Time to catch up here again!
Last Saturday was Dick's 75th birthday. I'm so thankful he still enjoys driving distances. Without him I would miss out on a lot of things.
We were leaving for Frank's place in Reading and I snapped a picture of my happy tulips before we left.
The occasion in Reading was a birthday party for RaeLynn, and it turned into a double birthday party. We took Hunter along. He remembered having a fun time with Frank's girls when we had the fondue at our house at Christmas and asked to go along. Whew!! He kept our brains AWAKE as we drove the three hours. He makes up games to play, and sometimes they are HARD!
RaeLynn was feeling shy because she doesn't know us that well.
Her mommy, Lisa, had a really cute dress for her to wear, and RaeLynn didn't want to have anything to do with it, so that caused some tears too. Eventually she agreed to wear it - for a while anyway.
Hunter had fun with the girls. Here he is with V'anni and Alaya on the left and Lisa's daughter Lani on the right.
We had two Happy Birthday cakes and songs.
Happy Birthday to RaeLynn!
Happy Birthday to Grandpa!
She was really happy when she had her dress off and it was time to open gifts. Her favorite gift? New shoes!!! Is she Frank's daughter, or what?? He loves shoes. So does Destiny. She has a collection of shoes (in boxes) that get moved each time she moves.
J'von and his girlfriend came from Lancaster as well as Frank's bio uncle Danny. I like him and had a good time catching up with him. When Frank was our teenage foster son I used to take him to visit his grandparents in Reading. Danny was a young adult living at home at that time.
Here is Frank with five of his children; Alaya, J'von, RaeLynn, V'anni, and Jada.
I wanted a picture with the grandchildren, including Hunter. At the moment he was in a cranky mood because all the gift opening was taking away his time to play hide-and-seek, lol! There was no getting him to look happy for the picture.
Frank gave this to Dick for his birthday!! When Lori saw it she said, "We're taking this camping!!"
Then we said our goodbyes and drove back home. Again Hunter kept our minds active with all the games he came up with! We took him home when we got back to State College, and then we went home and were glad for bed!
Our Easter service on Sunday morning was wonderful.
As is our Easter tradition, Dick and I tried to match our clothing a bit.
A full house!
Our choir did the song "Is He Worthy?" I had actually introduced it to the choir in preparation for our 2020 Easter service. But we all know how that turned out. There was no church service except via Zoom, and no choir song. I never brought it back again until this spring. It was more difficult than most of our songs, but I was happy with how the choir did. It has such powerful, emotional moments in the song.
Pastor Jim had a time with the kids again, showing how a very dirty, painted egg can become white again when the shell comes off. He used that as an example of our hearts. Believe it or not, when he had peeled off the shell he wondered if anyone wanted a piece of the egg. He didn't expect anyone to want to. But they did! So he was breaking the hard boiled egg up into pieces and handing them out. It was hilarious! And it made a mess along with the shells that were on the floor. But we have a cement floor and is easy to clean up, so it didn't matter.
And here finally is a picture of Elizer!! They went to an Elevation church in Indianapolis that was hosting an egg hunt on Sunday morning. They stayed for the service too. Elizer is standing with Ozzy's younger brother.
Oh how I miss Elizer!! I miss Destiny too. The pictures in my FB memories from the past few years don't help.
After church I started prepping food for our Easter dinner, which we did not eat until 5:00. It was nice that I didn't need to hurry. I made a ham, sweet potato pudding, baked corn, and brown butter broccoli. I had bought an apple and a shoefly pie for dessert. I forgot to take any picture of the food or of us eating it at the table.
When we were finished eating we started to paint the eggs I had boiled. I forgot to take a picture of the eggs after we had painted them. Meanwhile Dick was putting candy and money into plastic eggs in the kitchen. Anthony was snoring away on the couch and we were laughing at him, lol!
Please excuse the Thanksgiving table cloth. I forgot to buy one for Easter!
Later Dick and Anthony hid the eggs, then the boys hunted them.
Then the fun of opening up the plastic ones to see how rich they had become!
This past week I had an appointment for my six-month bloodwork, then two days later an appointment with the doctor. I've got some issues and now some new meds.
There was also a meeting Tuesday evening at church about needing more room for children's classes. What a wonderful problem to have! We came up with some possible solutions.
On Wednesday after I picked up Hunter and Austin from school and took them and the food I had cooked to their house, I took Hunter to the little playground near their place. We hadn't been there since Fall. But now there were BEES!!! So we didn't stay very long.
I finally got out and walked on Thursday. The sky was glorious as was the weather. This week finally felt like Spring again!
At choir practice that evening the band came also to practice our song for Sunday morning, "Praise Is Rising." Looking forward to tomorrow!
Friday was RaeLynn's actual birthday, two years old. Here's a cute picture of her I took at Christmas.
And here's a sweet one taken yesterday when Frank picked her up from daycare.
And that is enough for one post!!
