A Good Good Friday :)

Out of the three days of the Catholic Church's celebration of Easter, the Triduum, Good Friday is typically not one of my favorites. However, this year, it turned out to be the best so far.

Pioneer did not have school yesterday, as we also don't on Monday. However, being that it was Friday, I still had to make the trek to Enid for my concurrent class. (I will also have to do so on Monday...the price you pay to be an overachiever) My Comp class is ending on a high note, as our final essay will be a movie review over the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played. We watched it in class, but I wasn't able to be there on one of the days because of the state band contest. Because of that, I had to go rent the movie so that I can watch it over the weekend and be prepared to write our in-class essay on Monday.

After class, I went and mailed the first third of my graduation invitations, then I also went on a couple of other errands. Most of that was to kill time until the movie store opened up at 10. When the store finally opened, I realized that I would have to start an account. Thankfully, I was not out much money for the movie rental, as it only cost $0.54 (Family Video is renowned for their low rental prices!) Then the guy at the register was so nice as to give me and the guys behind me who were also opening an account a tour of the store.

When I left Family Video, I went on to hand-deliver a couple of invitations to some people I met while volunteering at the hospital. The first lady was not in her office (as I expected), but her nice assistant left it for her. When I went to drop off the invitation with the other lady, I was greeted with some not-so-pleasant news. I learned that in the past two months, she is no longer employed there and the lady who told me that didn't know where she was or how I could contact her. When she told me that, I think a little piece of me died inside. On that note, I decided it was time to go home.

Upon my arrival at home, my mom told me that we would be dying Easter eggs later. I was pretty pumped about that because it is my favorite Easter tradition! Because all of the boys were at home yesterday, we decided to invite them over to join in the fun. I went and picked up all of the boys, except Andy, who is battling the chicken pox (more on that in a moment). When we got back to my house, the boys were so excited about dying Easter eggs that they could barely contain themselves! Thankfully, my mom and I had everything set up already so that they could begin when they got there. We had a few mishaps with the egg dye cups and a cracked egg, but overall, everything went well. My mom and I got lots of pictures, but unfortunately our computer won't let us share them. (Perhaps one day, I will make a post with nothing but pictures from my year.)

After the boys finished dying Easter eggs, which was much too soon for them, my mom got a few things together so that we could take a few eggs over to Andy so that he could be a part of the fun, also. The boys' excitement was a bit much to be contained within my house, so I decided to take them outside where they could unleash their energy. I think I won aunt props with my boys because I played Red Light, Green Light and Freeze Tag with them for nearly an hour. I had to make the "speeding ticket" rule in Red Light, Green Light, though, because Cody & Wyatt kept moving after I called Red Light. (Speeding ticket meant that they had to take a step back!) Between the games, my mom joined us outside and we took a short water break. During the water break, my mom began telling the boys the story of Good Friday, and Cody added his points also. Cody is pretty knowledgeable about the story of the Passion for a Kindergartener (It's obvious that he goes to parochial school).

A short while later, my mom and I took Kyle and Wyatt home (Cody stayed with my dad) and went ot Gina's to dye eggs with Andy. He was napping, so we went over and talked with Emily for a while. When we went back to Gina's, Andy had barely woken up, but he was ready to dye eggs. He sat very still while Gina helped him, and he was very intent the entire time. It was obvious that he wasn't feeling 100%, because he was very docile.

About his chicken pox, by the way, Wyatt refers to them as the "chicken pops". Also, he had an endless stream of questions for my mom when he found out about it. Here is a sample dialogue between Wyatt and my mom:
"Nana, did Andy get the chicken pops because he ate chicken?"
    "No, Wyatt, it's not because he ate chicken."
"But Nana, is Andy going to turn into a chicken?"
    "No, Wyatt! He isn't going to turn into a chicken!"
"Is it in his blood, Nana?"
    "No, it's a virus."
"Is it going to make Andy quit breathing and die?!"
    "WYATT!! No! That's not going to happen!"
"Are you sure he's not going to turn into a chicken?"
    "Yes, Wyatt, I'm sure he won't."

Oh, the questions little ones ask about things they don't know...As you can tell, Wyatt has quite a vivid imagination of how things work, and you can note my mom's alarm at his next-to-last question.

My day ended pretty well. My mom, Cody, and I helped my dad with some repairs on his swather. I also went and fed and watered the cows. While I waited for the water to finish, I went for a short run, because after taking about three weeks off, it is becoming apparent that I need to run again. I can just feel it. After that, my family and I went to the Good Friday service. Our visiting priest, or monk, rather, Father Manuel, gave a nice homily that partially changed the way I look at the Passion.

All in all, it was a great day for me. I got to spend time with my precious nephews and make memories with them. Add some time with God to the equation, and that's what it's all about!