Dr. Seuss cake

I still need to desperately work on my cake stacking skills... But I think the baking turned out ok. Especially since it was mostly a box mix : )
That got a little dressed up with some extra ingredients and flashy colors!
I tried leveling the layers which helped but I guess I should have also cut the edges to be more uniform...
I stuck it in the fridge so it wouldn't completely fall apart
oh well : )

Another reason for weight gain...

I had a double cone at Thrifty's.
Well it's now know as rite aid but it still carries the Thrify's ice cream and their super cool ice cream scoop. The scooper is a cylinder and each scoop comes out perfect and huge. And it's cheap.
The best flavor is chocolate malted crunch. Chocolate ice cream with chocolate flakes and mini malt balls. Yum!!!!! I know that I live in a foodie capitol here in NYC and I will never try to argue that Fresno is better food-wise, but sometimes it's nice to just get all of your favorite home-y foods : )

That's what a hamburger's all about!

Wanna know why I gained not one but two pounds while in the golden state?
Cause I ate this twice...

in 24 hours. And it was like heaven on earth. I did skip the chocolate shake and animal style fries the second time at least.

East egg toss

One of our funny Easter traditions at the ranch originating as seeing who could throw the already found Easter eggs the furthers over the creek. While I've been absent from the Easter festivities, things have morphed into using a water balloon launcher to aid in distance and impact.

Here's Kate getting excited...
Dan launching his first East egg of many I'm sure. Pulling it back...
Woops! Gotta make sure it's secure!
And release!
I think it's one of our best traditions : )

At the Ranch

On Easter we always go up to my great-grandma's ranch in the foothills outside of Fresno. It's big and green and beautiful and fresh. All those things that remind you of Easter. Even though she passed away a few years ago, we still all go up there and have a BBQ. But before the huge Easter egg hunt or chowing down on hamburgers and hotdogs, we have to take pictures in a little garden-ish area in front of the front door.

These are all my sweet girlie cousins. I cannot believe how big they all are now!
My aunt, grandma and my momma
Los padres
Tender times
Dan started to get a little tired of all the picture taking...
So then we got these little gems...
I know, so sweet!
Then we chow down on all sorts of unhealthiness because it's Easter and Easter is all about sweets. I tried making a multi-colored cake. It turned out a little more Dr. Suessical than Easter-ish but it still tasted pretty good : )
Oh yeah!
Next up, my favorite Easter tradition!

Easter!

I absolutely love Easter! It's my favorite holiday and it's the most fun holiday we celebrate in my family. It's a little more relaxed and easy going compared to Christmas. And of course I love the whole purpose of why we celebrate Easter and spring and re-birth. This was my first Easter home in 7 years and I was sooo happy to be able to be surrounded by family, go to the ranch, and do our fun traditions.

We went to sacrament meeting that morning and wore our Easter outfits of course.
Then we had to get Fitz in the picture. It's okay you can make fun of us. : )
Then we had to get a family pic that included Fitz. You can see Dan's opinion of that...
My cousins and me...
And the Parish clan
The Parish's always do Easter morning at my parents house. So they came over after church and we took our pictures and then found our Easter goodies. I got Dan another 3 packs of Reese's Easter egg cups (because they're the best!!!) I think that might have been going onto out 15 package of those things. We're going to die once we run out!

Next! Easter at the Ranch!

Monterey Bay

On el Dan Thomson's actual birthday, we drove out to Monterey Bay so Dan could actually see the ocean once when we go out to California. We planned on going whale watching as Dan loves whales but it was too windy out so all the trips were canceled for the day. Bummer! Instead we saw some seals...
Walked around the warf, admiring the boats
And more seals
We of course toured all the novelty shops. This one sported a pirate climbing away. It was a little creepy...
Then we got the absolutely best clam chowder. Sooooo good!!
More boats with blue sky and blue water
Tender times
Dan got a chocolate covered strawberry while I downed some ice cream.
On the way home you have to pass a reservoir and the water was so ridiculously blue, this picture doesn't even begin to show it.
In the afternoon we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was pretty cool. While walking around the old neighborhood near the aquarium, Dan decided to get his palm read. Lots of generalizations about having a great upcoming year, she told him he was a good cook (not true at all), and that he wouldn't need to worry about money so much (I didn't know we were so worried about that). She also said he needed to be more open spiritually (kinda implying he needed to accept what she was telling him from reading his palm). It was good times : )