A Special Easter Day Weekend!

Saturday, April 15th was a very special day.  It was my dad's 93rd birthday - wow!  He is an amazing man with such a phenomenal outlook on life.  He has not had a bladder for over 20 years and never once have we heard him complain about his situation or all the medical complications that have happened during these years because of it!  Several had him fighting for his life! His positive attitude is an inspiration to all!

After Ken's morning walk, we drove to see John and Cindy.  We had not seen them since December and it was so good to spend time together.  We chatted at their house and then the 4 of us went out for lunch at Gus's, a local eatery. From there we went to Masonic Homes where we played 2 games of Up the River with mom and dad.  We had a private room for the 6 of us to spend the afternoon playing cards, having birthday cake, and just having a great time. Cindy and I are so blessed to have both of our parents living.  Hopefully we have their "genes"!

Let the card games begin!

We had Happy Birthday Mom and Dad on the cake since we
were not around on November 5 for Mom's 87th birthday!
Don't they look great!  We are so grateful for their sharp minds!

Cindy and I are so proud to call them Mom and Dad!

We left there around 5:15 and Ken and I went to Jamie and Dane's for a Mexican dinner.  Sue and Dan, Dane's parents, were also there and of course, Bria, Cali, and Sampson.  It was so nice of Jamie and Dane to invite us to their home for the evening and we all had a great time.    We were home by 9:30 and we went right to bed.  It was a busy but wonderful day!

We left the house on Easter morning by 9, stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a birthday cake and ice cream to celebrate all 4 of our granddaughters birthdays. Katelyn's is this week, but we were in Florida for the other 3 birthdays.  

We arrived at Bob and Lanie's by 10 and Jamie's family were there by 10:30.   We started the day by having a scavenger hunt for the little ones.  There were 12 clues that had them searching throughout the house and going from the 1st to 2nd floor numerous times.

One group photo before the Easter fun begins!

Back downstairs for another clue during
the scavenger hunt!

Oh no, now it is back upstairs!  This is
exhausting!

The last clue took them to the backyard where we had hidden eggs for the annual Easter egg hunt!

I wonder how many more years this grown-up 10 year old,
Bria, will want to be part of the egg hunt!  She is growing
up so quickly!

Samantha was having a good time!

Looks like Katelyn has quite a "stash"
in her bucket!

Racing to find more eggs! 

Who put this one so high and almost
out of my reach???

Katelyn wanted to make sure they had
found all of the eggs!

Then it was time to go inside to check out the goodies inside the eggs -

Cali is all smiles after checking out all the
goodies in her eggs!

There were 105 eggs, so all the girls had plenty of candy, money,
etc.

Aunt Jamie offered some help to put the puzzle together for
the next part of the Easter adventure!

Some of the eggs had a slip of paper inside with a word on it that could be put together to make a puzzle with a clue for the next part of Easter Day -

Lanie had done a great job with the riddle!

Pinata time thanks to Lanie -

The 1st round of hits were done
with a blindfold.  Go, Cali!

Samantha was determined!

Bria had some really hard hits! 

Katelyn had fun too!

Cali's hit was the one that broke the egg!

More treats!

Samantha decided that the egg half made
a great Easter bonnet!

Katelyn thought she should try the bonnet too!

Time to eat -

Bob grilled delicious filet mignon and Lanie also had
crab cakes.  She  had baked sweet potatoes, sauteed
green beans with onions and bacon, and oven
"grilled" white potatoes with zucchini and onions.  The
whole meal was delicious!

Samantha had made up a schedule for the day on the computer complete with graphics, so we tried to stay on "time"! 

Okay, Aunt Jamie, it is time to get with the program and get
back on schedule!

Then Grandma and PawPaw gave the girls a gift from their time in Florida - coconut fish that I had painted and PawPaw helped collect the coconuts and the palm branches -

One more photo before we open more presents!

The fish were painted to match their bedrooms!

   
and their Easter gifts -

The stuffed ducks were a hit!

I wrote a note for Bria and Cali to tell them about their
birthday gifts - we are going to a place where they can
select and paint a piece of pottery.

Now it was time for the entertainment - a dance show with Samantha as the main fantastic dancer, but she had 3 background dancers that added a lot of great moves to her performance!

The star of the show - Samantha!

Samantha had done a lot of practicing for this show before today,
 including picking the 4 songs they danced to! Before and
\after lunch the back-up dancers did quite a bit of rehearsing!
 They all knew their "moves" very well!!  Look how well
they are doing their moves in sync!

Celebrating when the show was finished!

Part of the audience!

Relaxing after a great performance!

Can't have a birthday party without a cake -

Because some of them wanted chocolate cake and others
vanilla we had a cake made out of both kinds of cupcakes!

It was 82 degrees and sunny, so time to move outside for the Kubb games to begin.  Unfortunately the women just couldn't win a game!  It might have something to do with the professional, Bob!

We may not win, but we have a lot of spirit!

Bob really gets into the game and Ken did a great job of
taking an action shot!!!

Okay, okay, okay - so you won!  Big deal!!!

Jamie's family left around 3:30 to go to Dane's parents for their Easter dinner.  Ken and I left Lanie and Bob's around 6:15 and spent the evening going through all the photos Ken had taken the last two days.  I did this blog while we watched the salute to the Bee Gees.  Boy, they surely had a lot of great hits!  I thought it was a great tribute!