If there's one adjective I could use to describe the weekend from this year Celebration of the Egg, it would be happy. I think the entire family agreed that everything just clicked, and it felt wonderful to be together again!
Here are some highlights:
The temple. Hannie flew in on Thursday afternoon, and since John and I have work a temple shift Thursday night, she was more than willing to just come with us (after finding an Apple store in the area and being told that she'll need to send in her computer to get the battery changed which is not happening the week before finals). I was working in the initiatory booth, and then as a patron in sealings, and then cleaning the lunchroom, so she just followed me around. It was wonderful!
Then, the next morning, Hannah, Rebecca, Beth and I all headed back to the temple to do a session. To be honest, Beth was a miserable drag on the party, complaining and crabbing about her life and the good lives of other people, but thankfully she can't crab during an endowment session ;-) It was so fun to have "my girls" there in the temple together.
Food. Surprisingly, we didn't eat out as much this time together. Maybe it's because we're more of a herd of people now. We went to Toñitos in Jackson after the temple and then onto the Parlour for ice cream. But Easter dinner was Honeybaked ham, cheesy potatoes, frog-eye salad, fresh bread, carrots and broccoli. I keep thinking that I should make something else but why mess with success?
The babies. I'm sure every grandparent says the same thing, but I seriously have the BEST grandbabies. They are cute and fun and smiley and friendly and smart and well-behaved. It's one of the moments where again I ask myself, "How did I get so lucky?"
Story for the memory book: I originally had a lunch scheduled with Jessica Mauch--it's her birthday--and she wanted to go to Aubree's. Well I thought Rebecca might like to come too, seeing as Aubree's is one of her favorite eateries in the area, and knowing that Poppie would be willing to watch the babies. But then I realized that John would be missing out on his favorite calzone so I invited him as well (which meant his "charges" would be coming too). Jessica was down for it. During lunch, Baby kept trying to interrupt, so finally John said, "Jessica, Annie has something she'd like to tell you," (not knowing what it was). All eyes turned to her when she quickly introduced herself, "Hi. My name is Annie." But the best part is that she says "Annie" like "An-neee". Then she proceeded to use her blade hand (or Price is Right prize modeling arm, or Vanna White's presentation of the puzzles) to point to Brother and said, "This is my brother, Everett." Then, she took her opposite hand (but still gesticulating) and pointed to John and me, and said, "These are my friends, Lollie and Poppie." Some grandparents might be offended to be considered only friends, but the more we get to know Baby, the more we realize that being her friend is being top notch in her book.
And Brother. You know the saying "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"? Yep, that's Brother. Give him a banana and he's all yours ;-). In fact, he eats it, as Ethan says, like a python. He doesn't pull the banana away from his mouth and take a break; he just keeps pushing it in ;-). He is the most darling little man. He's so easy going and friendly. And he's a chunky monkey, topping out at 24 pounds (Baby is 34). You pick him up and he's dense and chubby and wonderful.
The Martian Marathon. Just days before the kids were scheduled to arrive, I thought I would check and see if there were any races in the area. Luckily, the Martian marathon was happening in Dearborn on a Saturday! Ethan found a promotion code online and everybody signed up. I was worried that it would be difficult to get everyone out the door at 6:45 on a Saturday morning (especially poor Hannie who was functioning on MST), but the peeps were dressed and ready to go. I usually find a babysitter so that all of us can run, but I decided to take the bullet and watch the babies myself.
It was a relatively small race so parking was easy, and we only had to walk three blocks to the start line (trust me, I'm coming to appreciate the ease of small races more and more 0-0 *I'm looking at you, Air Force Marathon* 0-0). Rebecca, Allison and Hannah all started first, running the 10K with John also starting with the 5K. John finished the 5K in a mere 22 minutes, putting him in second place for his age group! 45 minutes later, John, Mark and Ethan took off for the half marathon. Ethan had the goal of finishing solidly under 2 hours, and John was completing the second half of "The Milky Way" run--a 5K plus a half marathon. Hannah was the first place finisher among the girls with Allison coming in two minutes later and Rebecca just a few minutes after that. Then, at 1:55 for the half, I called Ethan and yelled at him, "Hurry up! You've only got five minutes left!" His headphones are pieces of junk, so I couldn't hear what he said back to me, and I hung up, but 30 seconds later, he crossed the finish line! Turns out, he could see us and the finish line when I called him :-). I was actually moved to tears to see him shimmying his way across the finish line at 1:55. He had done it! John hung with Mark the whole way, and they finished in 2:03.
The cutest thing (and one of the reason I love running and races) was the 2:00 pacer. He was a little Asian guy. There was one woman who was still sticking with him as they came through the final chute (runners usually sprint past the pacers at the end of the race), but she was falling behind. He knew that she needed to pull out in front of him in order to finish in 2:00 (or a couple of second less than that). He took his pacer sign, turned it sideways in front of her, started waving it in front of her and told her to "C'MON!" It was all she needed. She took off, and he was rooting her on from behind through the finish line. Honestly, with my desire to make any Asian happy and to feel like I could look like something amazing in their eyes, I would have done ANYTHING he told me to do ;-). We saw him walking with his wife after the race, and she was still holding her 1:50 pacer sign ;-)
It was a great morning. It was cool (40 degrees) but the sun was shining and the sky was so blue. And thankfully (I couldn't have asked for better), there was a playground right next to the start line so Baby and Brother were happily entertained while I was in charge of taking care of them.
When John went to pick up his prize for placing (a green glass disk with an alien head on it), I asked him to ask the woman in charge if we could have one of her inflatable aliens (they were EVERYWHERE around the race, tied to anything they could be tied to). Instead of handing him one of the two she had blown up, she grabbed a new one out of a box and handed it to him. We found out later that people could "adopt" an alien for $5, so lucky us! When I unpacked it from the plastic and showed it to Baby, she threw her arms around it in happiness! Next year (if we're still in the area), we'll have Baby compete in the kids marathon--run 26 miles over the month before the race, and finish the 0.2 at the race. No joke, she can do it being the little runner she is!
Celebration of the Egg
Probably the thing that we all loved the most this year about Celebration of the Egg was the "prize piano". Normally, we just put the prizes on a table, but knowing that we would actually be EATING at the table, I decided to put the prizes on the piano. Holy smokes, what a collection of prizes! Rebecca had suggested that we not wrap any of the prizes, thinking about prizes that are only good for one person (and what if you're NOT the person that gets that prize #disappointment), but I compromised. Wrap what you think several people would like, and leave specific prizes unwrapped. It worked brilliantly! There was enough risk that it was exciting, but fun to sometimes know what you were picking.
Too, it wasn't just me supplying the prizes. Everyone could bring something or nothing. Hannah joked that she had an extra toaster laying around (Glo's). I got rid of a few extra copies of books, and Ethan and Rebecca brought extra copies of DVDs. Mark and Allison though brought nothing used, but instead made a last-minute run to Vault of Midnight and put us all to shame ;-). To add another level of excitement, I told everyone that whatever prize numbers they didn't find (we always have a few eggs that aren't found until John starts mowing the lawn), I would get to pick a prize and mine would not be steal-able. This panicked Mark the most, I think ;-)
We had 100 eggs with candy, prize numbers and dollar bills. Some eggs had one dollar, some two, and some three. We thought we were being kind to Baby by supplying her with her own Easter egg hunt, but when she was done, she had no problem heading out into the yard with the big kids and finding some of their eggs!
Poor Markie. He had run the half marathon that morning without band-aids on his nipples. I noticed a few minutes into the egg hunt that he was running around, holding his sweater out in front of him (so it wouldn't rub on his "nipple chafing". I told him to just take his sweater off...which he did ;-)
In the end, Rebecca and Ethan ended up with more cash, and Allison seriously found a third of the prize numbers, so there was some trading going on before the actual prize event began (I believe both Allison and Mark sold a couple of their prize numbers for $2.00 each--they were such good sports). There was good stuff--Star Wars legos, a Detroit sweatshirt, comic books, fan art, a Pioneer Woman cookbook, mini-figures, Little Debbies, Ritter Sport, Kinder Joys. There was some serious stealing, but I think in the end, everyone walked away happy.
Glo
Missionary Glo, thinking ahead, used the clause "family celebrations" to give us a call during all of our festivities. In truth, as she put it, Celebration of the Egg falls right behind Christmas and Halloween in the Kennedy holiday book, so why shouldn't she call? She ate lunch in the car and used her 30 minutes at lunch to call us. It was during the prize portion of the day, so as she put it, she almost felt like she was there. She got to see the prizes and talk to everyone. It was the best!
The Elders
Earlier in the week, I had invited the elders over for the festivities along with a newly baptized member, Josh. They were just going to come for fun and games at 6:30, but the night before, the elders confirmed the appointment with me "for food and activities". Those sneaky elders. I wrote them back, reminding them that they had a dinner appointment with someone else. Oh, didn't they tell me? That appointment canceled. So there was a last minute mad rush to make sure we had enough food for three more people (along with Beth's family whom I had invited the day before when she seemed so miserable in the car). Beth's family didn't come (thank goodness), but the elders did. And 30 minutes in, they got a text from Josh saying that he had forgotten about it. Thankfully, that didn't mean the elders had to leave--it wasn't their fault if their new baptism didn't remember, right? Right! (and I'm sticking to that story!). We had waited to hold our egg drop competition (with straws and masking tape) as well as Egg Chuck-It and egg toss.
So using our newly acquired alien, John propped him up in the field where the dogs poop (and where they would have access to the eggs we threw), and we started chucking the eggs. It was so fun! We were laughing and having such a good time. In the end, Rebecca won (when does she NOT win, I ask you?).
Then it was egg toss with raw eggs. Once again, Rebecca and Ethan were the winners (she's definitely a ringer for Ethan's family) ;-).
For the egg drop competition, it was obvious couples, but Hannah, John and I were a team....and we WON! Yep, it took several extra pitches to get our egg to bust!
Finally, we ended the night with singing. Elder Thomas is a trained musician (he plays the organ better than I do), and he wanted to sing with the kids, having heard them in sacrament meeting. And that's not like they did a musical number. He just heard them singing from the pews ;-). So John was a good sport and went through our packed boxes to find the box with the church choir music.
But you know, with all the fun, and games, and food, and races, nothing brings it home more than a missionary who leaves a five minute spiritual message. When he started talking, there was such a sweetness in the room, and everything else just fell away. And he wasn't even talking about Jesus! He was talking about the Book of Mormon. It reinforced in my mind that missionaries really do have a special calling.
Allison
So Allison is basically the best babysitter anyone could ever ask for, except it's so much more than that. She plays with the babies like she's a baby herself. I've seen it before at her mom's house: she's like the pied piper of kids. She starts playing with one and eventually she has them all following her and playing with her. Well Baby knew she had hit the jackpot with Allison when they were playing tag IN the house, and throwing the alien down the stairs.
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The next day, everyone left. Glo had sent us some Jamaican tea from California for us to enjoy together. As Mark said, "We never had that tasty of tea in Russia." It might have to do with the fact that Glo told us to add a cup of sugar to the mix ;-)
Saying goodbye is always difficult.
Ethan, Rebecca and the babies hit a terrible thunderstorm for most of their eight hours home (it ended up taking ten), but Mark and Allison got back in five. Hannie and I played our traditional Wii Play tournament, and I think I need to start practicing on my own because she seriously skunked me. And then we put her on a plane back to Utah. Instead of focusing on that sadness though, I just want to remember how wonderful it was to have everyone back with us again. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it was heaven on earth.
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| The first night together. Everyone was stuffing eggs. There was so much laughter around the table. Our house felt full again. |
Here are some highlights:
The temple. Hannie flew in on Thursday afternoon, and since John and I have work a temple shift Thursday night, she was more than willing to just come with us (after finding an Apple store in the area and being told that she'll need to send in her computer to get the battery changed which is not happening the week before finals). I was working in the initiatory booth, and then as a patron in sealings, and then cleaning the lunchroom, so she just followed me around. It was wonderful!
Then, the next morning, Hannah, Rebecca, Beth and I all headed back to the temple to do a session. To be honest, Beth was a miserable drag on the party, complaining and crabbing about her life and the good lives of other people, but thankfully she can't crab during an endowment session ;-) It was so fun to have "my girls" there in the temple together.
Food. Surprisingly, we didn't eat out as much this time together. Maybe it's because we're more of a herd of people now. We went to Toñitos in Jackson after the temple and then onto the Parlour for ice cream. But Easter dinner was Honeybaked ham, cheesy potatoes, frog-eye salad, fresh bread, carrots and broccoli. I keep thinking that I should make something else but why mess with success?The babies. I'm sure every grandparent says the same thing, but I seriously have the BEST grandbabies. They are cute and fun and smiley and friendly and smart and well-behaved. It's one of the moments where again I ask myself, "How did I get so lucky?"
Story for the memory book: I originally had a lunch scheduled with Jessica Mauch--it's her birthday--and she wanted to go to Aubree's. Well I thought Rebecca might like to come too, seeing as Aubree's is one of her favorite eateries in the area, and knowing that Poppie would be willing to watch the babies. But then I realized that John would be missing out on his favorite calzone so I invited him as well (which meant his "charges" would be coming too). Jessica was down for it. During lunch, Baby kept trying to interrupt, so finally John said, "Jessica, Annie has something she'd like to tell you," (not knowing what it was). All eyes turned to her when she quickly introduced herself, "Hi. My name is Annie." But the best part is that she says "Annie" like "An-neee". Then she proceeded to use her blade hand (or Price is Right prize modeling arm, or Vanna White's presentation of the puzzles) to point to Brother and said, "This is my brother, Everett." Then, she took her opposite hand (but still gesticulating) and pointed to John and me, and said, "These are my friends, Lollie and Poppie." Some grandparents might be offended to be considered only friends, but the more we get to know Baby, the more we realize that being her friend is being top notch in her book.
And Brother. You know the saying "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"? Yep, that's Brother. Give him a banana and he's all yours ;-). In fact, he eats it, as Ethan says, like a python. He doesn't pull the banana away from his mouth and take a break; he just keeps pushing it in ;-). He is the most darling little man. He's so easy going and friendly. And he's a chunky monkey, topping out at 24 pounds (Baby is 34). You pick him up and he's dense and chubby and wonderful.
The Martian Marathon. Just days before the kids were scheduled to arrive, I thought I would check and see if there were any races in the area. Luckily, the Martian marathon was happening in Dearborn on a Saturday! Ethan found a promotion code online and everybody signed up. I was worried that it would be difficult to get everyone out the door at 6:45 on a Saturday morning (especially poor Hannie who was functioning on MST), but the peeps were dressed and ready to go. I usually find a babysitter so that all of us can run, but I decided to take the bullet and watch the babies myself.
It was a relatively small race so parking was easy, and we only had to walk three blocks to the start line (trust me, I'm coming to appreciate the ease of small races more and more 0-0 *I'm looking at you, Air Force Marathon* 0-0). Rebecca, Allison and Hannah all started first, running the 10K with John also starting with the 5K. John finished the 5K in a mere 22 minutes, putting him in second place for his age group! 45 minutes later, John, Mark and Ethan took off for the half marathon. Ethan had the goal of finishing solidly under 2 hours, and John was completing the second half of "The Milky Way" run--a 5K plus a half marathon. Hannah was the first place finisher among the girls with Allison coming in two minutes later and Rebecca just a few minutes after that. Then, at 1:55 for the half, I called Ethan and yelled at him, "Hurry up! You've only got five minutes left!" His headphones are pieces of junk, so I couldn't hear what he said back to me, and I hung up, but 30 seconds later, he crossed the finish line! Turns out, he could see us and the finish line when I called him :-). I was actually moved to tears to see him shimmying his way across the finish line at 1:55. He had done it! John hung with Mark the whole way, and they finished in 2:03.
The cutest thing (and one of the reason I love running and races) was the 2:00 pacer. He was a little Asian guy. There was one woman who was still sticking with him as they came through the final chute (runners usually sprint past the pacers at the end of the race), but she was falling behind. He knew that she needed to pull out in front of him in order to finish in 2:00 (or a couple of second less than that). He took his pacer sign, turned it sideways in front of her, started waving it in front of her and told her to "C'MON!" It was all she needed. She took off, and he was rooting her on from behind through the finish line. Honestly, with my desire to make any Asian happy and to feel like I could look like something amazing in their eyes, I would have done ANYTHING he told me to do ;-). We saw him walking with his wife after the race, and she was still holding her 1:50 pacer sign ;-)
It was a great morning. It was cool (40 degrees) but the sun was shining and the sky was so blue. And thankfully (I couldn't have asked for better), there was a playground right next to the start line so Baby and Brother were happily entertained while I was in charge of taking care of them.
When John went to pick up his prize for placing (a green glass disk with an alien head on it), I asked him to ask the woman in charge if we could have one of her inflatable aliens (they were EVERYWHERE around the race, tied to anything they could be tied to). Instead of handing him one of the two she had blown up, she grabbed a new one out of a box and handed it to him. We found out later that people could "adopt" an alien for $5, so lucky us! When I unpacked it from the plastic and showed it to Baby, she threw her arms around it in happiness! Next year (if we're still in the area), we'll have Baby compete in the kids marathon--run 26 miles over the month before the race, and finish the 0.2 at the race. No joke, she can do it being the little runner she is!
Celebration of the Egg
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| Hannah and Baby searching for some last minute prizes. |
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| This was just the beginning (before everyone brought their prizes). It was seriously AMAZING! |
Too, it wasn't just me supplying the prizes. Everyone could bring something or nothing. Hannah joked that she had an extra toaster laying around (Glo's). I got rid of a few extra copies of books, and Ethan and Rebecca brought extra copies of DVDs. Mark and Allison though brought nothing used, but instead made a last-minute run to Vault of Midnight and put us all to shame ;-). To add another level of excitement, I told everyone that whatever prize numbers they didn't find (we always have a few eggs that aren't found until John starts mowing the lawn), I would get to pick a prize and mine would not be steal-able. This panicked Mark the most, I think ;-)
We had 100 eggs with candy, prize numbers and dollar bills. Some eggs had one dollar, some two, and some three. We thought we were being kind to Baby by supplying her with her own Easter egg hunt, but when she was done, she had no problem heading out into the yard with the big kids and finding some of their eggs!
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| I love that Baby is learning to POSE! |
Poor Markie. He had run the half marathon that morning without band-aids on his nipples. I noticed a few minutes into the egg hunt that he was running around, holding his sweater out in front of him (so it wouldn't rub on his "nipple chafing". I told him to just take his sweater off...which he did ;-)
In the end, Rebecca and Ethan ended up with more cash, and Allison seriously found a third of the prize numbers, so there was some trading going on before the actual prize event began (I believe both Allison and Mark sold a couple of their prize numbers for $2.00 each--they were such good sports). There was good stuff--Star Wars legos, a Detroit sweatshirt, comic books, fan art, a Pioneer Woman cookbook, mini-figures, Little Debbies, Ritter Sport, Kinder Joys. There was some serious stealing, but I think in the end, everyone walked away happy.
Glo
Missionary Glo, thinking ahead, used the clause "family celebrations" to give us a call during all of our festivities. In truth, as she put it, Celebration of the Egg falls right behind Christmas and Halloween in the Kennedy holiday book, so why shouldn't she call? She ate lunch in the car and used her 30 minutes at lunch to call us. It was during the prize portion of the day, so as she put it, she almost felt like she was there. She got to see the prizes and talk to everyone. It was the best!
The Elders
Earlier in the week, I had invited the elders over for the festivities along with a newly baptized member, Josh. They were just going to come for fun and games at 6:30, but the night before, the elders confirmed the appointment with me "for food and activities". Those sneaky elders. I wrote them back, reminding them that they had a dinner appointment with someone else. Oh, didn't they tell me? That appointment canceled. So there was a last minute mad rush to make sure we had enough food for three more people (along with Beth's family whom I had invited the day before when she seemed so miserable in the car). Beth's family didn't come (thank goodness), but the elders did. And 30 minutes in, they got a text from Josh saying that he had forgotten about it. Thankfully, that didn't mean the elders had to leave--it wasn't their fault if their new baptism didn't remember, right? Right! (and I'm sticking to that story!). We had waited to hold our egg drop competition (with straws and masking tape) as well as Egg Chuck-It and egg toss.
So using our newly acquired alien, John propped him up in the field where the dogs poop (and where they would have access to the eggs we threw), and we started chucking the eggs. It was so fun! We were laughing and having such a good time. In the end, Rebecca won (when does she NOT win, I ask you?).
Then it was egg toss with raw eggs. Once again, Rebecca and Ethan were the winners (she's definitely a ringer for Ethan's family) ;-).
For the egg drop competition, it was obvious couples, but Hannah, John and I were a team....and we WON! Yep, it took several extra pitches to get our egg to bust!
Finally, we ended the night with singing. Elder Thomas is a trained musician (he plays the organ better than I do), and he wanted to sing with the kids, having heard them in sacrament meeting. And that's not like they did a musical number. He just heard them singing from the pews ;-). So John was a good sport and went through our packed boxes to find the box with the church choir music.
But you know, with all the fun, and games, and food, and races, nothing brings it home more than a missionary who leaves a five minute spiritual message. When he started talking, there was such a sweetness in the room, and everything else just fell away. And he wasn't even talking about Jesus! He was talking about the Book of Mormon. It reinforced in my mind that missionaries really do have a special calling.
Allison
So Allison is basically the best babysitter anyone could ever ask for, except it's so much more than that. She plays with the babies like she's a baby herself. I've seen it before at her mom's house: she's like the pied piper of kids. She starts playing with one and eventually she has them all following her and playing with her. Well Baby knew she had hit the jackpot with Allison when they were playing tag IN the house, and throwing the alien down the stairs.
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| While I just sat on the side and held Brother, Allison headed out to play with Baby on the playground. But she had a whole army of kids following her around, wanting her to play with them as well. |
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| They were playing Playmobils for hours. |
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The next day, everyone left. Glo had sent us some Jamaican tea from California for us to enjoy together. As Mark said, "We never had that tasty of tea in Russia." It might have to do with the fact that Glo told us to add a cup of sugar to the mix ;-)
Saying goodbye is always difficult.
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| I took a selfie of myself and how I was feeling (because honestly, nobody ever thinks to take a picture of ME!) |
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