It’s Good Friday, and as I’ve mentioned
before; it seems appropriate when it rains – at least in the morning.
The rain didn’t arrive until after we were
able to be by the river for Tai Chi, but it was here in time for the trip to
church; so we took the minivan instead of walking. Good Friday services are usually fairly-short
and quite solemn; and this version was no exception. Michael and I helped out with the music with
a duet, and while the occasion is solemn; I’ll still admit that there is joy
and love that goes along with the music every time we play and sing
together. That feels a bit strange on
Good Friday, but it’s true anyway; so there’s no point in pretending it isn’t
like that for us. One thing that is different
about the Good Friday service is that we don’t get a lot of praise for our
music; and I actually think that’s the way it should always be when it comes to
church. It may be a worn-out sentiment,
but when it really isn’t supposed to be about us at all – it’s about the
messages we sing about; so I hope that I never feel differently about that.
Moving along, while the service was solemn
and subdued compared to our normal services; the rest of the day was livelier. That seems like an odd contrast too, but we
really don’t get many family days when all of the stores in town are closed; so
we take advantage of them when they do happen.
That’s also why we’re having a camping night by the river; though I’ll
get to that part of the update in a minute.
After church, we had a break in the rain;
but that wasn’t quite it for the day and we had another blast of wet around
lunchtime. Michael and I had that meal
at his house along with his parents, Rebecca, Lucas, and most of the Bassett
clan – or at least all of Michael’s aunts, uncles, and available first
cousins. That reminds me to mention that
this is an away holiday weekend for my family, so we don’t have any weekend
guests. Uncle Nick, Aunt Deborah and the
kids are away with her family; and Uncle Mark, Aunt Grace, and their kids are
away visiting her family. Uncle Adam is
the on-call doctor this weekend; so the Carringtons are here – and they had
dinner with us tonight.
It took a while for things to start drying
up outside today, but that did eventually happen; and we’ve had a decent
afternoon and beautiful spring evening.
The decision to have a camping night came fairly-early in the afternoon
as the weather forecast started to look good for doing that, and while we didn’t
end up with a major camping event; we do have six tents in our little
campground. We waited until
late-afternoon to set them up; and spent most of the afternoon biking and
playing at the park. Ethan and Ehlana
invited Naomi, Aiden, and Sophia to the camping night; Rowen, Tim, Rebecca, and
Lucas signed up too; and we added Patrick, Jessica, Scott, Lindsay, and Ryan to
the group. Zack, Brianna, and Eli were
added last – at dinnertime; and mostly because Zack and Eli could not get
parental approval to have an unsupervised camping night in either of their back
yards. Rowen and I have three junior
campers in our tent, but Michael and Tim have the toughest job tonight with
Zack and Eli in their tent with them.
I’m sure of that because I can still hear
the boys in the tent next to us; while our little camping buddies are all
sleeping now. Add Rowen to that list;
since she’s sleeping now too.
Moving along – again; we had our campsite
set up by the time dinner was ready.
That meal was outdoors, and in addition to the Carringtons; we had Naomi’s
family with us. Aiden was with his
family for dinner, but was dropped off early in the evening because his father
needed to get to sleep and be up in the middle of the night to start baking for
what is sure to be a busy day at the Olde Bakery. We didn’t have a major meal today because we
will be doing that on Sunday; so the clean-up was easy too. Once that little blast of work was finished;
we headed for the park again to do more biking and playing; got home again in
time for a campfire; and did that until shortly before eleven; when Mom and Dad
put an end to it because we all have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.
For Michael and I, that’s going to start
with the breakfast buffet shift – and that’s part of the reason for why we have
the extra teen help for the camping tonight.
Mom and Dad will need that help in the morning while Michael and I are
busy – and we will be; since Miranda is doing a holiday weekend breakfast
buffet.
Ending the campfire at eleven o’clock didn’t
mean we were in our sleeping bags by eleven-fifteen. It took more than a half-hour to clean up
from the campfire; get all of the kids ready for bed; and into their sleeping
bags. There was some girl chat and a
bedtime story in our tent; Rowen and I met up with the rest of the teens for a
bedtime chat by the river after that; and we’ve been back in our tents since
twelve-thirty.
I couldn’t leave my bedtime computing for a
second night in a row; so I’ve been doing that since Rowen and I tucked
ourselves in for the night. We’ve been
having a little girl chat too, but as I already mentioned; Rowen’s in nap mode
now. I had some family business work to
deal with, but have that done now; and it wasn’t anything major. Michael and I do need to get up early,
though; so I’m not doing any extra work or studying tonight. We also have the Easter Egg hunt in the park
tomorrow morning and three buffet dinners to work tomorrow too; so I should
probably just wrap this up and join Rowen in nap mode.
This has been a quiet start to our holiday
weekend, but it is going to get busier starting first thing in the morning; so
I guess that’s it for now.
Until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
