We have a tradition in our family of going out to eat, as a family, to celebrate birthdays. The one having the birthday gets to pick the place to eat. We went out to lunch after Kierra's volleyball game. She picked Subway. I thought we would go somewhere nicer than that. Dale knew that she loves Olive Garden so he suggested that we go there. She said "really?...ok!" We had a great time and had super yummy food. She even tried the pepper in the salad. The best part about it was that we had so much food that all the kids had their leftovers for dinner that night.
After lunch, Kierra went to a party with her Sunday School class. When she got home from that, she found that our front door had been decorated by her new Beehive class. She is very excited to go into Young Women's.
She got a new outfit to wear to church for her first Sunday in Young Women's. It's hard to believe she is 12 years old and moving out of Primary. I remember the day she was born very well. I remember going out to dinner at Applebee's and feeling really weird on the way home but not knowing what it was. She wasn't due for another month. I didn't got into labor with Jadon so I wasn't sure what I was feeling. When I went to bed, I was still feeling some pain but thought it would go away. About 2:00 a.m. I woke Dale up and told him we needed to go to the hospital. We scrambled to get everything together and on the way out the door, he said "Grab the name book!" We didn't have a name yet. During labor he was looking through the book. He found the name Sierra and said "How about putting a K in the S place? I thought it sounded good so we went with Kierra Marie Byers.
Kierra is a great girl with a lot of wonderful qualities. She is extremely artistic and creative. She is a great big sister and her little brothers and sister love her very much. She is always coming up with activities and games for them to play. She is a good friend and has a lot of friends that she loves doing things with. She is a good student and her teachers love having her in their classes. She is turning into a cute young lady, which is hard for us to accept, but I am happy that she has set some good goals for herself for her future. She will be a fantastic mother someday. She has always loved babies and loves her baby sister so much! We are lucky to have her in our family!
For the Easter break weekend, our family went on a staycation. I've wanted to go on a family trip for a long time but we can never plan anything because all our kids have different schedules. The only time they are all out of school is for holidays when everything is busy. So, I decided to do fun things around here. It was a surprise to the kids. I had been planning it for over a month and was so excited to finally tell them what we were doing.
We started out by going to a hotel in West Valley that has a waterslide. We stayed in a really fun two bedroom suite that had a little kitchen in it. It had 3 flat screen TV's and the kids thought that was awesome! The kids had a great time at the pool, especially going down the waterslide at night when it was pitch black. The hotel also had a home theater room that we reserved. We got Subway for dinner and ate dinner while we watched a movie. It was super fun!
On Friday we met Lisa's family at the front runner station downtown and rode the front runner to Ogden. We went to Fat Cat's and went bowling, drove bumper cars and rode a virtual roller coaster. Then we ate some yummy pizza at Pizza Factory. That night we went home and slept at our house. We got up early and were on the road by 8:00 a.m. to Pocatello.
Jadon, Kierra and Jaxon found out the night before that we were going to Idaho but Jake and Kyson didn't know where we were going until we drove into Grandma's neighborhood. We spent about an hour there and then got back in the van and drove to Bear World. The kids had a great time there. There was a petting zoo and some kiddie rides. The best part was when we went on a truck tour to feed the bears. There were tons of bears that came up to the truck and we fed them bread and donuts. It was amazing to be that close to the bears! On the way home we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and had tons of yummy food!
When we got home we colored Easter Eggs together and then went to bed. On Easter Sunday, we got up and got ready for 8:30 am church. The kids were a little disappointed that they didn't get to find their Easter baskets before church but got over it quickly. When they came home from church, they found their Easter Baskets then went on a wonderful Easter Egg hunt that Gladys and Dorothy made for the kids. They each had their own design of eggs and their own little basket. They each got to find 12 eggs. It was so much fun watching them run around finding eggs and then finding out what was inside. Gladys did such a great job of putting everything they love in them, including money! We had a yummy Easter dinner then played games. In the evening, we went to visit Dale's cousin, Ann. Everyone loved going there and we had a great time visiting them. On Monday morning the kids asked what we were going to do today. It broke my heart to tell them that we were going home. We did get to stop at Ross Park on the way home for some yummy lunch. We had such a great 5 days together and I can't wait until we do it again!
