Last year (2014), I felt that there was just too much fun to be had at the Celebration of the Egg to keep it to just our Kennedy family, so this year we invited more family. The best kind of family. Family that we choose because they are our best friends. Moran Family.
In fact, it was a weekend of lots of good things. Easter. Celebration of the Egg. General Conference. Jared's birthday. I mean, c'mon! Thankfully, the Morans gave us a bit of time to celebrate everything by showing up on Thursday and not leaving until Monday. And as an added bonus, Mark came for the weekend too. WOOT!
Unfortunately, I was so busy entertaining (and having too much fun myself) that I took only a picture or two here and there. I'll do my best to describe everything in words.
Thursday night (April 2)
It was a guaranteed thing that John would be home this one and only day (no call at all), and he wanted to take Jared out to dinner. Of course, we did things in the complete wrong order and had him open his gifts at home first.
A month ago, the Morans had visited and despite our best efforts (and Jared cleaning out our "junk" drawer), we could not find one of our older models of an iPhone to give him. I think there must be some kind of iPhone gremlin who made off with all of our previously used models..... Anyway, I sent Rebecca a text, asking if she still had her iPhone 4, and to my great surprise, she DID! She was more than happy to give it to Jared, so I picked it up when I was out in Utah. I decided to add a Boston Red Sox/Fenway Park iPhone case to it, trying to keep the "cool" factor in the case while still thinking of something Jared would like.
Next, it was off to Texas Roadhouse. I mean, honestly, what would a trip to the Kennedys be without a visit to our favorite steakhouse? We even managed to get Jared on the saddle so the staff could sing to him.
We thought a trip to Dairy Queen would then be the cherry on top of the evening, but John had a better plan. Figuring everyone would spend about $4.00 each at DQ, he took us to Wegman's and let everyone choose any ice cream dessert from the freezer section for $4.00. It was a brilliant plan, although why nobody else chose Klondike bars, I will never know.
Need I mention game playing that evening? I didn't think so. We also watched the movie, Interstellar. Yeah, the jury is still out on that one.
Friday (April 3)
Oh boy. April was coming in as a lion, with rain, rain and more rain. We were holed up in the house for the day, but no worries, right? Sarah woke us bright and early with what I believe was chopping onions. I may have grumbled getting out of bed, but once the aroma from her beef and barley stew filled the house, all was forgiven :-)
We played games.
And surprise, surprise, we played some more games.
Mark came home too. He's a good boy, driving those six hours all alone.
We also dyed Easter eggs, and unbelievably, it was the first time the Moran family had done this.
I know. Read that sentence again. The Morans have never dyed Easter eggs as a family. And to mark this momentous occasion, I took pictures.
Not.
Friday night, I insisted that we go to bed early. There was a dark, ominous cloud looming on the horizon called "The Dirty Kiln".
Saturday (April 4)
While the girls all slept in (and got the house ready for General Conference), John, Jared, Mark, Sarah and I headed out to what will become one of the greatest adventures yet for us. Okay, maybe just for me, but with my terrible memory, you know it must be something good, considering I think I will never forget it.
The Dirty Kiln Race is either a five mile trail race, or a half marathon trail race. The key word in that sentence is trail. None of this mamby-pamby, running-on-paved-roads kind of race. Oh no. This was a full-out race of insanity.
Thankfully, Sarah was willing to stay with me and basically take the "race" out of the experience. The first two miles is climbing up a mountain. And no, I'm not exaggerating. In fact, when I looked at my Fitbit (which counts floors I've climbed in a day), it read 72 floors. Oh my gosh, I felt at times that I needed to take my lungs out of my body and just carry them up the mountain with me. And I was doing pretty well until Sarah mentioned that she just couldn't look down, because I then, of course, DID look down. There's nothing like running on an eight-inch wide trail on the side of the mountain, unable to breathe, and using trees to pull yourself up the slope. Well, I wasn't doing much running, and Sarah was a sport, staying with me.
I thought we were in the clear when we finally reached the top, but holy smokes, no. In fact, this is the part where both John and Mark told me that they were worried that I would die. Going down wouldn't be near so bad if 450 people hadn't gone before us and made a mud pit out of the entire trail. Oh my gosh, it was all I could do to stay upright, and in fact, at one point, I didn't. I was laughing the entire way, especially as I could hear Sarah behind me, gasping as she would see me about to fall. We were both happy to just keep our shoes on through the mud, although we were looking to see if any Cinderellas had lost their New Balance slippers in the mud.
It was an absolute blast. It was also longer than five miles. Using our Fitbits and GPS devices, we all concluded that it was more like six miles. John's course was still 13.1.
One of the best parts of the course was the two stream crossings. I was a bit nervous about these, knowing that John had saved a guy from drowning the previous year. However, the course directors must have gotten feedback, because there were guys posted there now to help us across the rivers. That's right, folks--streams, schmeams. These were high and fast. They were rivers.
Jared and Mark actually came back on the trail to find Sarah and me. It was fun finishing the course with them, and John wasn't far behind. However, he was off to the hospital to round on patients, and we were rushing to get home to watch conference. We stopped and got kebabs.
When we came home, the girls had set up a smorgasbord of food for Conference. And the house was clean. And they were showered and dressed. *sigh* We all sat down and were fed both physically and spiritually.
(Part of watching Conference in our home is humoring the "Conference Cats". They know they have you trapped, and that you WILL pet them. Natalie was more than happy to oblige!)
After the first session, we waited while the Easter Bunny set up a ginormous Easter Egg hunt outside. Thankfully, the sun was shining, although the wind was blowing. In fact, sometimes we worried about those weightless dollar-filled eggs just blowing away....
In the end, Mark ended up with more prize eggs than he wanted, and Glo ended up with more money than she wanted. They made a trade and both were happy :-) Watching Mark, I'm thinking Sales and Marketing might be a better major for him :-)
Back to watching more conference. In fact, I think some of us were drifting off when *BAM* our power went out. In the nine years of living in our home, our power has NEVER gone out for more than a minute or two. Unfortunately, a driver had slammed into a power line somewhere and 1,500 homes were without power for almost twelve hours.
While the sun was still out, we headed to the side of the house for BB gun shooting. What better targets than the eggs we had dyed the day before?
Not to end the fun, we then had Chuck-It Target Game (can't think of a better name). It basically involved taking the Chuck-It (the ball thrower for the dogs), filling it with an egg, and trying to chuck the egg into a dog bowl a hundred yards away. I ask you, what more do you need for fun than THAT?
The men ended up watching priesthood on the laptop (because we still didn't have power), and we girls had a great night playing Mafia and singing musical soundtracks around the piano. Once again, we went to bed early.
Sunday (April 5)
The first order of business for me was getting out of bed and figuring out how to walk into the bathroom. Ouch--I had obviously used new muscles on the trail that aren't regularly used on the treadmill!
Everyone was up early, because Mark had requested that we eat Easter dinner at lunchtime because he knew he would need to leave for Michigan at some point. Man, with the power out the night before, there was a LOT to get ready in a very short period of time. However, we all pulled together and got it done! Ham, potatoes, frog-eye salad, cinnamon rolls (requested by Glo), fruit salad. It was all so springtimey delicious :-)
Back to watching Conference.
Then, my second favorite part of the weekend happened. A couple of weeks earlier, Sarah had asked if I would be willing to take family pictures for her family. There were seriously some nights I couldn't go to sleep because I was soooooo excited about doing this. And the Morans were great! They came dressed in terrific outfits--complimentary and cute--and they were great about being flexible and doing whatever I asked. I ended up with 219 pictures which I trimmed down to 92 (thanks mostly to Natalie who likes to do her own thing in pictures). It was all I could do to watch the last session of conference and NOT edit all those pictures.
Mark left after conference. He was exhausted from not getting enough sleep over the weekend, and I worried about him driving home. I felt like I hadn't seen him the whole weekend.
After two days of no game-playing, we got our game faces back on and brought it to the table. In fact, by the end of the weekend, we were tied: Jared and I at 3 games won, John and Sarah at one game each.
Monday (April 6)
We agreed to sleep in on Monday, but seeing that John was up with the rising sun, I didn't get to sleep in. No worries though--we still had some last minute Celebration of the Egg business to take care of: the RAW egg toss!
Thankfully, the Morans were down with heading out to Five Guys for lunch, and Jared found some running shoes in downtown State College.
Then, like the champs they are, they helped us clean up the entire house. It was "leave no trace" but inside a house :-)
Thanks, everyone, for making the weekend so wonderful. Maybe we should do it again?!
In fact, it was a weekend of lots of good things. Easter. Celebration of the Egg. General Conference. Jared's birthday. I mean, c'mon! Thankfully, the Morans gave us a bit of time to celebrate everything by showing up on Thursday and not leaving until Monday. And as an added bonus, Mark came for the weekend too. WOOT!
Unfortunately, I was so busy entertaining (and having too much fun myself) that I took only a picture or two here and there. I'll do my best to describe everything in words.
Thursday night (April 2)
It was a guaranteed thing that John would be home this one and only day (no call at all), and he wanted to take Jared out to dinner. Of course, we did things in the complete wrong order and had him open his gifts at home first.
A month ago, the Morans had visited and despite our best efforts (and Jared cleaning out our "junk" drawer), we could not find one of our older models of an iPhone to give him. I think there must be some kind of iPhone gremlin who made off with all of our previously used models..... Anyway, I sent Rebecca a text, asking if she still had her iPhone 4, and to my great surprise, she DID! She was more than happy to give it to Jared, so I picked it up when I was out in Utah. I decided to add a Boston Red Sox/Fenway Park iPhone case to it, trying to keep the "cool" factor in the case while still thinking of something Jared would like.
Next, it was off to Texas Roadhouse. I mean, honestly, what would a trip to the Kennedys be without a visit to our favorite steakhouse? We even managed to get Jared on the saddle so the staff could sing to him.
 |
| "stop what you're doin', and swallow what you're chewin'...." |
We thought a trip to Dairy Queen would then be the cherry on top of the evening, but John had a better plan. Figuring everyone would spend about $4.00 each at DQ, he took us to Wegman's and let everyone choose any ice cream dessert from the freezer section for $4.00. It was a brilliant plan, although why nobody else chose Klondike bars, I will never know.
Need I mention game playing that evening? I didn't think so. We also watched the movie, Interstellar. Yeah, the jury is still out on that one.
Friday (April 3)
Oh boy. April was coming in as a lion, with rain, rain and more rain. We were holed up in the house for the day, but no worries, right? Sarah woke us bright and early with what I believe was chopping onions. I may have grumbled getting out of bed, but once the aroma from her beef and barley stew filled the house, all was forgiven :-)
We played games.
And surprise, surprise, we played some more games.
Mark came home too. He's a good boy, driving those six hours all alone.
We also dyed Easter eggs, and unbelievably, it was the first time the Moran family had done this.
I know. Read that sentence again. The Morans have never dyed Easter eggs as a family. And to mark this momentous occasion, I took pictures.
Not.
Friday night, I insisted that we go to bed early. There was a dark, ominous cloud looming on the horizon called "The Dirty Kiln".
Saturday (April 4)
While the girls all slept in (and got the house ready for General Conference), John, Jared, Mark, Sarah and I headed out to what will become one of the greatest adventures yet for us. Okay, maybe just for me, but with my terrible memory, you know it must be something good, considering I think I will never forget it.
 |
| Before the race. John was the only one who knew what was actually in store for us all. |
The Dirty Kiln Race is either a five mile trail race, or a half marathon trail race. The key word in that sentence is trail. None of this mamby-pamby, running-on-paved-roads kind of race. Oh no. This was a full-out race of insanity.
Thankfully, Sarah was willing to stay with me and basically take the "race" out of the experience. The first two miles is climbing up a mountain. And no, I'm not exaggerating. In fact, when I looked at my Fitbit (which counts floors I've climbed in a day), it read 72 floors. Oh my gosh, I felt at times that I needed to take my lungs out of my body and just carry them up the mountain with me. And I was doing pretty well until Sarah mentioned that she just couldn't look down, because I then, of course, DID look down. There's nothing like running on an eight-inch wide trail on the side of the mountain, unable to breathe, and using trees to pull yourself up the slope. Well, I wasn't doing much running, and Sarah was a sport, staying with me.
 |
| The reason WHY the race is called "The Dirty Kiln". Several kilns that appear dirty ;-) |
 |
| Poor Sarah--I made her stop to take pictures. And just when we didn't think it could get any worse.... |
 |
| Hmmmm. Kind of reminds me of something else.... |
One of the best parts of the course was the two stream crossings. I was a bit nervous about these, knowing that John had saved a guy from drowning the previous year. However, the course directors must have gotten feedback, because there were guys posted there now to help us across the rivers. That's right, folks--streams, schmeams. These were high and fast. They were rivers.
 |
| The first "stream" |
 |
| No joke, some guy was running past me and said, "A muddy a** means you're WORKING!" I couldn't have asked for a nice compliment :-) |
 |
| The Fearsome Four Five-Milers...after running through the river. There was actual BLOOD on my leg. Don't know how it got there, but it felt like my badge of honor! |
When we came home, the girls had set up a smorgasbord of food for Conference. And the house was clean. And they were showered and dressed. *sigh* We all sat down and were fed both physically and spiritually.
(Part of watching Conference in our home is humoring the "Conference Cats". They know they have you trapped, and that you WILL pet them. Natalie was more than happy to oblige!)
After the first session, we waited while the Easter Bunny set up a ginormous Easter Egg hunt outside. Thankfully, the sun was shining, although the wind was blowing. In fact, sometimes we worried about those weightless dollar-filled eggs just blowing away....
In the end, Mark ended up with more prize eggs than he wanted, and Glo ended up with more money than she wanted. They made a trade and both were happy :-) Watching Mark, I'm thinking Sales and Marketing might be a better major for him :-)
 |
| Natalie chose all of the glow-in-the-dark bracelets and other fun items as one of her prizes :-) |
Back to watching more conference. In fact, I think some of us were drifting off when *BAM* our power went out. In the nine years of living in our home, our power has NEVER gone out for more than a minute or two. Unfortunately, a driver had slammed into a power line somewhere and 1,500 homes were without power for almost twelve hours.
While the sun was still out, we headed to the side of the house for BB gun shooting. What better targets than the eggs we had dyed the day before?
 |
| Poor Egbert.... |
Not to end the fun, we then had Chuck-It Target Game (can't think of a better name). It basically involved taking the Chuck-It (the ball thrower for the dogs), filling it with an egg, and trying to chuck the egg into a dog bowl a hundred yards away. I ask you, what more do you need for fun than THAT?
 |
| Glo won the first round, Brother Moran won the second round. |
The men ended up watching priesthood on the laptop (because we still didn't have power), and we girls had a great night playing Mafia and singing musical soundtracks around the piano. Once again, we went to bed early.
 |
| Natalie made Hootie a campfire for riding out the power outage. |
Sunday (April 5)
The first order of business for me was getting out of bed and figuring out how to walk into the bathroom. Ouch--I had obviously used new muscles on the trail that aren't regularly used on the treadmill!
Everyone was up early, because Mark had requested that we eat Easter dinner at lunchtime because he knew he would need to leave for Michigan at some point. Man, with the power out the night before, there was a LOT to get ready in a very short period of time. However, we all pulled together and got it done! Ham, potatoes, frog-eye salad, cinnamon rolls (requested by Glo), fruit salad. It was all so springtimey delicious :-)
Back to watching Conference.
Then, my second favorite part of the weekend happened. A couple of weeks earlier, Sarah had asked if I would be willing to take family pictures for her family. There were seriously some nights I couldn't go to sleep because I was soooooo excited about doing this. And the Morans were great! They came dressed in terrific outfits--complimentary and cute--and they were great about being flexible and doing whatever I asked. I ended up with 219 pictures which I trimmed down to 92 (thanks mostly to Natalie who likes to do her own thing in pictures). It was all I could do to watch the last session of conference and NOT edit all those pictures.
 |
| Basically, every picture I kept was my favorite, but this one REALLY is a favorite! |
Mark left after conference. He was exhausted from not getting enough sleep over the weekend, and I worried about him driving home. I felt like I hadn't seen him the whole weekend.
After two days of no game-playing, we got our game faces back on and brought it to the table. In fact, by the end of the weekend, we were tied: Jared and I at 3 games won, John and Sarah at one game each.
 |
| Sternenfahrer--one game that I can still win, but it's only because Jared hasn't had time to figure it out yet. |
Monday (April 6)
We agreed to sleep in on Monday, but seeing that John was up with the rising sun, I didn't get to sleep in. No worries though--we still had some last minute Celebration of the Egg business to take care of: the RAW egg toss!
 |
| Glo and Emily--the winners for BOTH rounds! |
 |
| Rookie mistake--Jared wore his wedding ring while playing and chipped the shell. He literally watched the victory slip through his fingers :-) |
Then, like the champs they are, they helped us clean up the entire house. It was "leave no trace" but inside a house :-)
Thanks, everyone, for making the weekend so wonderful. Maybe we should do it again?!
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