Easter

The bunny came early at Brett’s house and Anna Marie was kind enough to wake me at 6:30 a.m. so I wouldn’t miss the hunt. I should have remembered the rabbit would be up early before I spent several a.m. hours reading the iPad reviews. I hated the name of the new product but now I’ve forgotten about it and just want to get my hands on the new computer. I think it will be awhile yet.

Lucas and I had a great vacation in Oregon. We didn’t get to see Leslie but we did get to visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry with Gayle and Becca. Lucas ran into the mass of students and we couldn’t find him for five minutes or so but from then on he kept an eye on one of us. His favorite thing had to be going inside a real submarine and seeing the torpedoes, the ice cream machine and hearing the kwak of the emergency horn. Gayle had previously given the Kubin family the gift of an overnight in the submarine. I am so thankful no one gifted me in such a manner. You can imagine the claustrophobia.

Ah, but the Kubins are a hearty, fearless bunch as you could see from their photos of Disneyland. Even Uncle Ron was laughing in every photo. Their family will look much different next year. Say, you could attend Willie’s graduation in Missouri.

We loved staying on Gayle’s 150 acre spread in the 5000 sq. ft home. There was even a framed handkerchief from my mom on her wall. She needs lots of things to fill up space but I was especially touched that on it there was a card to Alberta from one of her Libby friends. Lucas liked playing board games with Gayle and says he is in charge of the games for Memorial Day. So far they are Stratego, Triominos, Sequences, Battleship, Uno, and Monopoly. This is fair warning to stay away from the game table at Brooks.

Gayle drove us to the ocean and we hiked along three beaches gathering “keepers” that we happened upon. I think if you give any kid a sandy beach they can entertain themselves for hours on end with nothing but sticks and rocks. We were thoroughly tired when we got back to the house but Jim continued to keep us entertained. It was the final day of elk season so he left the house about 7 with a huge rifle and within the hour was back saying he had an elk. At first it was hard to tell if he was happy or overwhelmed because then the real work of preparing the elk needed to be done. Lucas and I watched out the window while he brought the elk to the back field and proceeded to take care of the details. I mean he was a great host to actually get an elk so we could experience the end result of hunting. Gayle was not too excited to head out and be the helper but I do think they got to bed in the early hours. The next day there were coyotes visiting their back pasture and we drove by the shop to see the hanging meat. Now we are wondering where the head was? Maybe next time we visit it will be on the wall.

We traveled to Petyon and Walker’s house the following day and the boys were so glad to see one another. We overheard them upstairs talking about bodily noises inappropriately and then stealing under shorts with much rowdiness and loud voices. I mentioned to Cyd that we had at least 10 more years of this boy stuff ahead of us. Just imagine how nice a quiet little girl would be. Rounding them up at Burger King was a major undertaking and some older couple there said it reminded them of their houseful of boys years ago and they were joyful about it so maybe in a few more years we can act the same way.