xavier to share with all.  These pics are from Friday before we left for Missoula.

Can you believe May is just around the corner?  Until then...

Goodie Turns Two

April Fools Day made its way here and with it our little girl turned two, no joke.  We were at a board meeting so she was with her amazing sitter all day.

Morning started with watching Frozen, gifted from Oma (this gift cannot be outdone).

 Grace posed as a Precious Moments angel baby.  Pretty good.

Then I tried to get her to pose with a nice smile only to get her face down for every photo, that is, until I offered a Peep.

 
Yep guilty of the bribery to get what I wanted.

Ok now on to the end of the day for Taco Tuesday at Cafe Rio.  She was rewarded for her birthday with a plate of whipped cream and strawberries.  

All Cafe Rio staff and people standing in line sang Happy Birthday.  Tuff caught the end on his camera phone:



That weekend we made it to Home Depot for little builders workshop.

Birdhouse project.  Tuff helped put it together.

 
And I helped decorate.

The following Tuesday, April 8th was my mom's birthday and Uncle Phil's (Tuff's sister Jeri Lyn's husband).  Uncle Phil and the gang came over Monday night and spent all Tuesday together.

Jeri Lyn put together an amazing birthday lunch.

We played for a few hours with side walk chalk, making a crime scene.

This was Tuff's crime scene tracing that Uncle Phil artistically turned into a basketball player.

Some down time family fun.  Walks around the neighborhood.

Sisters passed out in the car.

Swinging on a nice spring day.

Yep even Luna likes to swing.

It snowed yet again last Sunday but didn't stop us from enjoying the outdoors.  Family photo!

Almost forgot we stayed up to watch the blood moon.  It was a beautiful clear night in Billings.

Tuff worked a bit on getting an operational website for his public speaking.  Its not perfectly polished yet but pretty good for us amateurs.  Check it out:  tuffharris.com.

Marching into April

March was in and out like a lion for us here and Billings.  No more than a few days in between snow and snow melting then snow again.

I got the chance to go skiing at Red Lodge Mountain with my friend and ski instructor Jon.  He was very patient with me as I'm a novice and only ski once a year.

Our last two runs were fog filled as you can see in the picture below, the pine trees are barely visible.  Good thing Jon knew where he was going or I'd be up there still.

We upgraded Grace to a twin size bed.  She's too little to crawl up so needs a step stool.

Transition was flawless.  Grace is pretty proud of her "big bed."

Luna has been a wonderful addition to the family.  She's very obedient and learning quickly.  In a few weeks she'll be 6 months old.  Still not sure if she'll get much bigger but at this point she's about 14 pounds.

Tuff is going to hit the public speaking a little more this year.  We hired an agent to set up the engagements and speaking fees, etc.  We are currently working with someone on upgrading his website as we set it up a year ago and personally hit a wall with website design.

We also hired someone to fill out the IRS forms for the nonprofit.  Things are starting to roll.

I will be 6 month pregnant this Sunday.  Wow its going so fast!  Speaking of pregnant, we are looking forward to traveling back to Minnesota this June for my sister Dana's baby shower and Father's Day.

I leave you with Grace responding to me asking her to pose for the camera*:

*scrape on nose; first cement dive