Kirtland

A couple weeks ago we were both lucky to have a Friday off and so we decided to take a day trip down to Kirtland, OH. We had never been there before despite it only being about 3.5 hours away. On the advice of a friend we went to the old temple first, maintained by the Community of Christ. The building was pretty neat although the tour was kind of lackluster. It was raining so we didn't get many pictures outside. Next we headed to the LDS site just down the hill. It kind of reminded me of Nauvoo because there are several fixed up or replica buildings that are part of the tour--Whitney Store, Ashery, Mill, Whitney home, etc. On this tour we walked around outside from building to building, so fortunately it had stopped raining just as we arrived. As always the sister missionaries were very enthusiastic tour guides and we learned a lot of interesting new things.

Sunday Snooze

A nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon. (Okay this picture was actually from a few weeks ago while watching General Conference. But it is nice to have morning church so that there is a chance to have a nap sometimes. Especially for Caleb and his early before church meetings.)

Happy Easter

Every year my family always had strawberry shortcake on Easter. This year I decided to try something new and made my own angel food cake. It uses an ton of egg whites and I was a little worried that even though it looked pretty good that it would not taste right. But it was a delicious finish after a delicious meal (which was a great new food adventure itself).

Hakuna Matata

The first weekend in April, we went to see the Lion King. It was amazing. The way they do all the costumes makes all the different animals come to life. When all the "animals" come in at the beginning through the audience and up onto the stage, it is so neat. The woman who played Rafiki had a great voice and was very funny. If you have an opportunity to go, we highly recommend it. Afterwards the cast was fundraising for Broadway Cares and you could pay to have your picture taken with Rafiki. So Caleb went for a repeat performance of his picture with Rafiki from when we went to Disney World 2 years ago.

And the Winner is...

Once again the girls have won the family bracket--this time Kattie. Many of us were really thrown when none of the #1 seed teams made it to the Final Four. Oh well. We had a lot of fun watching basketball for a few weeks. Caleb and I are proud of our win in the decoration category. And I am not at all surprised that Isaac won the trivia portion--he has always remembered everything about basketball.

The Madness had Begun

In continuing the Ipson Tradition, we got busy decorating for the season. Everyone in the neighborhood will know that we have March Madness.

 This year we went for the living room (notice the basketball covered futon). We have spent the past few evenings and all day Saturday watching the games.

And we did our bedroom. We have orange sheets and our basketball bed cover.

Sid Sitting

Caleb being the generous person that he is agreed to watch the dog of some people in our ward for 12 days. He (Sensei aka Sid/Sidley) is a very cute black and white Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The challenging part of this was that Sid is still a puppy--they had only had him for 2 weeks. And you know what that means--not house trained. During the day and at night he would be in his crate and did well. But when he was out you had to keep a close eye on him. His favorite way to torture Caleb was to go right under the middle of the bed, making it very difficult to clean up. We quickly made it so he could no longer get under there. But by the end of his stay with us, Sid was getting pretty good at the routine and had less "accidents."


Sid is full of energy and just wanted to play with Sadie and Sylvester but for the most part they would have none of it. Sadie would avoid him and walk away most of the time when he came near. Once in a while Sylvester would play with him for a couple minutes and then be done. I think it was very difficult for them to have this strange puppy in their space. They seemed on edge the entire time and are much more relaxed now that he is gone.


Sid is also a shedder. I am sure glad one of my criteria when we got a dog was that it wouldn't shed (the poodle part of the cockapoo). It was amazing how much hair a little dog like that can lose. Just hold him for 30 sec and your shirt is covered in hair. So after he left we "dehairified" the house."

It was an interesting experience but not one I wish to repeat.