This weekend I decided to get out of town and make the LONG drive across Kansas to go to Easter at Janet's. I was hoping to see some signs of spring along the way, but except for a few blooming redbud trees, Kansas was just as brown as Colorado. A lot of the ground around Manhattan was actually blackened from recent grass fires. I guess Colorado isn't the only one suffering from super high winds. Saturday night, Janet, Teresa, and I celebrated our April birthdays with dinner at Rancho Grande. Thank goodness we didn't have to wear those goofy sombreros. Last year at this time, Teresa had tested positive for COVID, so she "celebrated" Easter by standing in Janet's driveway while we talked to her from the porch. Luckily, times are getting back to normal.
Even though it was somewhat cold on Sunday, Janet wore her new pink Easter outfit. She made an elaborate dinner with ham, green beans, rolls, Ceasar salad, and fruit salad. Teresa brought deviled eggs and Melissa made a sweet potato casserole.
While Janet was in the kitchen cooking dinner, I tried to entertain the kids by organizing an Easter egg hunt with clues. In this picture, Violet is looking for a piece of furniture that rhymes with red. Janet only has 2 bedrooms, but they are on totally opposite ends of the house.
In this picture, Lincoln is looking for an egg in the lowest part of the house. Since he loves playing on the stairs, he knew exactly where to go to find it. I don't think I was as clever as I thought with my clues, because it only took the kids about 5 minutes to solve them.
We had a second egg hunt after dinner. We had to hold it in the garage since it was raining outside. That one took a little longer, because even I couldn't remember where I'd hidden some of the eggs. Ms OCD has a LOT of storage containers in her garage.
Michael gave Teresa and I gift cards for our birthdays. Mine was for Starbucks. Perfect timing, because today is double star day and I'm planning to head over for a white chocolate mocha as soon as I finish this post.
Violet likes to hear family stories, so I told her that when I was her age, my mom had her 4th child - my sister, Teresa. So I had someone take a picture of Violet and me with our "baby" sisters. Of course, Teresa (Ms Anal-Retentive) had to point out that Violet was actually 9 years older than Goldie, not 8, and I was actually 7 years old when Teresa was born, since her birthday is 19 days before mine. But Violet was 8 years old when Goldie was born and I was 8 when Teresa was a baby, so close enough.
Melissa has trouble taking a family photo, because Hazel HATES having her picture taken. But I thought I could be clever and catch her off-guard. So everyone started quietly gathering behind her on the sofa while Janet distracted her with crayons.
But Hazel must have the greatest peripheral vision in the world, because as soon as everyone was in position and I pulled the camera up, she dropped her head into Melissa's lap and wouldn't budge until I put the camera away.
But I did manage to capture Hazel from the front with a big smile on her face as she packed up all her goodies from the day and headed out to the car to take everything home. You can tell in this photo, she made quite a haul.
