Easter 2011

First off, if you guessed Livermore for our last location- you were correct.

Now, for Easter.   It was rainy, dreary, yuk.  Good thing we celebrate Jesus and not spring weather because I was in no mood to celebrate April showers after however many nights in a row up listening to Wayne Hart tell me to get in my tornado safe zone, then catching a few zzz's before Hope woke up terrified of the thunderstorm.    But, Easter is about Jesus and perhaps it was easier to remember that amidst all the cancelled Easter egg hunts. 

We did get Hope a little Easter basket.  She loved every bit of it.  She did quite well in the candy category this year.  Our treat bowl overfloweth!

Her dress.  This picture distorts her face for some reason. Sorry about that.

This one is no better...not because of a distorted face but because of her expression.  This, unfortunatly, is Hope's new "smile for the camera face."  We're working on it.  Just trust me, the kid was cute. So cute I wanted to eat her up.  Her dress has hearts on it.  Not on purpose, but it served me well in teaching her that we celebrate how much Jesus loves us on Easter Sunday.

Since we had been practicing for weeks for Easter egg hunts, we had an indoor hunt at Grammy's house.  Hope didn't mind a bit.

And, in my family, no Easter basket is complete without sunglasses. 

Where are we?

Remember last spring I had a park tour theme to my blog?  This spring I have a new game for us to play: Where in the GRADD region are the Maglingers?  I'll tell you next post.  See if you can figure it out.

Here are your photo hints....

It's a place where Woody is teaching Hope that 2 rivers come together..."a confluence." Only Woody would use that word with a 2 year old.  On one side is one county, on the other side of the point/confluence is another county.

This is just a picture I like of them...

This is another one...

and one more....

This is Woody.  I call it his "author look."  You may not know this, but Woody has written a thesis that he is turning into a book.  The subject was lynchings.  Yep, lynchings.  He seems like such a nice normal funny guy, but really he has morbid curiosities if you ask me.  He was in the thick of writing his thesis when he first asked me for a date.  Is it any wonder why he had to ask 3 times?  Lynching?  Anyway... Today marks the 100th anniversary of one of those lynchings which occurred in the town of our undisclosed location.  To read more, check the website www.kentuckyhistory.net.  Don't worry, if you check it out, I won't tell anyone that you too have morbid curiosities.  Or you might just really like local history which is what Woody claims of himself.

Kindermusik

These pictures are from Woody's phone.  Sorry about the clarity.  We go to Kindermusik every week.  (no, I don't know why they misspell 'music').  Hope really likes it.  Over the weeks, she has really come out of her shell in class.  It's cute to watch.

A few weeks ago, it worked out for Woody to be able to drop in.  Here they are doing the sand blocks....along with the music "tap tap tap go my sand blocks...." The songs get stuck in your head.  Not a good thing.

and the bells... Mainly they work on stopping when the music stops, going fast when the music goes fast or slow...quiet/loud etc.

There is also a big instrument that they all get to explore each week.  This week was the trumpet.  The reason it was the trumpet is because when Hope walked in, she went right up to the teacher and asked if their instrument could be a horn.  So, she got Hope a horn.  Pretty adorable.  One week it was a trombone.  That was pretty cute, too!

There is also a story.  They are supposed to sit on the "story blanket."  You can see that only these 3 are sitting.  Everyone else was running around the room. Talk about a patient teacher, Ms Cathy!  That little boy Titus is literally laying on Hope.  Doesn't bother her a bit.  Kids are great.

You need to see this.

The other day Hope and I were outside playing when our neighbor called us over to his yard.  As soon as I saw this, I had to go get my camera.  It's not his cat.  We're not sure who's cat it is.  We are also not sure if this is funny or cruel.  A lion? Why?  The cat seemed embarrassed. 

See, it's not just his head...they also did his feet and tail to look like a lion.

He looks irritated, doesn't he?

I waited for the "rrrroooar!" pose but he never gave it to me. 

Bittersweet

We loaded up and headed to Louisville this past weekend for a quick trip to see our friends, the Dunns.  It was sweet times and beautiful weather.  Still, it was bitter because the official reason for our visit was to watch UK beat UConn to earn a trip to the NCAA championship game. 

Oblivious to any of the hoopla surrounding the games, Hope was just excited to be seeing her buddies Wes and Julie.  She was ready to go the minute we woke up on Saturday morning.

Along the way, we took a little stop at Marengo Cave.  It was Hope's first trip down into a cave.   She did great.  I really think she learned a lot. 

Picking up right where we always leave off with the Dunns...solving all the world's problems... and throwing football.  I'm shedding a tear seeing all the blue and white.  We were ready for such a celebration, weren't we. 

 I hate to say that I was a terrible blogger/photographer on this trip.  I missed so many photo ops! 
I didn't have my camera as we sat on Southern's campus quad watching young families fly kites, golden retrievers retrieve Frisbees or very amateur softball players take batting practice.  I didn't have my camera when Hope and Wesley sat in the grass talking about stories of when Julie was a little girl.  I didn't have my camera when our old friends from Adult I gathered in the apartment to watch the UK game. And the worst sin of all...I didn't have my camera as Hope covered her pretty little face in purple Raspberry Chip ice cream form Graeters!!  But I did grab my camera as Hope trekked for the 20th time through the "woods" in Wes and Julie's backyard.  These aren't exciting pictures...they are mostly grandparent "ahh, how sweet pictures." But here ya go: