Pre-Easter Madness

Everyone seems to have deep spiritual insights posted from their Easter experiences this year. Unfortunately, I packed so much stuff into my own Easter that I never had a chance to think much about the whole point of Easter.

Our craziness started on Friday. Jo called to see if we wanted to join her at the Children's Museum. I was supposed to practice flute for a Sunday service performance with Heidi and make brownies for an evening church activity. But we have a membership at the museum, so why not go. I told myself it would just be for a couple of hours, then I'd head home and practice, bake brownies and make dinner and then go to the activity. Well, it didn't all happen, of course. The museum was fun but crazy since it turned out school was off for the day. I stopped at the store for brownies for the church activity since time was getting short. While there I decided to refill a prescription and it took a good half hour for the pharmacy to do it for some reason. While still waiting for the medicine, Heidi called to say her son's nap was over and we could practice. I still hadn't started baking the quiche I'd planned for dinner. I went to Heidi's after dropping off my purchases. Our practice was short because, in spite of having her husband there to watch William and Anna and their son Isaac, there was a lot of crying from the kids. I headed home about 6:00 hoping to throw dinner together and still maybe make it to the church activity at 7. But William had had too much. When we got home he refused to leave the car, insisting that we go somewhere else. He cried about half an hour, almost to the time that Kip finally came home from work. I decided it might not be the best idea to drag him to a sugar-filled church activity in that state of mind.

So, our Friday ended in a rush. Saturday started much the same. I had to be at the church at 8:45 to start setting up for the Activity Day's Combined Girls and Mom's activity. We were doing a service project, making jewelry and cards and sorting donated clothing for a girls' shelter.


While I helped supervise the service activity, Kip and William joined Butch and Jo for the annual Alpenrose Dairy Easter Egg Hunt. In the pouring rain, hundreds of kids met at a Portland park to search for cheap chocolate egg candies. Some of them had stickers on them earning the collector a specified prize. William, too excited by the prospect of unlimited chocolate in the grass below him, only found one piece with a sticker. Jo's kids made super hauls and won supersized stuffed animals and toys. Jo herself participated in the mother's hunt after the kid's hunt and won the grand prize of diamond earrings. Kip and William came home soaked through and full of sugar.

My activity ended at noon, about the time Kip and William got home. At 12:30, we were planning on heading to Mount Hood to ride the train with Tom and Carolyn. I had to clean up my table as fast as I could, then leave some other leaders in charge of final room clean-up and getting everyone out of there. Then, it was off to Mt Hood and the spring blossom festival.