Two Good Days

Yesterday, I went to my parents' house.  My mom asked me to help her with the last minute preparations for my dad's 60th birthday party.  It was awesome.  So many of their neighbors came to celebrate the "death of his youth".  Let me show you the awesome invitations:

I made them.  My mom kept emailing about how my brother was supposed to do them, and whether or not the party would actually take place was riding on whether or not he did.  So I just said, "Well, I will do them."
"Oh, you will?"  "Yeah.  It won't take very long."  "Okay, I'll email you everything I want on them, and let you make them."  "Okay.  Love you, bye."
 The information was received, and I copy and pasted it onto a word document.  Then I worked on the pictures.  I had to crop my dad out of a picture with my mom for the picture of him now, so it wasn't perfectly in line with the other one.  Ten minutes later, I called my mom to tell her they were done.  "Already?!"  "Yep.  It wasn't that hard, Mom."  "Oh, okay."  We waited for the email to go through, but it was taking longer than thirty seconds, so we hung up.  About five minutes later, I got this email: 

"Thanks!  It looks good enough for the boys I run with.  The surprise is out.  Dad laughed.  Michael would have made the pictures even, but I'm good with it like it is.  People will just throw them away anyway.

Thanks."  I love my mom, but why does she need to say everything that comes to her head.?  A simple thank you would have been good enough.  I know my brother is better at using photo shop than me.  In fact, I don't have photo shop.  Beggars can't be choosers.

But the party was marvelous!  Before the party, the Easter bunny came and hid some plastic eggs in my mom's backyard for the boys to find.  What fun!  The boys had a blast running around trying to find the colored eggs.

Then, my mom and I ran to the store, picked up the cake, and balloons, sub sandwiches, came back, and ran around the house in a panic until we felt better (no, not really. Hee hee hee!).  I went to Ogden to get my sister from the Trax station so she could get to the party sooner, and when we got back, I finally got to sit down and enjoy the party for about half an hour.  Then, my mom asked me to take my brother Jeremy to Logan so he could attend the baptism of a friend.  Yay.  I needed a nap when I got back, and I missed my dad trying to blow out 60 candles on his cake.  Seriously.  They actually lit 60 candles!  Emily told me it was hard to do.  I'll bet!  The cake was yummy, and everybody kept telling my parents the invitations made them think my dad was actually dead.  Then they re-read them.  Carefully this time.  My mom said one neighbor called another in tears.  Of course, I find this incredibly funny.  The irony is my mom passed out the invitations, and the next day, Grandpa died.  But my dad said we should have the party anyway.  It was really nice to be with people, and chat and laugh.  I really needed it after Friday.  Friday, I was walking around, trying to do all the normal day-to-day things that I had to do with my eyes leaking.

 

 Here is my brother, leading my kids around the yard to try and confuse them about where they are.  Zach kept opening his eyes, though, so I'm not sure if it worked the way he wanted.

 Zach found one behind the tree!

 Riley has one word to describe yesterday's egg hunt:  "Awesome!"

 Kaleb found one right away!

 It looks like 60 candles are hard to blow out.

 He likes the card I made him. :)

 And since he is a John Wayne fan, I thought this would be an excellent present. :)  I was right.

We drove past the construction that is being done on the temple on our way out of town.  We wanted to see the progress.  It's coming along amazingly! :)  Exciting.

Today, we got up and had a small egg hunt of our own.  I sang in the church choir songs of the resurrection of our Savior.  I made it through them with out crying too much.  I was glad.  I've experienced trying to sing "In A Coming Day" with tears streaming down my cheeks and snot dripping from my nose.  It's embarrassing.  And probably not something people really want to see.  That is not an easy song to sing after learning of some one's death.  But Easter isn't about death.  It is about hope and love.  Our Savior died for us and was resurrected.  Death is not the end.  Our spirits leave our beautiful bodies for a time.  Perhaps to learn more of the things that we could never learn on this earth.  I don't know for sure.  One day, we will be with those we love again.  I hate that we have to leave each other for a little while, though.  That's the hard part.  That is the part that leaves holes in your heart.  My heart is turning into a colander.  I suppose it will make it easier for the love to pour through.  At least, that's what I hope happens.  I know I won't be sad forever.  But I don't believe we ever really get over it when people die.  One day, out of the blue, I will think about my other Grandpa who died before I started this blog, and my eyes will fill with tears.  It's okay to miss them.  It's okay to always love them.