What a busy past three days we have had. I probably could have posted a little something every day, but there was just no time to do it. So we will just have to rely on my faulty memory. haha.
Wednesday afternoon, the kids and I headed into Zurich for an Easter Egg hunt with some ladies and their kids from our ward. But it wasn't just an egg hunt, no no, there were potato sack races, with real sacks! They had relay races where you carry the egg on a spoon, and there was a nice big hill to roll down, down, down on. All this action successfully distracted the kids enough that the mothers could go hide all the loot. And there was quite a bit!
In order to avoid tears, one of the moms had the great idea to let the little kids (everyone under 5) have a 3 minute head start. The big kids were pretty good sports about it, and in the end, everyone had a pretty full basket. Nicholas had the least amount of anyone, but as I told him, he just doesn't have a very aggressive "me me" nature. He made sure to leave lots of candy for the little kids and in doing so, ended up with practically none for himself. Fortunately, his more materialistic sisters had such a bounty, they volunteered to share all on their own. In the end, everyone was so full of candy their tummies hurt, and they had absolutely no interest in dinner. I would say, that is the mark of a truly successful Easter Egg hunt. Thanks, Julie!
And since we were already in the area, I decided to take the kids to the Lindt chocolate factory to buy some Easter treats for the missionaries who are coming over on Sunday. We were glad to see they had lots of their Easter decorations out, and we stopped to take quite a few pictures. One of the ladies who works there was out on a smoking break and offered to take a picture with me and all the kids. Sarah seemed genuinely surprised by that and even said to me, "She was nice. But she was smoking!" I think we need to do a better job of teaching the kids that lots of good people make wrong choices and that doesn't make them "bad".
The favorite item in the chocolate store was the dark chocolate Easter bunnies. I told the children they would have to wait and see if the Easter Bunny brings them or not. Other times we have gone there, they would pass out free chocolate to the shoppers, but not this trip. Fortunately, when we went inside the main lobby to use the restrooms we were invited by the receptionist to help ourselves to our rather large bowl of chocolate eggs. It made the walk back to the car go by much quicker.
To get to our car from the front of the building where the Easter decorations were, we had to walk in between several buildings of the actual chocolate factory. It was quite interesting, because there were lots of windows we could peek through and see some of the workers and stuff. Also, we walked through "chocolate air" and discovered that too much chocolate can truly be a bad thing. The chocolate smell was so intense it actually stank! But only when you were right in the middle of it, the outer edges smelled delicious. We also saw a very fancy milk tank delivering milk to the factory. I guess if you're making candy with it, regular old milk won't do. You have to have the special stuff.
The next day was the first day of the extra long Easter weekend, 5 days until the kids have to go back to school. I took the youngest kids with me to get my hair cut, while Nicholas stayed home and played with two neighbor boys. The haircut was rather a life changing event. I haven't had it this short since Sophie was a baby. In fact, Sarah was so shocked by the change that she actually got mad. Told me I wasn't her Mama anymore, because now my hair was short. Noah said, "You look pretty, Mama." That made me happy. But tonight during Family Scripture Study he said, "You look so different." Yes, it's true. But even Chris will grudgingly admit that the new style suits me, and it sure is easier to take care of.
The lady who cuts it for me is in our ward, and she also breeds British Short Hair cats. They are absolutely gorgeous animals, and she had two 5 week old kittens that the girls had a blast playing with. Noah was petrified of the cats and every time he went around a corner or opened up a door and one was there he would let out a little shriek. I asked him later why he was so scared of a little furball and he said, "I thought they like to eat little boys." No idea where he got that from.
Today I went up to the Easter camp for our ward. (We don't go, it's a long story, but basically, we feel it is against Church guidelines) But the guy who always is in charge of it called me on Christmas morning of all times to ask if I would come and show everyone how to make cards, and since I was caught off guard I said yes. Never again! I was there for 7 1/2 hours, mostly on my feet, helping over 50 people stamp a bunch of different cards I had designed for them to do. They were broken down into groups of 10 each, with short breaks in between and a longer one for lunch. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, even the teenage boys and the men were getting into it. I did try really hard to design cards for the little kids, cards for the older girls and women, cards that were more manly in nature, and it seemed to go over well.
Still, it was a lot of work, I missed a whole day of hanging out with Chris and the kids during vacation, and I am dead tired. We have now made a pact with one another, no answering the phone on Christmas morning unless we are positive it's a relative calling to wish us a Merry Christmas!
Love the hair, Amy! You look hot!
Thanks, Sun. I like it a lot, too.