On Easter Sunday we took alittle road trip down to my Aunt and Uncles house where my family was all getting together. We had a little Easter egg hunt were the competition was high to find "the Golden egg". Kaid was the lucky one once again to find it. The rest of us cousins decided that she is band from searching for it next year. Then maybe Tory will find it.
Tory's cheeseburger smile---what a goof ball
Dinner at the Happy Hound, we were thinking that Kaid wouldn't get that huge hamburger in her mouth but..... we were wrong.
Once again Tory and I were spoiled and got to go the California with my mom and sister for spring break. I have to admit that this is such a treat because usually there isn't very much sun here but there it is so warm and sunny. We met Jimbob there, he had to work most of the week, so that left the days open to shopping and the evening to having family time, expect for Thursday Jimbob didn't have to work so we had the whole day together. Tory was such a good traveler, and the trip was just wonderful. 
Auntie Jordan gave Tory all her old barrettes while we were home one day. Tory some how got Jimbob to help her accessorize her hair. This was the out come. So nice wouldn't you say!
On April 14th our family expanded by one more, one more four legged member that is. This is our new puppy Mali. She was 12 weeks old when we got her and she is a lab/retriever mix. She is the most sweet and easy going puppy I have ever been around and we love her. So here is her story of how she became a Baisden.... We were at a dinner/auction for my sisters senior class graduation night. We had gone to the one for my brother a couple of years ago and it was crazy, Carl ended up buying one of my brothers friends hair. It was long, gorgeous curly hair and if he would shave his head Carl would buy it for 100 dollars. Needless to we ended up with a bag of hair. So this time Carl and I talked and decided that we would have a budget and not go over it with expensive bags of hair that's of no use to Carl:). We agreed on an amount and went to the dinner/auction. But then there was Mali. We had heard word that there was going to be a puppy auctioned and my heart kind of sank, I don't know what I was thinking puppies are alot of work. I don't know why I even toyed with the idea but I did and then we saw her laying on her blanket. We took Tory over to see her and she feel in love. She was so excited with her. She gave her loves and the puppy was totally laid back about everything that Tory would do to her. I can remember looking at Carl and him looking at me, with those eyes of ... oh she needs to be part of our family. Jordan had told us though that there was someone else interested in her. I got Jordan to find out how much they were willing to bid on her.... there max was 300.00. I thought Oh No! that's over our agreed budget. Carl and I continued to talk about her and play with her. The longer we were around this sweet puppy the more we loved her. I kind of got a little anxiety about the situation and went for a quick breather. (this will sound silly to some) I had a strong feeling like I needed to pray about the situation. So I did and I felt totally retarded praying about such a silly matter. I ask Heavenly Father to help me know if this puppy was meant to be apart of our family and if she was to help me be alright with it and not worry about it, that it would all be OK. I said Amen and went back to Carl and Tory along with the rest of my family. Then it became time to auction off the puppy we and the other group started bidding and Carl ended up giving Tory our bidding number she thought that is was great fun waving it around. The amount just kept going up until it got to 300.00 and the other couple said that would be as high as they would go, so we bid 310 and then and older gentleman put in a bid. All I could think was oh no it's going to go even higher. Just as Carl was saying 315 the auctioneer said that the puppy was Tory's and the gentleman wanted to buy it for her. I couldn't believe it, this sweet old man was going to by this puppy for us, well for Tory. Right then I knew that Heavenly Father had heard my silly prayer and answered it. The puppy was suppose to be with us and it was going to be alright, we were going to be able to stick to our agreed budget. I am so grateful for sweet people like this man. He will probably never know how much his generosity really meant to us that night. Once again my testimony was strengthened by one of Gods great creatures. I'm happy to add that Mali has made a great addition to our family her big brother Chance adores her and her sweet personality is so wonderful. Her and Tory will get to grow up together. In the past six weeks we have been reminded of what having a puppy is like all over again, from eating my rose bushes and chewing up our swing. I have to remember though that she was sent to us for a reason and I am grateful for her. So that's our Mali.
Here is another example of our little explorer 
Last weekend we had plans to attend Jordan's Senior class dinner and auction night. Since we had to come to town I convinced Carl to make a day of it. We started the day out by running to the flower wholesale house, I needed to get some flowers for Relief Society's Birthday dinner. Then we went to explore Cabelas, since Tory and I had never been there and well Carl just loves to go there. Tory had a great time exploring and seeing all the animals. I think her favorite was the fish and the moose. We ended our day out with feeding the ducks and geese over at the dike road. I remember doing this when I was little with my dad. It was so much fun to take Tory, the geese come right up to you. Tory was a little afraid at first, and after a bit she realized that they wouldn't get her and she got more excited about it all. I feel like when we moved my heart stayed in CDA, it just feels like home to me. So it always feels so good to be back there.
Tory and I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a girls weekend to Canada at the beginning of the month. We went with a group of women from church. We stayed at Fairmont Hot Springs. It was so nice to go swimming when here was still so much snow on the ground and not freeze. We left on a Thursday afternoon and came back Friday. Tory was such a good traveler, I was very impressed with her good behavior. While we were there we swam, ate great Canadian chocolate, swam some more, watched a chick flick (which I hadn't done in a really long time, what a treat), ate some food and swam some more. The hot springs where very relaxing and so much fun for Tory, she's quite the water baby. It was so lovely to get away for a girls trip, we are for grateful that we got to go. 
These are all the lovely ladies that we got to go with....left to right...Kamas, Tory and I, Penny,Carol, Valerie, and Lea... Darlene was taking our picture in this one.
Here is Kamas, Tory, Penny, Darlene, Carol, Valeris and Lea
With it being so cold out and the water so warm there was alot of steam as you can see.
These are the mountains that surrounded the Hot Springs, they were so beautiful and huge.
She's so stinking cute!
The day before Carl's Birthday we got to go to the spa in Coeur d' Alene for a little pampering. My Mom was kind enough to take Tory so we could go as a couple. It was a wonderful experience that was very relaxing. The Spa at the Resort is amazing and luxurious. I highly recommend it. Anyway the reason for this picture is .... we were leaving my Mom's after picking Tory up, driving down the road when Mom called to tell us that we had forgotten something so I turned around and headed back to her house. I saw something in the road on the way back and a small voice told me to make sure that I don't run it over, so I made sure I didn't and as we passed it I looked in the rear view mirror to see is what ever it was had moved, but it hadn't and so we carried on. We grabbed what it was that we forgot and off we were again. This time when we came upon this something in the road there was a dog sniffing it, I thought that's weird why would a dog be sniffing a big rock(which is what I though it was at the time) so as we got closer I looked harder at it and realized it wasn't a rock at all. I then backed the car up and got out to find that it was this beautiful owl. Right then I was so thankful that I had listened and made sure that I didn't hit it. I would have be horrified if once again I had ran another animal over, we all know that I don't have a tract record when it comes to this. But this once, there was an angel watching over this sweet bird and I listened to the prompting. We ended up taking him to the Clinic that I use to work at where he stayed over night and the next day the bird lady came to pick him up. She will rehabilitate him and hopefully release him back into the wild. I know that this is such a small weird thing to write about but to me this is huge. It seems that Heavenly Father teaches me and gives me opportunities to grow though animals a lot of the time. If I wouldn't have listened to that small voice things would have been a lot different for this little guy and for me to. This little lesson has taught me so much and has made me think about a lot of things. Life is to short to not enjoy the simple things, we need to take time to realize all of the amazing blessing that we are given and not get caught up in the rubbish and to be still and listen. I am so grateful for this little bird and I am a different person because of him.
