Easter, Part I of ??

This weekend we headed to the umm, glorious vacation location of Casper, WY. Though we were there under the not so great circumstances of my grandmother's surgery, we were able to make the best of it and grandma came through with flying colors and a fairly early discharge from the hospital. Because of Matthew's lingering ear infection, cough and runny nose, he didn't get to see much of grandma but he did enjoy Casper with daddy while I went to the hospital to be with grandma. He and daddy went to the park:

And he enjoyed the ice cream that came with the kid's meal at Sanford's,

but mostly, he enjoyed hanging out at the hotel. We picked a very family friendly hotel with a crazy fun lobby and lots of pools and hot tubs. Matthew's not exactly fearless when it comes to pools, but he did enjoy taking his bath toys into the kiddy pool.

On Saturday Grandma headed home and we decided to play it safe and keep our potentially germy son with us instead of heading back to Lander. After the last trip we made to grandma's where we all ended up really sick the next week I wasn't willing to take chances that Matthew was on the upswing and didn't pick up something new along the way. We stayed in Casper and headed to check out free admission day at the historic trails museum. There was also a neat quilt show going on:

Matthew thought this skull was pretty cool, as well as a few other exhibits that ended up as videos. Maybe those will get posted later this week. I was very impressed with the center, which was a great mix of activities, facts and perspectives on the California, Mormon and Oregon trails.

More pictures from back at the hotel lobby. Matthew liked the bear:

But his favorite thing was watching and feeding the fish. Well, okay, he also really liked pointing out the stuffed ducks that were mounted above the fish pond.

We tried to catch "Spring Fest" at the mall but were a little late. Matthew begrudgingly posted for this shot for me before he tried to dismantle the display.

More time at the pool.

I brought our hard-boiled eggs and dye with us for the weekend but never really found a way to dye eggs with a toddler (who has a much stronger arm than last year) where the hotel staff wouldn't curse me forever. We decided to forgo dyeing eggs and Easter brunch until next weekend but Matthew did hang out in his handsome new threads from Grandma Dot as we ummm, had a very fancy continental breakfast and (where else is open Easter day) McDonald's lunch.

And he was pretty thrilled that the Easter Bunny found him and left a new play-doh kit, crayons and books.

The trip home was gorgeous and uneventful, or as uneventful as it can be with a toddler and pregnant woman who has to stop all the time. Matthew was thrilled to get home to "iris" which is now his word for pretty much all cats, wild, domestic, real, fake or even when Olivia is sitting right next to Iris. We apparently took more videos than pictures this weekend but uploading today isn't in the internet's plan.