Behold He Is Risen!

I have been slow getting another post out since our trip to New York.  Seems it takes me longer and longer to catch up with things when I get home and throw a holiday in the mix and I am learning what ‘the hurrier I go, the behinder I get’ means!

We had a wonderful Easter with family and extended family here at our house.  Our Easter service was lovely but I must confess I did not get up in time to go to the sunrise service and breakfast. The choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus and it gave me goose bumps, they did such a wonderful job.  The pastor gave a wonderful message, I feel so badly for him as his wife is dealing with bre*ast cancer.  I know it is only by the grace of God that he can even concentrate on the things he must attend to at church.

The day before Easter Mom and I filled the plastic Easter eggs with goodies over in her house.  It was fun and I had to try out some of the candy to make sure it was okay…….

 

We also made pies…yum…pumpkin, my favorite!

Who is that lady in the rollers with the spatula over her head?

We did something different this year for Easter lunch.   Usually when I have a crowd in I get out the good dishes and use pretty table clothes and all but this year we decided to go casual.  We served the food buffet style on the counter and used PAPER PLATES! SHOCKING!  This was a first but it sure saved on the clean up and we got more time to visit and do things outside.

We had our egg hunt and the kids loved that.  Notice we do have a bit of green grass!!! YAY!

They looked so nice dressed up for church.  Cousin K was helping the ushers so had his badge on.  :o)

The kids wanted to drive the Rhino so some of us went outside and drove around the trails for a bit and D likes to play ball so we did that too.  It was just a good old fashion family day.  What a blessing!!

I received a beautiful birthday surprise from my friend Mary aka Needled Mom.  She does the most beautiful sewing that I have ever seen and is always trying something new and fun.  This is a puzzle piece and she did all of it including the lovely detailing!

Look at the intricate flowers, sooooooo pretty!

A dragonfly!

Thank you so much Mary, you know that I am in awe of your work and appreciate it so much when you send these wonderful things!!!  xoxox

It is raining here but at least it’s not like other parts of the country are having.  When I hear on the news about a certain part of the country having tornadoes or floods or wildfires etc I always think of my blogging friends that live in that particular area.  This morning I heard something about Missouri so now I need to go check in with Donna to make sure she and Cliff are okay.

Will I ever catch up?

Why is it when you get back from a trip it seems like you’re behind on everything here at home?  I have been playing catch up for a week and this is the first time I have had a chance to sit down at my computer to try to put a few coherent words together.  :o)


It was well worth it though, we had such a nice time in the big city.  There is just so much to see and you can’t even begin to see it all in four days even if you are going full tilt like we were.  We hope to get back again to take the kiddos to a few more shows as there are several playing that would be great for them like Mary Poppins and Peter Pan.


This leads me to our Jersey Boy Show experience which wasn’t quite so pleasant.  I know there are a lot of you out there that grew up listening to the Four Seasons singing their wonderful ballads and fun songs like I did.  Squeaky clean lyrics which was the way it was in the 50’s.  Non of the trash talk and innuendo which is so prevalent today.


I guess I am very naive as when I booked the tickets for this show I didn’t even give it a thought that there might be some inappropriate content so when the evening came we were all very excited as we took our seats.  I had been playing Four Seasons music in my car for a few weeks and telling T and D this was what we were going to hear only in person so they were excited about going.


The show started innocently enough with some great dancers and singers doing the prelude to the show and it was all very exciting.  When the show started it was fun and was telling how the Four Seasons got together back in Jersey.  Then things started going downhill fast as the language got coarse and frankly nasty.  We quickly got up to leave trying to get our 8 and 9 year old grand kids out of there as fast as possible.


Yes, I know kids hear things on the bus.  Yes, I know they hear things on the playground at school that aren’t appropriate but dog gone it as their grandparents we aren’t going to expose them to it at a Broadway show that’s supposed to be a fun family night out!!!!!


Was I upset, yes. Very. The ushers kept asking us why we were leaving, evidently they see nothing wrong with children hearing four letter words and more.  Was there anything in the BroadwayShows.com that gave any indication that this was not a child friendly show, no.  Did we get our money back, no, stupid question.  Their solution was to ditch the kids and come back.  Sigh……..  Why ruin a perfectly good show with this kind of content?  There was no need of it, there was enough good content in this story of four young men that became a very popular group for many, many years.  We didn’t get to hear ONE Four Seasons song.


Okay, rant over but not to be forgotten.


On to more exciting things here on the Range.  I turned 60 a few days ago…….sigh…..when did that happen?!  :o)  I thought only old people were 60. ha!


The kids came over to celebrate and brought a pretty cake with enough frosting to put the whole town into a coma but boy was it ever good!!! I hate to admit it but I ate more then my share…..



They had made cards for me and in one was a gift card to JoAnn Fabric and in the other was one to TJ Maxx.  Yay!  I have already made a trip to TJ Maxx and put the card towards some new cushions for my porch furniture.  It was burning a hole in my pocket!


They brought pizza and breadsticks from my favorite pizza place which always hits the spot and then we played UNO.  It was a fun evening.








I had a package arrive on my birthday from Miss Pea at Pea’s Corner!! That was good timing all the way from Ontario!!! It had my favorite fairy on the paper, Tinkerbelle! :o)



Inside was a wonderful wind chime in the shape of a horse which certainly goes with the decor around here!!

Also a sweet Willow Tree friendship figurine that touched my heart.  :o)   I love the bouquet of flowers that she is holding.  Thank you dear Pea, you have been such a wonderful friend to me over the past four years! You are so kind and thoughtful to everyone and we WILL meet in person one day!!!!!  xoxoxo



Dad and I just tried to go for our morning walk but only made it about half way as it started sleeting.  The bits of ice were bouncing off our heads and getting bigger all the time so we turned around and came back to the house.  They are expecting 6 to 8 inches of snow further north where my niece and husband live!!!!!!! YIKES, will spring ever get warm?!!!

Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas!

Quite a switch going from our little town of 8,000 to the Big Apple! I will never complain about traffic here again even in the summer when the tourists are in town on their way to Acadia National Park.  Quite a sight to watch all the cars, cabs, buses and trucks careening through the streets leaving very little space between them! YIKES!
We had a great time in New York though.  There is just so much to see you can’t take it all in in four days.  I guess the highlight was going to the Lion King with the grands and watching their expressions as each new character came out on the stage.  I would go again and I’m sure they would too.
We went to Central Park the first morning and it was delightful, I can just imagine in the summer when everything is in bloom how nice it must be for the residents to get a break from the concrete and traffic and seeing trees, grass, flowers and of course the zoo.





We loved the penguins even though their aroma was enough to knock you over!

The forsythia was in full bloom and so pretty up against the huge boulders. Yes, we all had on our winter coats as it was very cold all weekend but it didn’t dampen our spirits.




The kids had FAO Swartz on their list of things to do so we stopped there on the way back to the hotel.  It is a HUGE toy store!!!!! I enjoyed watching them make the Muppets, it was fascinating.



We saw all of the traditional sights like the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Soho, The Intrepid, Ground Zero which was very moving, after all these years and they are still working on it.  I liked Rockefeller Center and all the ice skaters and flags.
  This is the view from our hotel with Central Park in the background.
 
We went into one of the most beautiful churches that I have ever been in.  It had gorgeous stained glass windows and carvings.  We toured each room and listened to some of a service that was being held.  I can’t imagine how long it took to build it!  It was The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  (Thank you for telling me the name Grey Horse Matters!!!)







 


There were water taxies galore taking people back and forth to the Statue of Liberty.  They estimated that there were over 10,000 people there that day!


Of course horses always catch my eye.  This was a NYC police horse and he is 17.2 hands high!  We were surprised when the officer said we could go visit him, he was a gentle giant.  He just loved the attention.  He is half Belgium and half Thoroughbred.








There is more but I will put that in the next post.  I did want to show you the lovely gift box I received from Miss Pea for winning her Easter Give Away.  It was just loaded with goodies and I had so much fun unwrapping everything.

Not one thing was broken after coming so far!



 


This treasure box will go beautifully in my bedroom!


Thank you Pea, that was really special and I am enjoying each and every thing.  I must admit that I have eaten most of the candy already, the only thing left is the chocolate bunny and I am saving him for Easter!!  xoxox
I have been so busy since getting home that I haven’t gotten around to visiting everyone but I will put that on my agenda for tomorrow and get caught up with you all.  :o)

Horses, Cats and Puppies, Oh My!

Wow!  Did we ever get hammered with snow on April 1st!  It was no joke, no April Fools prank, it was real.  My poor bird feeder was covered.

I must say it was beautiful, although it would have been more so in January then in April!  The trees were covered with heavy wet snow, just the right kind to make snowmen.

A lot of branches came down from the weight of it but we were lucky and only lost a few plus some of the gutters off the back of the house.

I love how the red of the barn looks against the white of the snow.

The grands were here this weekend as the kids were in Arizona. Miss T wanted to go see the boys so up we went with a big bag of cut up carrots.  See how high the snow bank is?!

Nick is always glad to see her and comes running right over.  He rules the roost and the others have to wait for their carrots.

I’ll be glad to get him out of that dirty winter blanket and take the pressure washer to it!

Big hugs for all of them.

Kipper has done well on his exercise routine and has lost some weight this winter although it’s hard to tell with all the fuzzies!

Lil’ Bud is looking good for 23 years old even if he does have a pretty good sway back going on!

After our visit at the stable we headed over to the Humane Society to pick up my cooler and to check out some of the cute animals.  This is Goldie, the Chairman of the Board and resident BHS cat.

We loved this guy!  How pretty!

Then to see some of the puppies.  OH. MY. Word.  Were they ever cute!!

Look at those faces!

This was a fat little guy!  My personal favorite but T liked the brindle one.

I think he would have fit right in my pocket!  :o)

Here is Mom who is taking such good care of all six of her babies. Notice one has climbed into the food dish!  She is such a sweetie, letting us see and hold her puppies.  Her name is Daisy and when I took my boots off and sat in the pen with all of them she climbed right into my lap.  She will gain weight after she weans all those kids.  (I took my boots off and washed my hands so that I didn’t bring any germs into the pen that might not be good for them.) For safety purposes I didn’t let T come into the pen.

These little guys won’t be ready to go for another six weeks so they are not on display yet.  It would be too stressful for Mom to have a lot of people looking, talking, and of course oowing and ahhing!

Snowbird and Snowbird Jr. arrive from the sunny south tomorrow morning.  This will be quite a shock to them to land in Tundra country as my good friend Mrs. Mom calls it! heehee!  They arrive here at 10:30 A.M. and my brother and SIL are picking them up at the airport.  They are so fortunate to have a nonstop flight from Florida, it makes it so much easier for them and Buffy the Princess Cat.  :o)