Easters

We had a nice Easter. Zak's grandparents invited us over, so we left mid-morning to arrive for the feast. Our drive was mostly uneventful, the weather was beautiful and calm. There was a really obnoxious/dangerous driver that tailed us for about 10 minutes. She was even given half a dozen opportunities to pass us, but didn't take them. I was driving and trying not to hit the car in front of us or have a collision with the moron behind us. Eventually, she passed us, and then tailed the car in front of us. We watched them do that to a few cars, and almost get into an accident. A+!

I brought a cake to contribute. I got the recipe from my mom, who had made it a few weeks previous. It was a very delicious white cake, with strawberries mixed in with whipped cream for the filling and topping (the recipe is posted on my recipe blog, here is the direct link). I made the cakes the night before, and mixed us the whipped cream and cut the strawberries that morning. We filled an ice bag and put the whipped cream in there, and when we arrived, it was not as stiff as I had hoped it would be. I threw it altogether and put it in the fridge to set up for a few hours.

not as pretty as I hoped, as I was a bit rushed, next time it will be prettier!

Dinner/lunch was yummy. Ham, potatoes, even jello salad! It was nice to be around Zak's family and share the holiday with them. We stuffed ourselves and then relaxed for awhile, while waiting to enjoy the cake. The cake was indeed, delicious. And worth every bite! I quickly made sure a piece would be saved for Jenna, and stored it away. Everyone loved the cake and we ate the whole thing up!

yum!

Zak and I stayed the night, so we wouldn't be driving so much; Jenna was arriving in Spokane the following night. It was nice to relax, talk to his grandparents and walk around their property. It was fun to listen to Zak's stories of his childhood, running around with his cousin, all of the animals and machines they'd play with. Zak's uncle Rick has a chicken coop, along with some other animals. There were some rabbits, baby chicks, a few chickens, a turkey, and a peacock, that had apparently just wandered onto their land! He let the turkey out, and although it was supposedly friendly, it got a bit too close for comfort for me. I admired the animals from afar. Their cat followed us around like a puppy, it was very funny. He loved having some attention. We also wandered around the orchard and took some pictures of the pretty cherry and peach tree blossoms. Too bad there were no fresh fruit to pick just yet! Hopefully we'll be back later for some peaches and cherries.

two chickens & a peacock
stare-off with the turkey
our new 'pet'
mrow

peach tree blossoms

The next morning we left for Spokane. The weather had turned fairly nasty, but the driving to Spokane wasn't horrendous. It was pretty easy to get there, though, so that's something. We had a few hours to kill, so we wandered around Northtown Mall. It was nice to be in a mall with more than one story? We did a bit of light shopping, lots of window shopping, and spent some time in our favorite store: the reptile store. It is awesome. We spent forever in it last time we were in Spokane, back in the fall. I just love looking at the huge pythons and boas! I want to have enough money to buy one of those $600+ snakes, along with a feeder for it. That'd be pretty sweet.

Zak's newest animal friend; if it wasn't $70, we would've come home with it

We quickly grabbed some dinner and headed to the airport to pick up Jenna. The drive home turned out to be pretty scary about halfway home. The weather just got horrible, with heavy, rapid rain and low visibility. Plus, we were in the middle of the Palouse, so the roads are windy and unlit. We had to slow down a lot, have the wipers on full blast, and turn the hi-beams on just to make sure we wouldn't crash. It was definitely the scariest weather I've ever witnessed inside of a car. Thankfully, it only last about 10-15 minutes, but those were the longest, most silent minutes of the drive. Zak did an excellent job and didn't allow anything bad to happen to us, the car, or anyone else. It was a relief to be back home safe.

There are a lot more pictures from our trip that I uploaded to my Picasa account. I just figured it out (kind of) and you can view those pictures by clicking on these words, or by cutting and pasting this URL into your address bar: https://picasaweb.google.com/rozeharten/Easter?authkey=Gv1sRgCNOY0-i_1-_1iQE&feat=directlink

this was taken after I realized I needed to 'un-zoom', so it's the best we could do after 4 pictures