NY Road Trip

We went to hear cousin Savannah sing her senior opera recital (some serious "Kill the Wabbit" stuff going on there--and seriously, she is AMAZING. I cried!) and made a road trip of it.

On the way up we paused at cousin Stacey's and Brad and met their adorable new puppy, Vinny. At first their dresses had the effect on Vinny that matador's capes have on bulls--but once the dresses were tucked into their tights, all was well. (What a look!) The girls even fantasized about BEING Vinny, as evidenced by Amelia's occupancy of his crate.

We said our goodbyes and continued northward, ending near Purchase at Alan's drummer friend, Rogerio's house. Rogerio and Noemia are Brazilian, both artists (her medium is...trash!! I wish I'd taken pictures of her art made from used tin foil. She gave me a vase made from a plastic juice bottle remolded--so cool), and are committed Christians. We enjoyed a wealth of conversation while in their home, where their college-senior daughter, Anne, impressed us immeasurably. She got out her collection of Brazilian jewelry for the girls and they put on a show.

And speaking of shows, Savannah's recital was SO enjoyable for me. Her voice is smooth and controlled and big, and she has great stage presence (the girls probably thought she was some sort of princess in her WOW dress.) We had dinner beforehand with Uncle Steve and Aunt Joan, and got to visit with Josh, Laura, Uncle Chuck, Audrey, Aunt Sharon, and another of my dad's cousins and her husband. It was great.

On the drive home we stopped in Jersey City to visit one of Alan's college friends and his wife, who just so happened to have a cappuccino machine, a wall of world maps, sparkly nail polish and a really nice dog, so all of us were once again perfectly entertained. It was another good road trip. :)

Pioneering on Easter morning

I can't believe I only took ONE picture at Jon & Courtney's on Easter. I also can't believe they hosted Easter while their house is staged and on the market. Kudos to them!

Easter morning was funny. We'd gotten home late Saturday night from our NY trip (pics to come), and I hadn't thought a lick about Easter baskets or an egg hunt until I was in the shower Easter morning.

My mom was always so good about having beautiful, overflowing-with-gifts Easter baskets outside each of our bedroom doors Easter morning. And she and Dad staged Easter egg hunts all the way through my college years (yes, really.) So standing in the shower Easter morning realizing I'd done nothing gave me that familiar sinking feeling.

But it was short lived. I like to think of myself as a survivor, a fighter, a pioneer even. But besides going on very infrequent backpacking trips on the Appalachian trail, I have very few opportunities to put those qualities to the test. Easter morning gave me the modern, urban woman's version of an opportunity.

Rummaging through bags in the entry way, I found a school craft of Evelyn's that had two plastic eggs in it. There were even two pieces of chocolate. So I beefed up those two eggs with a few gummy worms and hid them. Then I scrounged in the basement--found last year's baskets, pulled two teddy bears out of storage, and grabbed two colorful spiral notebooks out of a drawer.

In the frig were the remnants of two chocolate bunnies my dad had gotten the girls. I don't think they cared that they'd already eaten parts of the bunnies in their baskets. And while they seemed a tad disappointed when I told them they each had ONE egg to find, they perked up when I reminded them that the REAL Easter egg hunt would happen later at Uncle Jonnie and Aunt Courtney's house, and that Grandma and Opa and Aunt Shelley and Esther would be there. That smoothed everything over perfectly.

We dyed eggs Sunday afternoon after church and before heading to Jon and Courtney's--and of course being with the cousins and family is the girls' favorite gift. I know I would like to do Easter a little differently next year--be more focused on how vital it is to us as Christians and create some fun memories that center around that. But not this year. This year was a survival year as far as Easter was concerned. It's been kind of day-by-day survival around here for several weeks now, actually. I'll just enjoy the memories we made this year--how grateful I am for our girls and their readiness to enjoy and accept pretty much anything. I need to be a little more like that, actually. :)

My Favorite Distractions

Last week I took the girls to one of Alan's concerts for the first time. They'd heard him play outdoor festivals, but this was the first formal one. Anticipating them getting itchy, I brought stuff for them to play with and was prepared to entertain them myself.

I was making faces at one point, having what I thought was a lot of fun, when Evelyn leaned up to my ear and whispered, "You should probably stop doing that, Mom. It's kind of distracting."

A few days away

We skeedaddled for three days to Ocean City this week. It was wonderful. We rented "The Little Cottage" again (our favorite trailer in a neighborhood on the Chesapeake Bay side of "the strip"), and made all sorts of brand new memories.

We drove up to DE and explored Cape Henlopen State Park on foot and on bikes, climbed WWII lookout towers, collected seashells, and ate ice cream in the quaint town of Lewes.

We rented a surrey bike on OC's boardwalk, ate Thrasher's Fries and Dumser's Ice Cream and played putt putt as a family for the first time. (Although I logged the day's only hole-in-one, I am wildly inconsistent on the golf course and did not even come close to beating Alan.)

We grocery shopped, cooked for ourselves, and made sure our one dinner out was at a place that had hush-puppies on the menu. A family has to have its priorities, you know.

Random Photo

From Thanksgiving 2009. I know how much Esther likes "random!"

Random Photo

This is fun.

Check out these winners from Halloween 2008. Pop Z, you've always been an inspiration!

Random Photo

I'm starting a new feature for those times I'm desperate to connect but the mental "output" machinery has ground to a halt.

Here's a random photo from our 2009 trip to San Francisco--sitting with Amy at the base of the Andy Goldsworthy piece in the Presidio. :)

John 17

Right now I am loving John 17, where Jesus prays for His disciples and then prays for US not long before His death.

“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Jesus wants us to be protected, sanctified by His word--the truth! He prayed that we would be unified, and that our unity would encourage others to believe. And I love that He wants us to be WITH Him, to see His glory, and for us to know God's love. Wonderful things to rest upon on a rainy, chilly, Friday in the midst of a very busy few weeks.

An added dimension

The last Friday of March was the final "Friday After Five" at the Science Center for the season, and they ended it in style--with a 3-D IMAX movie about dinosaurs. I'd never seen a 3-D movie before (I've lived a sheltered life), and it was a good thing there was no one in the row in front of us. All three of us kept reaching out to touch the various o-sauruses that threatened to lick our noses.

We love being crazy.

I have no idea how their personalities will develop as they grow older, but I must admit that I love this stage where they enjoy being crazy with me. At bedtime they each pick a stuffed animal that I get to animate saying the prayer, Bible verse, and song, and I have way too much fun doing this. It will be a sad day when they tell me they have outgrown this ritual. :)