Easter in Escalante!

We finally made it over to visit Grandma Alvey (or "Grandma Abby" as Abby calls her) in Escalante during Easter break. We were joined by my brothers and their families, David even brought the dog. Here are the kids out in the orchard playing frisbee - I have many fond memories of the orchard - running through the sprinklers, climbing trees and wearing the front packs to hold all the apples and pears we picked.

The kids loved having "Rufus there - they have been begging for their own dog ever since.

Escalante is my favorite place to "Easter". It was a tradition while we were growing up to decorate easter eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's and then pack our picnic and head to Calf Creek Falls, where we would hike and the easter bunny would come. I didn't hike this year - I didn't think that I could convince my doctor that a 5 mile hike was mandatory activity, since I am on a modified bed rest and anything optional is strongly discouraged, so Michael and Elsa took on the task of herding all 3 of the kids up the trail. Here are the happy hikers - just starting the trip! Dad, Mom and Courtnie also helped with the kids! THANKS!

Here is Michael and Abby at the beginning of the hike

Here they are later - Abby had a great nap - Michael probably had a sore back.

Here are the Falls - you can't quite see the top but they are impressive falls - that's even coming from someone who lived in Oregon for quite a few years.

As expected - the easter bunny was spotted as we were finishing our picnic. Here are some of the best pictures. Abby had quite a time, last year I hid dried fruit in the eggs, so with the candy in the eggs it was a whole new experience for her.

The easter bunny left a few bigger toys as well - Miles found a football (orange, his new favorite color, of course), Ethan found a bakagon (spelling?) cards and Abby found new sidewalk chalk.

This is one of my favorite pictures - Abby didn't get a fraction of the easter eggs her brothers did, even though the easter bunny hid quite a few at her level. She had to open each egg as she found it to make sure that there was candy in all of them.