As usual we had a wild and crazy weekend. Friday night was John Harris Family Fun Night. Cotton candy, games and all the other festivities one would expect to encounter at a school carnival~it was a total free-for-all. When we made a quick stop in the gym to check out the dancing, we stood back as observers. Jason and I tried to convince the girls to join the throngs of dancing revelers but they claimed they were not interested. However, Ella just couldn't take it and when I looked over, she was full throttle into the Hokey Pokey!
The blizzard of '09 arrived Saturday morning but we were not about to let a measly snowstorm ruin our fun. After receiving a call informing us that Grace and Ella's soccer games were cancelled, we had to quickly move to plan B. We presented several options to the girls and together they decided a trip to the Cinedome for an afternoon viewing of "Amazing Caves" was the most tantalizing option. First up on the schedule though, was a pit stop at HyVee for an Easter Bunny meet and greet, right there in the bologna aisle. This was Lily's first face to face with the icon and she was a little intimidated but majorly intrigued.
She loved his very soft fur and enjoyed petting him. None of the girls were interested in a solo photo with the bunny so we had to settle for a group picture.
Bidding the rodent adieu, we continued on to the Pavilion for the movie. After grabbing the requisite popcorn and pop necessary for a proper cinematic experience, we headed in to get our seats. We have taken Grace and Ella to this theater once but Ella did not recall having been there before. It is kind of a discombobulating feeling walking into an IMAX theater and the girls were thrown for a bit of a loop. Immediately after settling in, the movie started. Ella was pretty freaked out and Jason had to keep an arm on her through the first half of the movie until she was finally sure she wasn't going to fly out of her seat and right down into the cave. Lily was possibly more interested in the pop and popcorn but did comment on how she felt like she was in the car. And good old Grace, she really just loved watching Lily and Ella's reactions more than the movie itself. I looked over and caught her chuckling several times. Once the final credits rolled and the lights were up, we exited and Ella proclaimed the movie to be "AWESOME!".
Floundering for our next move, we decided to go home and regroup. The girls played, I read and Jason took a short siesta. Following these very strenuous activities, we decided we were far to worn out to make supper so back into the car we hopped with visions of Fryn' Pan's chili dancing in my head. There is just nothing like a nice warm cup of chili (or four) on a night filled with wind and snow! Since it was close to 10PM when we finally wrapped up our meal with Jason's parents and brother, we determined it was time to go home and get the girls into bed.
A few blocks from our house, Jason made the observation all of the street lights were out. Once he pointed that out, I then noticed none of the houses along the route had any lights on either. With our anxiety mounting, we approached our house and came to the conclusion that had already been forming....a power outage. Unfortunately the equation we ended up with is this: Power outage+Electric garage door-Correct house keys=No way of getting into the house. As Jason tried to obtain entry, I was left with the challenging task of calming three tired little girls, one of which (Lily) was convinced this calamity was the work of those naughty "lefrechauns". Once the girls were secure knowing that if this sort of thing had to happen, they were lucky to have the daddy they have who will know for sure how to solve this problem, I made a quick phone call to Xcel Energy to find out when the power may be restored (answer 2:41AM but it could be earlier or later~great answer, right?). Suddenly the garage door opened and there stood our hero. Turns out all it took to get the door open was some fancy jiggling, of the key not the key master! Jason then set about getting the fireplace going as I lit some candles and talked to the girls about Little House on the Prairie life. Overcoming her fear, Grace made the decision, "This is actually kind of cool" and they all started arguing over who got to carry around the flashlight. Just as Jason got the generator fired up and was about to plug the fridge in to salvage all of our goodies, the power came back on and the excitement was over as quickly as it began.
Sunday brought us a day full of church, Godfather's Pizza and the Academy of Country Music Awards. The schedule for the week ahead includes a field trip with Ella's class to the hospital, Girl Scouts, cleaning and Easter preparations. Here's to a week full of good weather and the true beginning of Spring!
"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's Party!'"~Robin Williams
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