Time for a change

I was getting tired of looking at easter party pics. I'm sure you were too. Lots has been going on here. But been too busy to blog about it all. Maybe I'll get caught up over the weekend. Or not. We'll see.

Aspen has been "dying" to change up her hair. So here's the finished look:






I must admit, I was a bit leery when she said she wanted to go all over red. And she picked a darker red. Just a bit scared. But I really really like the color and it really makes her blue eyes stand out. I am even a bit tempted to do the same color. But I don't think she'd like that...too matchy matchy with your mom isn't very cool.

Easter

I know, Easter was more than a week ago. I'm still trying to catch up after Switzerland. Life doesn't have a "please hold" button, unfortunately.
Anyway, because I didn't get home until 10pm Saturday night, I figured I'd just skip the egg hunt and such for the kids. (Actually just for Hazel, the others are a bit old for that now.) But on Sunday, our friends saved the day and invited us for dinner and an egg hunt.

All the guys hung out around the grill, cooking steak

Here's my friend Keri and her fabulous new haircut. (She has since added some vivid red highlights.

This is her very red headed son

The teenagers were busy avoiding the camera, and goofing off. They did have the privilege of hiding the eggs at a nearby park.

The kids played until it was time to hunt eggs...especially the money holding eggs.

Hazel had lots of fun. The bigger kids got to smash confetti eggs on all the unsuspecting adults and each other.

And isn't this little guy just the cutest? I loved his smile.

Switzerland

Between the civil ceremony and the temple sealing, we all went to see Bern's bears. They are kept next to the river in the center of the city. It was about the only touristy thing we did in Bern. We kept busy enough with wedding duties and just spending time together at the lake.

Wildflower preview

Because of all the rain we've received over the past 8 months, the wildflowers this spring are GORGEOUS! they are everywhere. Springtime is my favorite time of year in Texas. And it makes me glad to be here. (Now the middle of August - I try to be anywhere else but Texas - it's just too hot.) Anyway, on our way out to the strawberry farm last week, there were flowers, especially bluebonnets, everywhere. And I grabbed a couple of pics of the kids that were with me. Hopefully, I can get some of the whole family this week before they start fading. The weather, and our family's schedule, hasn't been cooperating since so I've not gotten any. But I will keep trying, like any good Texas parent does.

More wedding pics

Here's a fun Swiss wedding tradition. The bride and groom's car is decorated with a big flower arrangement that is suction-cupped to the hood of their car. All the cars in the wedding party create a caravan and sport wedding ribbons on their antennaes. Then we drove around town honking our car horns. Everyone would honk and wave and smile and laugh at us. Some members of the family were more into this than others. But it was definitely fun.
Hester and Andreas drove this cute Fiat (because they had rented one when they went to Italy together a few months ago). Very cute wedding car.

Notice that Andreas is watching Hester. I have tons of pictures like this. Andreas seemed to be watching Hester the whole day. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her. She did look beautiful, so I can't blame him:)

Strawberry picking

One of my favorite spring time traditions is picking strawberries. It isn't the cheapest way to get strawberries...but they are sure tastier than the ones at the store. So Friday was a beautiful spring day here in Texas and I loaded up Toby and Hazel and packed some lunches and we headed out to the country to pick a bunch of berries.

Hazel really enjoyed feeding the animals that reside at the farm.
But the best treats when picking strawaberries come at the end. We always get some delicious homemade 100% fruit popsicles and strawberry ice cream.I froze about half the berries to use later in smoothies, over cake, and just for yummy summertime treats. Now I've got to make some jam and some tasty strawberry desserts to enjoy this week!

To tide you over

I know that Erika has been checking hourly for pics from Hester's wedding. And I'm sorry that it has taken me this long to post anything. But I have been trying to just get caught up after being gone for 10 days and battling jet lag at the same time. It took 20 minutes just to download the pics from my camera (there were nearly 1500 photos from the wedding) and another 20 minutes to sort them into folders so I can manage them more easily. So. For now here are a few from the few moments I could squeeze in today.

Introducing: Mr. and Mrs. Andreas Psota!

The civil ceremony was nice. But nothing compared to the beauty of the temple. The Bern, Switzerland temple was lovely. And the sun came out when they did.

More to come later. I'll be working on this project for the next few weeks.