This year is my 5th Easter after moving to Bellingham, and every year I traverse down to my parents' home in Longview to partake of the festivities. In fact, other than Christmas, I believe Easter is the only holiday that I have spent with them every year since the move. There's a simple and straightforward reason for this: The mall is closed on Easter. So, when I was working at Waldenbooks, or while Nick was working in the mall, I'd only ever have to ask for one day off rather than two and could make sure that I got to spend the whole weekend in the presence of my family.
Of course, the fact of the matter is that it's all too good to be true. Out of the last five Easters with my family, I have been sick for three of them. Now, when I say sick, I don't mean nice and cozy wrapped in a blanket with a sniffly nose. I mean sick with the flu from hell (twice) or some sort of wacky 104 degree fever that required an ice bath (the suck, let me tell you). The upside is that whenever I'm sick, having Mom close to dote on me is fantastic. The downside is having an Easter egg hunt where I'm shriveled up on the couch, trying to stare through blurred eyes, and pointing to the eggs to have Dad gather them for me.
Luckily, this year made up for it. My sister's new husband (first Easter married, go Reese!) works at a feed store that happened to have one of the most springy of all spring animals. No, I don't mean rabbits although those count, but the other little Easter fluffball: the baby chicken. Whether or not you like chickens, you can't deny the ultimate cuteness of the baby in any form (If you post and deny it here, I will find a way to personally have you shanghaied into the HTML5 working group. And have fun with that!). Babies are cute. Some cuter than others. Kittens, puppies, bunnies... and of course chicks. And if they look like the not-so-nommable peeps? Well, who's to complain?
We managed to weedle away at least an hour of the day with the cute little ones, the resident store dog and cat, and generally chatting with Isaac to try and take up some of the work day and just enjoy the nice Saturday (seems that it was better down in Longview than up in Bellingham. Can be grateful for that at least!).
I also managed to score epic loot for the weekend due to the fact that my birthday is coming up on Friday. My mother, intuitive woman that she is, got a relative hint when I called her last week asking if she still had her extra sewing machine and if I could nab it. I was disappointed when she said that it was gone, but pleasantly not-so-surprised to find that the family picked me up one for my birthday to get me started. I even picked up some gorgeous material and snitched one of my mom's sundress patterns to get working. I can't wait!
To top it off, we did an Easter egg hunt on Sunday. My dad, the little kid that he is, was more excited about it than the rest of us, although it turned into a smashingly good time. (Mom did have to remind him: Honey, they're adults now). I know how he feels, though. Whenever I see my little sister, I see the too thick glasses and big chunky teeth of an awkward 8-year-old. It's all about perspective, I guess. We had rain, but it was fun, and Nick and I scored $10, so... worth it for sure!
But... what are the real highlights of the weekend? The absolute geek in me has the answer to this:
1) I set my parents up with Google Chrome. Their poor old computers are at that stage where they're hazardously slow and it takes minutes (minutes people!) to open Internet Explorer (eew). And so, web genius that I am, I installed the fastest browser out there to my mother's delight. I can still see the look on her face as she sees that it opens instantly, and... more importantly... closes instantly, too. Ah, the joys of being caught up with the modern web world.
2) Emily's E-bay genius found Nick the absolutely perfect gift for me for my birthday (she got me a lovely one herself, but alas I have no photos of it). This gorgeous steam-punk medallion necklace makes my year, and the fact that it is actually a working watch where you can see the gears inside turn make me squeal with delight. I can't wait to get sewing and working on costuming to go with it! I have a feeling that it's all going to be absolutely. Perfect.