We started with our traditional living room Easter egg hunt. The kids scampered around the room while Cindy and I sipped our coffee. Ideally an Easter egg hunt should take place in the green grass of the back yard, but our grass is just starting to grow, and of course all the candy would have been frozen solid.
After the treasure hunt, we had a quick and ordinary breakfast before heading off to church. I'd never been to an Easter service any place other than Woodland UM in Wichita. We've been to this church in Haslett just a handful of times. It's been interesting and has been providing some additional perspective on everyday life.
Managed to lock the keys in the car at the church. Hmmm. I had driven to the church and was messing around in the front seat of the van after we arrived. Everyone else zipped inside afraid we were running late. The instant the van door closed I knew I'd screwed up. I usually check my pocket before closing and locking the door, but the parking was tight and I'd had to squeeze out of the car through a tiny gap. Messed up my routine. Cindy's keys were at home in their basket; not in her purse.
The family that introduced us to this church, friends of ours through Abbey and their daughter Annabelle, helped us out by giving me a ride back to our house and then back to the church. How embarrassing. But it was a good chance to chat with Annabelle's dad, Chuck.
Once we got the locked-the-keys-in-the-car mess straightened out, we went home for another ordinary lunch of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. But at least we had our ordinary lunch (and breakfast) on our new dining room table, delivered to us yesterday, perhaps in celebration of my dad's birthday.
After lunch Cindy headed out to work in the yard -- still moving around last falls leaves. Another bunch of bags down to the curb. We haven't even gotten to the back yard. Next year we're just going to pay the $250 to have the leaf guys come with their vacuums in the fall. It will save us at least 50 hours of hours of raking, mulching, and bagging.
While Cindy worked outside, I returned to my basement bike shop to finalize the handlebar swap and install new bar tape on the Big Blue Burley. Once done, I hauled it upstairs to ready for our first ride of the year. Actually, we had a really short test ride last night, but I'm not counting that.
I just finished some significant alterations to the Little Blue Burley. I think I mentioned that a few posts previously. The old bars from the LBB, which were really too wide and deep for Cindy, are now on the BBB and seem to be a good fit for me. I'll post all the tandem upgrades later (some might call some of the upgrades downgrades, but, as I said, later).
It was a beautiful sunny and chilly afternoon, with a sharp north wind, and an air temperature of about 50 degrees F. We bundled up the kids in what might have looked like snow skiing outfits and rode off toward Lake Lansing Park. All the changes to bars, brakes, shifters, gears, and cranks worked without incident. I always worry a little about failing to tighten one little bolt somewhere and having a critical piece come loose and causing a horrible crash, but the bikes worked quite well. We let the kids play at the park for precisely 17 minutes, and then we pedaled home. It was an easy 12 miles for our first tandem ride of the season. I love our Blue Burleys! The kids are OK, too.
On the way home from the park, we stopped at the grocery store for powdered sugar so Cindy could make a batch of frosting. Yum. Back home, I had to spend some time rearranging bikes in the garage so I could got both tandems on their racks. Cindy frosted her carrot cake and got our Easter dinner started. Scalloped potatoes, fake chickens, green beans, deviled eggs, and rolls. And carrot cake. The eggs that were deviled were the same that had been decorated the night before, so some of the whites looked sort of tye-dyed.
Yesterday, while the kids and I were out for an 11-mile run-n-ride, we saw a big fat cottontail rabbit hopping along near the edge of a wetland. I suggested we catch it and add Easter bunny to the dinner menu. As usual, they had ignored me.
Our dinner was delicious. "Thank-you a hundred times!" said Quinn. And the carrot cake was great, with a hint of coconut and little chunks of pineapple.
After dinner Quinn sat on the piano bench to practice but couldn't focus and got frustrated and whined about not being able to do anything right. I didn't help the situation because I just got frustrated myself and yelled at him. After a little crying we had some successful practice time before he went off to bathe. Meanwhile, Abbey was working madly on an assignment for school that had somehow laid untouched for the 11 days of spring break. Then she practiced the piano while Quinn took a bath. Everyone had some reading time and now they are asleep. So is Cindy. And here I am at the computer trying to write it all down. I'm not sure why.
Today it seemed that nearly everyone we knew was having a nice dinner and spending the day with friends and family. The streets and driveways in our neighborhood and in the neighborhoods where we bicycled were full of the extra cars of visitors. It was sort of sad that we were not doing the same.
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