Life of Dye: Homemade General Conference Goods and Spring Break

For my kids, conference means two things: cinnamon rolls and conference activity books.

This year I did not make conference activity books because they don't really do them. They like them for about 5 minutes but half-way through the first speaker of the first session, they're jumping over the furniture and asking for food and the books are never looked at again.

Saturday morning Sarah asked if I was going to make her a new conference book. "No," I said. "Go find the one I made you last year. You only colored like half a page."

She went off, to look for it but quite a while later she yelled, "Henry, I made you a conference book!"

These are my favorite pages. I think it's better than anything on pinterest.

Since I took Justin seriously when he jokingly said I should double the cinnamon roll recipe, I did this in my mixer. It was not fun to clean.

But they still turned out beautiful and delicious--even the pan that I forgot to sprinkle the cinnamon on before rolling up.

I had 24 gigantic rolls. I had to give some away and put some in the freezer. (FHE treat tonight?)

Random picture but I like to be chronological. This is a neighbor girl who came over to play with Sarah but Sarah couldn't play until she finished cleaning her room. So while she waited, Erica kept her busy by bringing her books to read to her.

The following Wednesday we went to St. George for spring break. This trip was pretty similar to the trip we took in January 2015 since my kids had to do their favorite things again but we tried some new stuff too.

We stopped at Red Cliffs on our way down. Justin took me on this hike on the way home from our honeymoon and I hated it because I had to scale cliffs and repel with a old rope and I was wearing flip flops. I'm pretty sure I didn't talk to him for the rest of the drive home. He's been trying for 10 years to get me to go again. I finally agreed to put the demons to rest but told him I was a grown up and could decide for myself when I wanted to stop and go back.

I forgot that there were lots of cool things to see before the death-defying part.

Dusty bums.

See how green this is? I miss leaves.

And then the pools begin.

I taught Erica to throw rocks in the water to keep her from wanting to run into the water.

Sarah jumped right in because she doubted Justin when he said it can get deep suddenly. He was right; she had to be rescued.

Then we got to my parents' condo in Hurricane, cleaned up, the kids ran around exploring the house and yard then we got fried chicken for dinner.

Thursday was our best weather day so we planned more outside stuff. This is Pioneer Park in St. George.

Also known as where my kids run up things and give me heart attacks.

There were times I just couldn't watch them or had to go another way.

Then we went to the Children's Museum.

Henry wants to be a farmer when he grows up so he likes this room.

Designated Dad Bench. There's one in every room and it's what we looked for first.

It was pretty crowded so I took a long time to get this shot. She's so cute.

Grocery store room. They go crazy for these little carts and play food. Hey kids, we have a toy cart and play food at home.

We do not have a sweet checkout lane though.

The Government Room. President Henry anyone?

I took a picture of this book so I could maybe find it at the library for my kids someday. I'll make them read it for a sweet prize.

Do you know which kid of mine this is? Picasa can't tell.

The Fairy Tale room. Henry means "ruler of the household" and Erica means "eternal ruler" so looks like they found their proper chairs.

I'm surprised she let me put this on her.

There's a lot more I didn't take pictures of but it's a cute place.

Outside at the city park we ate a picnic lunch and then the kids changed into their swimming suits for the splashpad.

Erica liked doing her own splashing but FREAKED out if, heaven forbid, someone ran past and splashed her.

Then we went to Nielsen's to get frozen custard ice cream cones then drove back to Hurricane. That night we ate dinner at Rigatti's in Washington. Best pizza I've had in a long time.

Friday was an iffy sort of weather day and the pool we wanted to go to didn't open until 2 so we went to Toquerville Falls. You drive on the craziest, bumpiest, washed out, bolder strewn road for a few miles and then you get to this. Such a random place for a waterfall.

Thanks for ruining a perfectly good picture, Henry.

Hey look, there's me. I was there!

More rock throwing. Erica has no fear and would have walked right into the stream and gotten carried by the current down the falls and lost forever so after a little while, I made her go hang out in the car with me and eat string cheese.

Then we went back for lunch, rested, then went swimming at Washington's city pool. The kids had a blast and Erica is hilarious in the water. She has no fear. Then we went to Black Bear Diner in St. George because that was the one place Henry and Sarah wanted to eat. We each ordered tons of food and ate so much. What is it about swimming that makes you so hungry?

Saturday. Now these red rocks and red sand are at Snow Canyon State Park. I had never been there in my whole life. These are the sand dunes.

Someone was getting their wedding pictures done. I think it's a very cool idea.

You can run all you want here, kids. It's nice and soft.

My photography skills don't do this justice. These bushes were blue, I tell ya!

In 1894 or something, pioneer youths wrote their names in axle grease on this wall. Now it's a historical site. There's a lesson to all you graffiti punks out there. Give it time and we'll think your defacing of nature is of historical significance and go out of our way to see it.