Preparations
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Uncle Clarence’s 53rd birthday.
And there was somehow a chance of snow that Wednesday.
Back on the ranch, OLeif was out all day on two photo shoots in the bitingly cold winds. Wallace’s pictures were taken first before he left for an early Easter gathering with family. And Joe’s followed for several hours afterward, while they ran over the outer places, including the cliff looking over Klondike. Then Joe treated OLeif out to lunch before OLeif spent the rest of the afternoon and evening putting all of the photos together.
Meanwhile that day, Collette had helped Francis and Linnea decorate their colorful Easter eggs with “magic glitter”. Carrie-Bri was off to another day at work. And Linnea spent several hours working with American Heritage Girls at Wal-Mart to collect donations for foster children while Mom finished shopping for needed Easter items. Rose spent her day watching Star Trek instead of studying for the big exam, and cleaning her room, which involved sorting through a truckload of her pottery pieces. She had even made a tiny cup for baby, which she gave to Collette for safekeeping.
And during the afternoon, Mom, Collette, and Linnea made deviled eggs, sliced up strawberries, cut up the glazed ham, stuffed the eggs for the hunt the following afternoon, and before the night was much on, Mom made the shortbread.
Interspersed throughout the rest of the day: Mom swept up yard clippings in the front lawn, Francis went around the house hitting the flash on Joe’s old camera (particularly at the fish in Rose’s fish tank), and Francis and Linnea experimented blowing up purple marshmallow Peeps in the microwave.
Come earlier in the night, Joe took off for Target, then a gathering with pals from choir, and then to the South’s to watch “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” . OLeif and Rose took off for Molly’s where Augustus, Curly, and Samantha Bee were also gathered to paint Easter eggs. And Dad and the kids watched documentaries on Australia while Linnea cuddled the cats.
During the narrative, an alligator was hovering in the waters near a flock of birds. Snap! One bird was suddenly in the mouth of the alligator.
“Oh!” Linnea cried. “They eat the feathers too?”
“Well, they don’t spit them back out,” Dad laughed at the oddness of the idea.
Still later, Diana and Tor dropped by to borrow a movie for the night while Eve and her friends had a get-together in the basement.
Diana decided before she left that Collette had to let her do just one thing when baby arrived.
“Now, you have to let me change his diaper just once,” she said. “That way, if he ever becomes famous, I can tell everyone that I once changed his diapers.”
Carrie-Bri returned even later still after work and dinner at the Pasta House with Elizabeth and her mom for her 51st birthday. Once in her pajamas for the evening, she chatted with Mom and Collette and told them about a certain NAWS customer with whom she had spoken named “Mr. Winkles” in the hilarious way that only Carrie could tell it.