Anna and the Egg

{I can hardly believe how far behind I am blogging!  I'm afraid that I'm still recovering from surgery, so when I'm not doing something that I "must" do, I'm resting.  Unfortunately, this translates into no new posts.  Sorry family--I know how disappointing it is to check the blog and find nothing new.  It's 3 a.m. now--what better time to blog?}


I would like to think of last week as "the week of Anna".  Honestly, of the seven days in the week, I was with her for five of them, so I'm not that far off.

For a few weeks now, I've been planning a trip to New York City to see Anna.  She let me know of a concert in which she would be performing, and I couldn't resist!  So, being on narcotics and unable to drive long distances, I booked my trip with Megabus.  Thankfully, Anna's roommate moved out of her dorm room last semester, and she had a free bed for me.  What a trip down memory lane THAT was--living in the dorm again :-)

I arrived on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon.  Seriously, the weather was beautiful which was good to feel on my skin, but terrible to maneuver through the crowds!  However, after dragging my suitcase over 30 blocks, I arrived in front of Alice Tully hall at Lincoln Center Plaza.  Anna was still in class, so I plunked myself down and enjoyed the sunshine.

I was just so happy to see her again.  She last came to our house in November, so it's been a while.  She looked as beautiful as ever, and in true Anna style, she was all smiles.  We headed up to her room so that I could wash my face and change--afterall, we only had a few hours before her performance--and we were off!

Pizza for dinner.  I was so hungry it wouldn't have mattered what we ate!  We picked up a couple of slices, and some pop, and walked over to Central Park.  I don't remember how the pizza tasted, but I remember how much I loved sitting there with Anna, talking, talking and talking some more.

The Juilliard Orchestra

Seriously, she's the only blonde
in the sea of Asian-ness :-)

Then, it was on to her performance.  She almost missed her call time of 6:15 because we were STILL talking, but she booked it over to the hall like nobody's business, and I found a great seat.  Of course, I had to do the "Kennedy wave" although I made it much smaller so as not to embarrass her (let it be written that I never have a problem embarrassing my own children).  Thank goodness I kept it small, because after the performance, Anna asked me if I had seen her viola teacher, Heidi Castleman (one of the premier viola educators in the US) sitting directly behind me.  No, I hadn't seen her, but I'm sure she saw me taking pictures of Anna during the performance :-)

Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.  Pure heaven.  In fact, there were moments during the performance that I was moved to tears.  The concert wasn't long enough for me, even with a piece by Sibelius thrown in.  I could have sat there for at least another hour.

An-na!

Afterwards, we were off to Magnolia's bakery for cupcakes, but while there, Anna suggested I get the banana pudding.  What?  It sounded like a total TRAP, but I took the bait.  Oh. My. Gosh.  It was like banana heaven, in a little paper cup.  Banana pudding, combined with cream and vanilla wafers.  We took it back to the steps in front of Lincoln Center and did what else?  Talked some more.

So many things to love about Manhattan:  cupcakes, banana pudding, and Anna!
This is one of my favorite pictures of her :-)

By the time we got back to the dorm room, I was exhausted.  Narcotics, surgery recovery and walking a couple of miles made for one tired me.  I was out within seconds.

The next morning, Anna was already out running some ridiculous number of miles by the time I got up.  We showered, got dressed and headed over to the church/Manhattan temple.  I was able to sit and listen to her practice for an hour (gosh darn it, even her SCALES sound amazing).  She then headed off to her viola lesson, and I headed into the temple.

I love the Manhattan temple.  Seriously, it's one of the most beautiful temples inside because the walls are hand-painted with scenes of the forest.  I'm sure that it's meant to be in stark contrast to the concrete jungle outside the walls of the temple, and believe me, it works!  I found great peace while there, and I was thankful to complete one more family name in a stack of "undones".

We headed back to the dorm room to change and pack up, and we headed out to lunch.  We thought we were going to be eating at the Shake Shack, the supposed best burgers on the planet, but with the line out the door, we opted for the best burgers I've ever eaten:  Five Guys.  While sitting there talking, with only 30 minutes before I needed to get back on the bus to State College, I asked Anna what she was doing for Easter Sunday.  I was surprised to hear that she had no plans, so I casually mentioned that she was welcome to come to our house.

"Okay!" she said.

:-)

The next day, she had a bus ticket for State College for Friday!

Little did she know that "The Celebration of the Egg" was in the works for Friday night!  A Kennedy tradition, we had decided to expand the celebrants to a few close families.  Thankfully, the girls had Thursday and Friday off of school, so I knew they could help me (I couldn't have done it otherwise), and John, by some strange stroke of luck, had Friday off too!

Thursday.  Shopping.  Shopping.  Shopping.  We shopped our Easter Egg hearts out!  Food, prizes, and over 120 eggs.

One thing that Anna had asked me to do was to keep it a surprise from the girls that she was coming.  Normally, I pride myself on the fact that I am a master deceiver (I know, John says "such a gift..."), but on the narcotics, I knew I wasn't quite myself.  I told Anna that I might unwittingly give it away.

Oh my gosh.  Like three different times, I had to stop myself saying anything.  Johannah felt bad that there would be nobody at the celebration her age (yes, there will be:  Anna!), I wanted to save a TV show that Glo and I watched so.... (Anna could watch it).  I even had to postpone making the bed in the guest bedroom.  I was doing so well, not thinking very clearly, but keeping it a secret, until...

Special K with strawberries.

Yes, that's right.  A box of cereal ruined the entire surprise.  We were putting the 50 pounds of groceries in the back of the Volvo, and Johannah commented on how excited she was that I bought a special double box of Special K with strawberries.  Without thinking, I replied, "Yeah, I thought Anna would like to try them."  Realizing my mistake immediately, I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands!  Fatal mistake!  Hannah stopped with the groceries, turned to me, and said, "What?  Anna?"  Usually, I could cover my mistake no problem, but my mind wasn't particularly clear, and I did a miserable job attempting to lie.  Five minutes later, the girls knew Anna was coming :-)

We picked her up from Megabus the next morning.  We were so excited!  We headed home, and I imagined that we would spend the rest of the afternoon preparing for the evening's festivities.  What I didn't realize is that I had three grown helpers, and things would move much quicker.

We did everything in two hours!  Made potatoes, made frog-eye salad, made cupcakes, took the table out on the deck, brought the table back into the house, decorated the table, filled eggs for the Easter Egg hunt, found change for the Easter (money) eggs, everything.

These are my "rogue" Easter bunnies--they were supposed to be filling eggs, but when I checked in on them, they were having a bubble blowing contest with the bubble gum for the eggs!

There was a lot of laughter, making these babies!
Word to the wise--buy actual frosting decorator bags instead of using Ziploc baggies with the corner cut off...

John mowed the entire lawn for the first time this year.  The yard looked AMAZING!!

By the time families showed up for The Celebration of the Egg, we were set!

It was a wonderful evening.  Between the four families, we had an Easter FEAST!!  Ham, potatoes, salads, homemade rolls, fruit salad, veggies.  Seriously, there wasn't enough counter space for all the wonderful food!

 We had our Easter Egg hunt with over 200 eggs.  We played egg toss (with raw eggs).  We played egg football (again, with raw eggs).  We finished off the evening with a big fire in the fire pit and s'mores.  It was a blast!  I honestly couldn't have done it without the help of my family.

Anna and eggs.  A good combination :-)