Category: Our Family

The Easter Bunny kept things pretty simple this year. Everyone got some candy, and there were some Easter books, and some jump ropes for the kids to share and that was about it.

After going through their baskets for awhile, some of the kids started asking where all the eggs that the Easter Bunny hid are. Then they discovered this note:

So the Grinch came along with Santa at Christmas time, and now the Easter Bunny didn’t want to hide eggs in a messy house. Hopefully the kids will get the message and start cleaning up.

We went to Laurel & Roine’s house for dinner, and there were a bunch of other people there as well. During dinner I sat listening to the conversations around me, and there was one that stuck out to me. Someone was talking about how they had fallen asleep at the wheel and been in a head on crash many years ago, and they were giving the details and answering questions about that experience. I sat there thinking how lucky they are to be here today to tell the story, and my thoughts turned to my uncle Frank who wasn’t so lucky.

Uncle Frank was a special uncle. He was my dad’s younger brother, and they had a special bond. Uncle Frank was married but didn’t have any kids of his own, but he just LOVED to be with us kids. He was tall, athletic and a goofy guy. When I was about ten years old, I remember being in the hallway of our house in Fullerton when my mom came to me to tell me that Uncle Frank had died in a car crash. He lived quite a distance from where he worked and as I understand it, he didn’t go home every night, just for the weekends. But he was driving home one night to be there the next day for his wife’s birthday, he was exhausted and fell asleep at the wheel. His vehicle swerved into the oncoming traffic where he crashed head on, with another vehicle. All the passengers in that vehicle died as well. I remember being in denial when my mom told me the news. It just couldn’t be possible. In my mind, he wasn’t dead he just lived far away, but we would see him again, maybe at Christmas like we always did. I remember my parents going to his service. They didn’t take us kids. They came home feeling really upset that the service seemed to be more of a party than a funeral. I never really got any closure. Still in my mind he was not dead, just away. There have been times over the years that I would sit and think about how the man that died in the crash could have been any man, and maybe Uncle Frank is out there wandering around the world still. But then I would realize that Uncle Frank wouldn’t be just out in the world somewhere and be ignoring us all these years, and so he must have been the man that died in the crash. Then I think of how grateful I am for the gospel, and my knowledge that families are forever. I was there in the temple with my parents and with my grandmother, when we had Grandma Shirley sealed to her parents, and to Grandpa Denzel, and dad was sealed to them, and I was the one with the records and made sure that the paperwork was all right and that we didn’t forget to have Frank sealed to the family too. How grateful that I am that as I am reminded of Uncle Frank and his death it happens to be when we are celebrating Easter, and the resurrection of our Savior, who makes it possible for all to be resurrected when the time comes. And I realize that I was right all those years ago when I had the thought that we will see Uncle Frank again. I won’t see him again in this life, as my ten year old self though, but I WILL see him again!

Debby and Rexton spent the day with us, so they were here to help us dye Easter eggs. Lately I’ve been boiling a dozen eggs per kid, which means seven dozen eggs this year, although we had a few crack in the boiling process so there were a bit less for dying.

We bought a “metallic” egg dying kit this year, and found out that instead of dipping the eggs in metallic dye, they had to be hand painted one at a time. So we tried to let each kid paint at least one egg each, but that took forever, and it was such a pain, so I don’t think we will be buying anything like that again.

Last year a family in our neighborhood organized a neighborhood egg hunt. But they have moved since then. They didn’t move far, just to the next ward over which is only a few streets away, but they were no longer a part of our neighborhood. I really liked the neighborhood egg hunt, so I did my best to recreate what they did, for this year. Basically I asked anyone that wanted to participate to bring over a dozen eggs per kid in their family. Kyle and I were up late last night counting the eggs and splitting them into two groups based on the ages of the kids to participate. We needed to put enough eggs for the big kids on one side of the street, and enough for the little kids on the other side.

This morning, I marked all the mailboxes of the houses where people said we could use their yards to hide eggs, and Kyle and some of the neighbors hid the eggs. Debby came over and we headed down to the corner of the street to start the hunt.

Chloe came to me at one point crying because she hadn’t found any eggs, but I told her to just keep going down the street looking. She eventually found some though.Somehow at the end there were some kids that didn’t have a dozen eggs, but there were no more to be found. So there must have been some unsupervised children that ended up with more than twelve. I think it turned out well and in general the neighborhood was appreciative of it.