I sat in a CPR class for 7 hours today. I had to become certified for work. I forgot how exhausting it is to just sit and listen to someone lecture. I think since having Link my attention span has gotten shorter. I was so ansy by the end, I could have screamed! I kept thinking I should have packed more snacks. And a coloring book would have been nice too.

Oh and tonight we went to Pei Wei for dinner. Have you seen their fountain drink dispenser? Seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I felt like I was in “Back to the Future.” I think they called it the Coca Cola Freestyle. Anyway, it’s this pod thing that has a touch screen where you select your flavor of soda. Sounds kinda simple, but here’s the thing, there are more than 100 combinations to try. Tonight I had peach-Sprite, vanilla-Diet Coke, and my favorite was orange-caffine-free-Diet Coke.

Oh, did I mention I ran a half marathon on last Monday, Memorial Day?! Yeah, you can go ahead and say it, I’m amazing! hehehe.

You can see proof here and here.

Because Miles and I ran the race together, neither of us were able to take pictures. A few good friends/spectators got some shots of us though. As soon as I can round up some pictures I’ll post them here. So stay tuned to see pictures of a couple of very sweaty, tired, and feeling-very-accomplished Michelle and Miles!

Official time: 2:05:36—We were trilled!

The past week has been incredibly eventful and fun!

It started when my sister and her family arrived last Sunday night. She, her husband, and three girls came to celebrate her two oldest daughters’ birthdays. On Monday we spent the day at the beach. Laguna Beach. My favorite beach. Parking usually stinks at Laguna, but this time of year it’s not too bad.

And of course they spent the mandatory two days at Disneyland. Miles and I devoted an entire day to Disney (using our beloved annual passes). The second day, I sent my sister with her husband and two oldest girls and I offered to watch their youngest (almost 3-year-old). Watching two little ones wore me out more than spending the entire day at Disneyland! I don’t know how mothers with more than one do it! By the end, I was counting the minutes until they walked through the door!

On Pirates of the Caribbean. Link freaked out on this ride and clung to mommy the whole time!

Link enjoys the carousel.

Waiting in line for the Pinocchio ride. Link didn’t dig this one either!

We found that using the backpack was much easier than a stroller. Link enjoyed just hanging out.

10-year-old Kiarah was brave and went on Space Mountain with me and her mom.

The birthday girls!

The girls’ favorite part was meeting the Disney Princesses: Ariel, Jasmine, and Belle.

Bell was their favorite.

My try-out pose for becoming a Disney Princess.

And this is Nate’s pose.

And here are the girls showing off their new princess merchandise. Notice Avery posing in her new Belle flipflops.

Here she is again.

And again

It was so much fun to see my sister and her family. I love my nieces to death. Nate is a stud and is so easy to be around. Their visit flew by. I miss them. Good thing I’m planning a trip to St. George in June!

So my sister’s family and my parents basically passed each other on the freeway. My sister left of Thursday for home, and my parents drove in to California Thursday night. My mom and dad were kind enough to watch Lincoln while Miles and I went on an overnighter (our first night away from Link) for our fourth anniversary. It was perfect! Link was an angel which made it so much easier to be away.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We stayed in the Hyatt on the Back Bay in Newport. We ate at an amazing seafood restaurant (The Cannery) which is right on the bay. You can literally drive your boat up and park (if we had a boat that is). I had the crusted halibut with these purple sweet potatoes and champagne sauce, and Miles had the swordfish that had a nummy mustard sauce. Both dishes were incredible. We had two desserts that night. Decadent Chocolate Molten Cake from the restaurant and a Reese’s Chocolate Peanutbutter Carmel Apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We had the left overs for breakfast in the hotel room!

Then, because we didn’t have our normal 7:00 pm curfew (Link’s bedtime) we went to a late showing of Star Trek. Miles loved it. And it was just alright for me. Just not my kind of movie I guess. But good for what it was.

We didn’t get to sleep until 2:00 in the morning! Then, we got to sleep in, but couldn’t sleep later than 9:00am. I guess that’s what happens when you get up at 6:00ish every morning (including weekends) for the past year. We were meaning to go for a run around the Back Bay loop trail right from our hotel room, but Miles forgot his shoes. Luckily we were close enough to home where we could swing by and pick them up. We finally got on the trail at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The run was hot, muggy, long (10.5 miles) and there wasn’t much water along the trail so we were miserably thirsty. I seemed like the worst run of my life! We did it though and afterwords we went straight to the closest gas station and bought 2 gallons of liquid (water and gatorade). Then we went and relaxed in the hotel hot tub and took a refreshing poolside nap. Ahhhh. Perfect!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Saturday we attended an Easter egg hunt hosted by an awesome couple from our church. They voluntarily put on the hunt every Easter and even save and store the plastic eggs to reuse every year. I’m guessing there were nearly a hundred people at the park. We had a very good time. Link successfully found two eggs—one for each hand. Mommy and Daddy enjoyed eating the chocolate!

Easter Dinner

Then on Sunday we invited a few couples over for Easter dinner. Last year at the time we were visiting some friends in New York. We were invited to eat Easter dinner with some people from their ward. We enjoyed ourselves so much we wanted to recreate something like it in our home.

We enjoyed a ham dinner with rolls, salad, “resurrection” potatoes (instead of funeral potatoes. Lilly and Clark are so clever!) and “empty tomb” sweet rolls for dessert (those Biesingers are so creative). The sweet rolls were so fun! They were hollow in the middle and were made by wrapping dough around a marshmallow. While cooking the marshmallow melts making the rolls, sweet, sticky, yummy, and hollow. I’ll have to remember that for next year! I wish I would have taken a picture!

After dinner we dyed eggs. Everyone embraced their creative genius. I made my magnum opus.

Stacey should just give up on the PhD and become an egg designer. Miles won the Nastiest Egg award. He dipped his egg in every color, shell-less. Looks appetizing eh? Lilly spent her night talking about geography while she created her version of the earth, if it were shaped like an egg. And Clark made a pretty blue egg.

The newlyweds just stared dreamily into each others’ eyes and successfully dyed their eggs one-handed. The other hand was busy holding hands! : )

Ok, ok, on a more serious note. I really, really enjoyed Easter this year. Not because of the entertaining activities, but because I felt I spent much more time than usual pondering and expressing gratitude for my Savior.