Always walk through the garden...

The Easter baskets are loaded up and ready to go, kiddos tucked in and excited for the morning.  In the calm before the holiday storm, time to reflect on the past few days. 

Friday morning dawned foggy and warm. Nat and I squeezed in a bit of lake time before the fog cleared.  It was kind of magical.  You know you're a true lake  girl when you love it there in this weather just as much as on a blue-sky summer day.  

It was some SERIOUS fog.

 Friday afternoon my mom and I had a little road trip adventure, all the way to Kent...  We visited the Fashion Museum at Kent State, which we've been meaning to go to for years.  We had such  terrific day!  The hour drive flew by with the two of us talking, then we had a nice lunch out at a train station-turned-restaurant before spending a few hours poring over the magnificent dresses on display at the museum.

The "inside-out" exhibit was amazing, and we took the time to pore over every description of the sewing techniques used to create the fashions of the age from 1750- 1950.  Unreal to think of the time and artistry put into clothes a hundred years ago!  

In other, and slightly unrelated news, we now own an electric organ. 

Nat and I went to the Restore on Thursday as part of a (delightful!) date night provided to us by Gram.  We always love investigating the treasures there, different every time.  This week, for some reason, there were no less than 5 electric organs for sale.  We just HAD to buy one!

  By the time we got home, Nat and I had found our inspiration for the day, and spent an hour clearing and cleaning a corner of our basement, which is now being transformed into a music lounge.  

See our new organ?  It is SO groovy.

Friday night:  Annual Egg-Dyeing festivities with our friends.  The kids did SO well this year, strikingly independent with the whole process.  The only person to spill dye the whole night?  Me, of course.  I think our eggs are quite fine this year.

After a week of temps in the 50s and 60s, lulling us into complacency... surprise!  We awoke this morning to snow on the ground!  Nothing we couldn't handle, and certainly nothing to stand in the way of dressing my children in inappropriately springy garb and heading off to the Botanical Gardens egg hunt...

What's a little bit of 30 degree wind among friends?

Here's our poor bare-legged child trying to stay warm while we waited to go in..

 At least it was warm in the glass houses.  Deliciously so, calm and bright and green and full of happy, alert animals and tons of butterflies.  I never tire of this place.

Easter is one of those "photo holidays" for us.  Well, any day when I have my son in an oxford and my daughter in a to-die-for-cute dress is a photo holiday, actually.

So, the pressure was on to memorialize the day and the outfits with the perfect shot.

It was hard to come by this year.

Would you believe this was THE best shot of our four offspring?  You're just going to have to  trust me that they were pretty adorable.  Lillian was unhappy because she wanted to eat, so seconds before this photo was taken, Jack was feeding her goldfish. crackers.  Got Lillian to smile.  Lost the rest of the them.  I tell ya...

Out into the cold garden we went to find our 10 eggs.  Jack was on a quest for the elusive "golden egg" this year and systematically searched the entire garden.  Alas, no gold for him this year, but lots of quality hunting time and a nice assortment of candy in the eggs he did find.  Happy boy.

This afternoon we took advantage of  "Free First Saturdays" at MOCA, where we were excited to share "The Visitors" with the kids.   The kids weren't initially very excited to leave behind their baskets of candy and go to a museum, but they got over it quickly as soon as they found these awesome "triangle chair things" from which to view the very cool Rube Goldberg video on display in the atrium.  Jak called it the "Chain reaction" and proclaimed it the best part of the trip.  I think he would have rolled around on the triangle chair thing and watched that video all day.

 But of course we had to get upstairs and visit The Visitors.  A different experience every time, this trip was marked by the fact that the audience was, almost to a person, seated.  So we found some seats too.  Ivy moved a foam block to sit, front and center, right by the "bathtub man"'s screen.  She focused on him with unwavering concentration and very much wanted to know why his face was always sad, and why it was such a sad song.   Jack, astute young man that he is, figured out very quickly that all the artists were in the big white house, by noticing the shadows of movement in the windows when one of the artists changed rooms.  He was also very interested in the cannon.  I loved being back in the room, surrounded by the haunting melody, spending some more time with these Norwegian musicians who we think of as friends...

Jack wanted to fill out a MOCA survey when we were leaving.  He took it very seriously.  We had to create a check box for his age and level of education.  I don't think they anticipated many 2nd graders filling it out.

Don't worry, there was glass there.  Jack checked first. 

 We closed out the museum watching some more of the the chain reaction video.  We were going to head home for supper, but why go home when you can walk through a garden again?
 We played hide and seek and wandered in the peace and beauty of Lakeview to soak up a bit more of the blue-sky day....

Today is what we'll be thinking of, years from now, when we talk about the good old days.  This is it, people.  The good stuff.  Snow and eggs and friends and sunshine and children who won't stand still for pictures.  You don't get any better than this.

Easter blessings to you all!