Some may say our familly has no family traditions, but this
is untrue. Our long-standing tradition
is to try something new on every holiday, every year. For example, this past Valentine’s Day, I surprised
Dan with pink hair. Ever frugal, I used
part of my old bunny costume from a couple of years ago to add to the pinkness. For Easter this year, we did what we love to
do, we visited family, this time in WA state.
We checked into Best Western on Saturday afternoon at about 4, then we
went over to Ethan and Missy’s for a fantastic homemade Mexican fiesta for the
family, then on to the church for our dear little Easter Lilly’s night before
Easter baptism! It was beautiful, as
expected. Such a strong feeling of love
and faith and unity was there.
We were lucky enough to get a few pictures the next
morning. After church, where we met old
friends and heard powerful testimonies of the Savior, Ethan’s family went to
lunch and an Easter egg hunt with Missy’s brother’s family, and Dan and I had a
new first, Easter dinner compliments of Burger King. We visited Dan’s sisters, Janet and Iris, and
their families later in the afternoon, then spent a couple more hours with
Ethan’s crew that evening. Holidays,
anydays, (well maybe not tax days) we know how to go with the flow. (Dan’s feeling a little stress because this
is the first year we actually owe taxes. Me, I’m concerned because his job may
be ending as early as next February!)
On Monday morning, we had the great delight of bringing
Brooklyn and Lilly home to spend a few days with us for spring break! They kept us laughing almost the whole
time. Brooklyn read a long chapter of “Which
Witch” by Eva Ibbotson to me, and then she went on to finish the book herself
when I found I could get it from my library.
My friend and emergency babysitter, Cindy, first took the girls to her
son’s Frisbee game, and then to the library the next day because I had a couple
of unexpected clinic visits, and they each chose another book to check
out. We also read “Little House in the
Big Woods” and “Meet Kaya: An American Girl” together. Even that wasn’t enough reading for these
smart little girls. They made up a very
clever game using some of Jack Prelutsky’s hilarious poetry books and a couple
of scooters. We called it the reading
and riding game. On the back patio, they’d
place an open book on a picnic bench.
Brooklyn would ride over to it, read two lines of a poem and ride
away. Then Lilly would do the same. They read at least 3 of his books over the
course of several days this way! Who
knew poetry could be so fun.
These young ones can entertain themselves for hours by
playing with balloons. But Grandpa
expanded their horizons by buying water balloons, so they could bomb Colin and
Macey when they came for dinner and a little kite-flying. Brooklyn was very eager to take the leftover
balloons home to bomb her Papa, just to remind him of the water balloon battles
he and his brothers used to have. Another
time, Dan showed them the way to the neighborhood park, and the next afternoon
we packed up a bag of books and snacks and ventured forth on our own. We also took in a movie about cave people
called The Croods. The funniest part of it for me was when I fell asleep, and
dreamed someone was trying to harm my young child. In my dream I was trying to shout, “Leave him
alone! Leave him alone!! But I couldn’t speak. I could only make unintelligible, guttural
sounds. Sort of like cavetalk? When I woke up, I couldn’t stop laughing at
myself because I’d been making those sounds aloud during the movie! We also laughed over some of Miss Lilly’s
wardrobe choices. She took a liking to
my pink jacket (seen above) and a pair of cowboy boots that used to belong to
Kimball, I think. They are very, very
big on her little feet. Unknown to me,
that’s what she was wearing when Cindy took them to Tyler’s double-header
frisbee games. I heard her clunking
around in the boots when they got home, and temporarily broke her heart the
next day when I wouldn’t let her wear them to the library. Only around the house, I soothed. Brooklyn took a liking to them as well, and
they shared them quite amicably. Lilly
was excited about her brand-new scriptures, and she reminded us to read them
almost every day. I wish I could have
helped her learn her way around in them, where to find things. She was a little touchy when Brooklyn tried
to help her. With them, I’d choose just
a few verses at a time to read. One night
it was just 1 verse, 1st Nephi 1:1.
We read it several times and talked about it. Wish I’d done it that way when my boys were
small. We usually read a whole chapter,
which may have been too much at the time.
I’m crossing my fingers that the girls want to, and get to, come again
sometime. They filled the whole place
with bushels of sunlight, and laughter, and love.
P.S. My unexpected
clinic visits turned up a streptococcus pneumonia infection in my bloodstream. Seven days of an IV antibiotic, Rocephin,
has, we hope, cleared it up, and all is well now. I am back, as they say, in the pink.
