Spring BREAK - The End

After our quick little jaunt to dinosaur land, the rest of spring break sailed by rather quickly.  We had playdates and movies and breakfast with friends.  We had Peter and Sheri up for the weekend and had trips to the zoo and an outing to a play. We had Easter and two different brunches and a back injury and egg coloring and purple pens.  But I will get to all of that.

There is a lovely young woman - that makes her sound like a teenager but she's a grown woman of about 25 which pretty much makes her teenager to me - who has lived in the neighborhood for several years now.  Sadly, she will be moving away.  She has the most glorious soprano voice I have ever heard.  She makes the church choir an absolute joy to listen to and sing with.  And she let her neighbors know that she had been cast as the role of Maybel in one of my favorite shows: The Pirates of Penzance.  Oh I love that Gilbert and Sullivan.  This production was performed at a darling little theater that was, well, really really far away in a tiny little corner of the valley that I didn't know actually existed.  It was charming.  The show could be described as somewhat amateurish, sorry to say.  No one actually sang badly, but not everyone was especially strong or solid.  I hate to utter a bad word about a group of people who clearly were having a ball putting on this show, but there you go.  I waited until the part where Maybel makes her entrance and I was not disappointed.  My friend came in at the top of the stairs behind the audience and let her voice carry through the room so purely that I shivered all over.  She was wonderful.  I was there with a good friend who also brought along her grandfather who turned out to be quite skilled in the art of parallel parking his Jazzy in a tight corner of the seats.  She mentioned that he was a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan but I confess that I was shocked and delighted when I looked over at him during the performance and saw him mouthing along with absolutely every word of the show.  How great, right?  Turns out he was part of a Gilbert and Sullivan company in Seattle when he was a newlywed 60-some years ago.  That was something I did not know!

The theater was freezing - I was so glad I had some park blankets in the car we could huddle under

After the play we had a little impromptu gathering at our house where Peter and Sheri were arriving.  What a blessing it is to have a life filled with dear friends and family.  I'm sure I've said it before, but I'll just keep on saying it.

With our St. George cousins in town we did little but head to the zoo and hang out at my house letting kids play and having friends over for breakfast.  It was really very pleasant.  We enjoyed our trip to the zoo very much - mostly because the new little orangutan was out in his habitat playing and being darling.

We haven't seen Rizzo out for ages - it was fun to see her in the water again

Going to the zoo is exhausting!  One does often need three bags of fries after that excursion.

The girls couldn't believe their luck at getting the back row on such a busy day

Very late on Saturday afternoon the kids finally convinced us that we would not be allowed to escape the annual egg-dying tradition, much as the grown ups had hoped to.

I decided that I really like having Easter morning the same day as General Conference, especially when you have a DVR and don't have a single deadline all day long.  My parents and Margaret and her girls came over for some Easter brunch. I made this yummy shredded ham with potatoes and eggs and you know, it was just tasty.  The kids had fun finding a few treats in their baskets, and I confess to allowing the Easter Bunny to spoil Cap slightly by giving him all three Iron Man DVDs but that was partly because it was a gift for his parents as well.  We were shocked when we realized that we had not a single Iron Man DVD in our posession, even though Avengers 2 was fast approaching!  (Yes, we all have a thing for Marvel around here.)

 

This is how I know the Easter Bunny really loves me.  Yay Crayola for fulfilling my fondest dream.  I don't dare to use anything in there because I like the way it looks in the packages too much.

Here's where the back injury kicks in.  After the baskets and just as my family was arriving I went up stairs to get something,  I bent over and twisted just so and....I think you know where this is going.  PING!  No more functioning Rachel.  I pretty much took the rest of the day off.  I was good for holding still and that was about it.  I assume the egg hunt was fun and a success but I'm really not sure.  I was busy holding still.

We had a great srping break this year.  It couldn't have been more filled with fun and gatherings and good eats.  It only took me several weeks to overcome my back pain.