Earth Day/Easter Weekend

So what do you get when you combine Earth Day and Easter together all in one weekend?  Well, in our house you get one fun filled and busy weekend.  Friday was filled up with our trip to the Dallas Zoo and baseball practice that evening. Saturday began bright and early at 6am when Michael, Alyssa and Dalton got up to go to Lowe's in order to get a free tree as part of Lowe's One in a Million free tree give away in honor of Earth Day.  While there Alyssa was able to convince the people at Lowe's to give her 5 free trees so that she could save the planet.  In addition to the five trees they brought home to plant, they also came back with a strawberry plant, tomato plants, and flowers to plant in a garden.

Around mid-day we got the kids dressed and headed over to Bass Pro Shops.  Alyssa and Cayden had been asking us to take them to see the Easter Bunny and what better place is there to go see the Easter Bunny than Bass Pro Shops.  When we arrived we were greeted at the main entrance by employees whom informed us that they were having an Easter egg hunt throughout the store for the kids if they wished to participate and directed us to where the photos with the bunny were being taken as well as where they were hosting Easter crafts for the kids.  So as I stood in line for photos the kids ran through the store hunting for eggs.  They each returned with their allotted five eggs filled with candy, had their pictures taken and then made a foam egg craft before we left.

After Bass Pro Shops and a quick stop at Wal-Mart we headed home, changed clothes and spent the evening digging out two garden beds for some of the flowers they'd purchased that morning.  While digging out the flower beds the kids spent plenty of time playing in the dirt and collecting earth worms. Little did they know that those earthworms were going to be useful the next day.

With the flowers planted, baths taken and dinner eaten it was time to dye some Easter eggs before they had to go to bed. 

Later that night the Easter Bunny passed and left each kid a little something for Easter.

Now of course Sunday morning began with the kids finding their gifts and checking out their baskets, followed by some practice fishing off of the deck in the backyard.

After the excitement of Easter wore off and their bellies were full of breakfast we decided to pack an ice chest and take the kids out to one of the local parks so that they could try out their new poles and do some fishing. So we headed on over to City Lake Park here in Mesquite since the pond there is supposed to be stocked with catfish and trout.  Unfortunately after a few hours of fishing there the only things that we managed was for Alyssa to hook herself in the finger and Dalton pulled in two perch that were too little to keep.

Taken right after she hooked herself :(

Showing her band aid on her middle finger, notice she's still fishing though.

Dalton's 1st catch of the day!

They were looking at the baby ducks

After having no real luck at City Lake Park we packed everything back into the van and decided to give White Rock Lake a try before heading home.  Again they had no luck in catching anything here either but we did get to see a water snake pop it's head up in front of us a few times and the two little ones got in some casting practice.

After an afternoon of fishing it was back home for some grilling.  Since we couldn't do seafood we settled for some really good boudin, smoked sausage and chicken paired up with some homemade potato salad, baked beans and corn on the cob.  After dinner it was getting late and the kids still needed baths but before that we had them plant their trees in their pots.  Out of the five trees we have 3 cedar and 2 pine.  The kids are really excited to grow them and later this week we'll be planting the rest of our flowers as well as the tomato plants. 

All in all I would have to say that even though it was crazy busy for us this weekend it really was a great weekend and the kids really learned some things about the environment and as always made me so proud to see just how big their hearts really are.  As the trees continue to grow I will update everyone with photos.

Here are a few shots of some of our other flowers in the yard: