Or, the long version....
Dear Calder,
Hydn is having an awfully hard time figuring out the seasons.
According to 'Curious George' it should be winter - so far so good- but
according to Curious George Fall is when you rake leaves and jump into
the pile and heedlessly strew them all around again. But our Fall
didn't come until a couple of days ago (winter),
and now it's snowman time! So what to do?? It's all very distressing.
When Maddie and I refused to go out and play in the leaves with him (in
our defense it was raining. Wet leaves don't work for strewing piles.)
he went out and found a solution for himself. I found him making snow
angels in the mud/leaves. He's now looking forward to Spring for
Curious George's 'spring fever' and hoping Oklahoma cooperates. I've
yet to see an episode with Curious George riding it out in the
cellar....
So this week we went to the ward Christmas party, the Hugo Christmas
parade, and then the Bokchito Christmas parade for our excitement. Oh gosh, where to begin, right? :D I guess
with the Hugo parade because I can sum it up easily in one sentence - The
Hugo Christmas parade is just like the Bokchito Christmas parade...
except with an elephant. Ha. I was expecting grand things; an acrobat
maybe, or some clowns, or possibly both, but nope! They relied
solely on the elephant to pull off all the mud trucks, flat bed trailers
with a single string of lights (except it was during the day), and the
four wheelers with a cross and tinsel tied to the front. That elephant
sure gave it his best though (it was fairly obvious it was a he,
and may
have scarred some children by the obvious fact), and nothing can pull
down the grandeur of an elephant. Not even Santa bellowing, "ho, ho,
ho" between his nervous commands for the thing to SLOW DOWN! Ha. Very
entertaining. But, while I enjoyed
his majestic largesse, I also kept the trunk door open for a hasty
retreat should Santa lose control and the bull elephant run amok.
Next up was the ward Christmas party. It was kind of a sad little
affair,
but I loved every second. I was so entertained watching it all play
out. We had a coloring station and a cake walk. The end. (Question!-
why
would a party like that get such a low turnout?!) We also had a
(singular) vegetable
tray to snack on. A cake walk can only last so long with 50 people, so
when that was over Santa came.
I'll admit, it was kind of sweet to see the kids get their coloring
books
from Santa (thus the coloring station) and lay in the center of the
floor in one big group to color while the adults were putting away
chairs, and unpinning the
lone strand of lights and garland that they must have borrowed from the
Hugo
parade.
I didn't visit with many people at the party though - I'm not sure if
it
was me or the cute autistic boy I was babysitting who kept them away.
;) But, Brother _______ would come to
check on us every so often and found a new topic to visit with me on
each
time. We have Lost, The Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars in common.
Or, ....kind of - I think I remember liking all of those things at one
time. It was difficult to carry on an intelligent conversation about
them (is that an oxymoron?) with my memory being what it is. But, I was
able to throw in something now and again. And when he asked me what I
thought of the blade being added to the light saber in part ___ of Star
Wars, my reply of ".......well.....a blade huh? I think I thought it
was probably a bit excessive and redundant. Who needs a blade when they
have a laser?" struck gold! He emphatically said, "YES! EXACTLY!!"
Whew. Made it through that round. The next round was about Return of
the King. I'm embarrassed to admit I was frantically coming up empty
until he mentioned orcs. At least then I knew which series we were in
without embarrassing myself by talking about the Smoke Monster. Brother
_____ now counts me as a firm ally in the camp of Science Fiction. Oh
the tangled webs we weave..... (In case you're wondering
about the other kids - Pal was outside playing football in the rain with
four other boys who didn't want to color, and Maddie was having a movie
party with some of the young women here at home. No, I did not require
attendance. Yes, I have softened in my old age.)
Now we
go to the Bokchito parade - Friday morning I got a call from Bokchito
City. "Hello? Mrs Ellsworth? Is Calder available?"
"No, he's in Guatemala at the moment. May I help you?"
"GUATEMALA?
Whoa. Well, this is Melissa from city hall, and we need help tomorrow
at the parade. We usually have military in town, but they're not this
year. Then I remembered that we did have scouts, and how well Calder
treated us, and I thought, 'let's get Calder, or his brothers, or his
troop to carry the flags in the parade this year! I'm aware that you
have a lot of children, do you have any other scouts there at home that
could do this?"
"Ha. Yes, yes I do."
"Ha. Yes, yes I do."
"Fantastic.
I don't think I've met the younger one, but if he could meet us at
Beame's, I think I could pick him out. ....your kids kind of all have a
similar look.... "
The whole thing makes me laugh- 1. That she could figure out an Ellsworth just
by facial features. 2. That she thinks we're a 'scouting' family and that we were first on the list to call.
Oh, wait, back up. I forgot to mention that although the scouts were
originally going to be in the parade, they had backed out. So, I was
kind of thrilled to have a reason to put Hydn back in. He had been so
disappointed when they weren't going to get to walk anymore. I rounded up a
few of the other scouts and leaders
and made them this bargain - my box of green candy sticks to pass out(the hundreds and
hundreds from Aunt Chris), for Hydn's participation.
Genius, I know. They accepted. I also made Pal throw in his unicycle
since there were more scouts than flags; with 15 firetrucks, 1 ambulance, 3 electricity trucks, and ONE
lone float - the unicycle was badly needed. I thought he was a STAR.
:D
Maddie and I struck up a conversation with two little old ladies next
to us. We learned a great deal. They were upset that this year's
parade had not been advertised, "IN FACT, Mildred had to call me up and
tell me to get ready so she could pick me up for the parade just 15
MINUTES AGO! I had to run all over tarnation to find my Christmas
sweater!" We
also learned that the fire trucks which speedily left the parade, half
way through the route, were headed behind EZ Mart to quell the fire that
had restarted from the night before. According to Mildred it,
"burned that man right up!" I said incredulously, "You mean, ....he
died??" "Well honey, that's what I said! I said, it burned that man
right up!" What more is there to say to such a simple tragic
statement? It was very depressing, even when said with a Christmas
sweater on. Hm... I think I could
talk about these two endlessly, as they continued in endless
conversation, but I'd better move on. (Maddie was able to
sneak a picture or two in her video for you.)
And now Justin and Cache are here! They drug/dragged? themselves in around 11:00 on Saturday morning,
just missing both parades and the ward Christmas party (it's like they planned that.) Jesse
got here around 11:00 on Sunday morning, just missing church (it's like
she planned that too.) And now we are mostly here and all together
(except for you), and we are all mostly rested up from the lack of 24
hours of sleep.
____________________________________
Dear Calder,
I keep
relooking at the picture we took when you were skyping. It's been so
fun to see you again. I think I'm going to have to have a picture blown
up and put it in my kitchen.
Here were the
parts everybody had for Christmas Eve:
Hydn- 10 rounds of hot potato
Paladin- 3 new magic tricks
Maddie- Pass the story (nine papers, write a saying, pass, draw the picture, pass, etc...)
Jesse- Ugly sweater decorating contest (she made sweater shaped sugar cookies that we frosted and decorated)
Cache- Taught us 'Merry Christmas' in 10 different languages
Justin-
Hum that Christmas Carol
Me- Flying wish paper (write down what gift we would like to give the Savior in the coming year.)
Dad-
An excellent lesson on why in his opinion the Shepherds were the first
to be told of Christ's birth, and then by popular request some Christmas
cowboy poetry.
We
ate tamales and potato soup, with cherry bread, pecan pie, and caramel
pie for dessert. The tamales and pies were made by Mrs. Tippets in
Clarksville. How many people do you know that can say they ate their
Christmas dinner prepared by the hands of the sister whose brother was
the cop shot by Oswald?? Exactly! I'll freeze a tamale for you so you can be
one of the lucky few.
Saturday afternoon we all went over for Dad's birthday. It was pretty
cold and rainy so we took games. We had Hydn play Liebrary
with us, and his first lines add a whole new entertainment factor to it - especially the
romance ones (Even though even those contain lots of killing.) Around
8:00 we drove over to Paris for the Chinese buffet. Happy 48th to Dad!
____________________________________________
Dear Calder,
Friday when the kids left though was sad, sad, sad. They will be
missed. We spent the New Year's playing games with the Masons and Ty
and Michelle. It rained most of the day and we had planned a live
hunger games version of a game, but we only got to do that for about an
hour before dark. We went out to the field where we planted grass/had
the spring picnic and put all the weapons in the center of a big
circle. I stayed in the club car with the little kids and watched. It
was pretty fun to see. It's also a pretty equal game for all ages.
Older people are slower, but stronger and longer limbs. Younger people
are quick and hard to corner. We used cell phones to send out death
notices. It turned out well. Then we had a shrimp boil and played
charades. That was our New Year's. It was probably more exciting than
our New Year's Eve this time. Actually I don't remember anything about
New Year's Eve except the fantastic firework. However, I feel stupid
telling you about it when I think of you seeing hundreds of 'fantastic'
fireworks. :)
And the other days were just a blur. Mainly of me cooking. And kids
playing games. And sleeping. So, yeah, our year has started out with a
gluttonous tone huh? That's always embarrassing. After everybody left I
went straight for a pepsi and a bubble bath. If I'd have had an apron
on, I would have symbolically torn it off and burned it before I did -
but I didn't - so you'll just have to imagine my regal walk to the tub
instead. And while I miss everybody, I can't tell you the relief at
having cooked my last meal.
Much love to you Calder. You were deeply missed.
