In the Pink

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, 1^st 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.