“I Love This Day” & Easter Post Delay

J-M’s on the Saturday before Easter 2010

I have to put off the Easter Post for at least another day or two. Life is suddenly extraordinarily-even-more-than-usual-almost-out-of-control busy as we embark on that yearly horrific J-M family ritual: the end of the academic year craze-haze. Heaven help us for the next five weeks.

Currently adding to the total mayhem is the fact that K & O’s school, for the first time, has a two-week spring vacation. 2 weeks. ?!?!!! That is a lot of time out of school. They are basically home with Margie and Meera, but I have planned a few things to try to break up their time and give them some special outings.

Today was a very, very special and fun day for K & O. They were home with Margie this morning, but Braydon worked from home so that he could take the boys to Lehigh for lunch at noon. The four of us had a truly delightful (and eye-opening for the boys!) lunch together at the Faculty Dining Room. This is a fancy place with a huge spread-of-a-buffet. Professors and university administrative staff use it for dining, and mainly for lunch meetings. The boys loved going there. They ate a ton and went on and on about how great the food was. Kyle said it was the “best pasta” he’d ever had. Owen had a stuffed chicken dish and said it was the “best chicken” he’d ever had. They had chocolate cake and coconut cream pie for dessert. They told us it was their “new favorite restaurant” (LOL!!!)– which was really quite the statement, all things considered (they’ve eaten at some pretty nice places!). Let me tell ya, the boys sure made the day of the entire waitstaff and the kitchen crew at the Faculty Dining Room.

Then… highlight of all highlights… while I worked in my office the boys got to spend the afternoon on campus playing basketball with Zahir Carrington and Marquis Hall! They were in heaven.

It was an incredibly beautiful day (with record highs in the 90s!!!). I brought K & O for ice cream on campus before we headed home. We ran into quite a few of my students — always a treat for the boys to meet my students, and vice-versa.

In the car on the drive home the boys finally had a chance to settle in and be still for a few minutes. It was unusually quiet and I could see in my rear-view mirror the look of two boys just absolutely soaking in the delight of an incredibly spectacular day.

Out of nowhere I hear Owen say out loud, “I love this day.”

My heart was so over-flowing that I had to pull over the car. I turned around to face them and we talked for just a minute about how awesome the day was for them.

The day ended with a major meltdown at bedtime, of course. Pretty much exactly what was to be expected given the level of exhaustion and the deep desire to not have this day end.

Still… all in all… an awesome day for K & O that won’t be forgotten any time soon.