March Fun

March was another fun month for the Ockeys. We spent a few weekends in St. George, but we also had plenty of fun at home. Mark and Mom continued to enjoy their Wednesdays together. The weather was mostly dry, though still very cold, so they had a few great adventures. 

Mark got his braces off!

We celebrated the Jazz at the All Star Game.

The puppies are bigger than the boys!

And they don't love being held anymore.

But that doesn't stop Seth and Dax from trying!

Seth was chosen as one of the winners from our school fundraiser and he chose the prize of spraying the principal with silly string.

He said it was so much fun!

When the Ferlans visit, we always go to Brookers for ice cream.

This year we treated ourselves to a Thanksgiving Point Pass. It's been a while since we've had one, so we wrote it off as a business expense. So far, it's been great, and we've visited all our old favorites. One thing we love is the Butterfly Biosphere. We decided to check it out since we hadn't been in more than a year. There weren't any crowds, and the butterflies loved spending time with us.

Dad landed a pretty blue butterfly.

This beauty landed on Seth.

Mark loved this exquisite orange and black.

Dax's is blue on the inside.

We are glad for our Thanksgiving Point Pass again.

Mom loves the butterflies almost as much as the tulips.

U Dig Fossils has been on Dad's list for years, but it's just so far out in the West Desert! When they finally called us and asked if we'd come out for a visit, we couldn't say No. It's a family run operation, and the family treated us so well. We were amazed that you can find and keep trilobytes in almost every rock you pick up! And since we were in the Delta area, we visited an old hermit's cabin and tried out a new restaurant, too.

Mark was most excited about finding a good fossil.

Seth loved breaking things with a hammer.

Dax found a lot of cool trilobytes.

We found a fossil in almost every rock we split.

Mark split rocks like a pro.

We had such a great time on this little adventure.

We also did some hiking, while the boys did some climbing.

The hermit's cabin was really remote, but pretty awesome.

You can almost see Dad's desire to move out of society.

Dad and Dax posed at the restaurant in Delta.

On the way home we finally stopped at the kilns we always drive past.

All growing up, Mom and Dad painted Easter Eggs. It was a pretty big deal. We still spend some time painting Easter Eggs, but a bigger tradition for us now is decorating sugar cookies. We laugh and mix frosting colors, which Mom pretends to be upset about it. We eat way more cookies than we should, but it has become a wonderful tradition for us. Best of all, though only a few of us eat boiled eggs, we all love sugar cookies!

Some people like dying eggs, but we do better with Easter sugar cookies.

The boys made faces on their cookies. Mark's is not impressed.

Seth made the cutest Easter bunny.

We love visiting This is the Place in the Spring to see the baby animals. We didn't have too many open days with baseball and soccer season starting, so we squeezed it in one morning, and then that afternoon we headed to Las Vegas for Dax's baseball tournament and the start of our Spring Break.

This is the Place Heritage Park is one of our favorite state parks.

We usually don't have time for the playground, but Seth really enjoys it.

Dax was so excited to see a fake trilobite fossil like the ones we had been digging for last week.

The boys enjoy a good pony ride. 

Mark is too big, but Dax still likes a ride.

We took a few moments to honor the pioneers and visit all the memorials in this park.