Thursday afternoon, Ruth and her four kiddos arrived. Ruth arrived and put on a stellar birthday party all in the same afternoon. It was a Star Wars party, and a fine time was had by all. Darth Vader made a special guest appearance.
He was a little out numbered.
The house was full of cousins, but Grandma made room for us all.
On Thursday night, Mike and I took Sylvie to see cousin Jamie dance in The Wizard of Oz. Sylvie loves all things ballanay, so she loved the show. It didn't start until 7:30, so I was picturing staying for the first half, then leaving at intermission. At intermission, Sylvie said to me "That was too short!" So we stayed for the whole thing. She was pretty funny--she kept a running commentary going through the show, asking questions about who was who, and asking "Is this real?" I tried to explain it was just a story and the dancer were acting it out, but she took that to mean it was all pretend, except Jamie, who was real. When the Wicked Witch came on, she was usually accompanied by scary music. Sylvie would put her hand sup next to her eyes, but not covering them, just in case she needed to hide her eyes quickly. She was really darling, and it was fun to go on a special date with her. We forgot our camera, so the next night Mike went back to get a picture of Sylvie and Jamie together. Jamie was wearing Sylvie's favorite costume--the one that was "Frosted Lilac, like my room!" Unfortunately, when Sylvie realized she wasn't staying to watch the whole show again, she was crushed and bitter tears were shed on the way home. Flower basket arms and Sunshine arms:
Friday I spent the day with the Johnsons and the kids played with cousins. Kristin and I went for a delicious lunch and did some whirlwind errands, and then Kristin ended up needing to go in for an urgent CT scan, so I spent the afternoon with her kids and stayed for dinner. Happily the CT scan showed pneumonia, something you don't cheer for very often, but compared to the alternative (blood clot in the lung) it was a cheerful discovery. In spite of us both not feeling great, I was happy to be there--I am so seldom around when I am needed, since we live so far apart!
Saturday everyone colored Easter eggs. Most of the cousins zoomed through, but Sylvie stayed a pretty long time re-coloring some of Austin's 2 dozen light orange eggs.
We had a cousin Easter egg hunt, and the weather was beautiful! The sun was almost too warm.
Unfortunately, Sylvie and I had to leave early as she was having tummy troubles and I wasn't feeling well. When we got back to Grandma's, Sylvie fell asleep hard and was very difficult to wake up when the Johnsons came over to play and have dinner with us. We later realized she was having a version of the stomach bug that Jens had when we got home, but his lasted for a week and came with a fever and vomiting. We are glad she wasn't more sick!
Sunday morning we had Easter baskets. There were all sorts of fun treasures:
And even some treats. This is Sylvie's "Am I allergic to this?" face. Happily, she wasn't, but since her tummy wasn't feeling great, she didn't plow through her candy like Jens did.
New jammies were brought, too.
We got dressed up for church--Jens in new shirt and tie, Sylvie in new dress, sweater, and sandals. We tried for some pictures outside, but that weather was so darn sunny and gorgeous!
We all look sort of squinty. I do love this one of the kids, though.
Whose kids are these? Clearly they are related to one Michael Helquist.
Ready to hunt for eggs out back.
She really did have more fun than this.
We had a nice Easter dinner with the family, then packed up and headed out. For the first time, we tried driving halfway home, and sleeping in a hotel in Winnemucca. It actually worked out really well, leaving us only about 4 hours of driving on Monday. We got home in time for lunch, Mike went to work for half a day, and Sylvie got to go to ballanay. We also got home just in time for Jens to get sick. Glad we didn't have to contend with that in the car!
