Easter Weekend Notes

As it is Easter Monday, our holiday weekend continues. Or at least it does for C and L, who have the day off. Might as well keep to the normal blog schedule, though. Let’s run through the days rather than individual events.

Friday

A lot of work and errands to get ready for the holiday weekend. L had a PT session. M and her boyfriend arrived from Cincinnati late afternoon. I made a pretty kickass mess of grilled steak, chicken, and restaurant-style beans for Chipotle-like bowls for dinner.

Saturday

We awoke around 5:30 AM to the sound of roaring winds and loud thunder. I looked at my phone and it just said severe thunderstorm warning so I put my head back down. We probably should have moved to the basement. I don’t know what the official winds were in our area, but they reached nearly 90 MPH at the airport. It was insanely loud, followed by rain pummeling our west facing windows. About 15 minutes later we heard that deep, low hum you hate to hear in storms that was followed by the sky lighting up with greens and blues. A transformer was popping off somewhere near our house. I nervously watched our night light and smoke detector indicator, but both just blinked then stayed on. We avoided the outage! I went back to sleep.

Fast forward a few hours. We’re finishing up our morning routines and ready to get to work on more Easter prep. A couple houses there was a crew working with chainsaws to cut up a tree that had snapped in the storm. A firetruck had gone that direction a little earlier so we assumed there was a live line, too. We heard a loud crack and then our power cut out. We’re guessing as they were taking down the tree, the line that leads to our house got snagged and broke. The joys of living in old Indianapolis where all the power lines are still above ground and pass through dozens of mature trees to reach each house.

We ended up being without power for just over five hours. At least it was a cool, cloudy, if slightly muggy day. And at least we were picking up the food for Sunday late in the afternoon and it wasn’t already in the fridge, with the clock ticking on whether it would spoil.

In the midst of the power outage was game one of the Pacers-Bucks series. I went old school and pulled out a radio and listened to most of it that way. The Pacers beat that ass for the first 30+ minutes. Gainbridge was roaring.[1] When our power came back on and I was able to watch was the exact moment they decided to blow a healthy chunk of their 28 point lead. They held on to get the comfortable win. Like Milwaukee did in game one last year. And now Dame Lillard might be coming back at some point in the series? Better get game two tomorrow.

We took the girls plus one out for a hibachi dinner. We normally go to this little hole-in-the-wall local spot that is very good and pretty quick. This time we tried Benihana, which we had never been to before, because we had a gift certificate. Meh. MUCH more expensive than the local spot, much slower, and the food wasn’t as good. It made us appreciate our local spot, which has all kinds of quirks, even more.

Joining us at our table was a trio that were dressed for their prom. They were sweating it a bit because despite being seated at 6:30, our chef didn’t start cooking for us until about 7:30. S was closer to them and got more of the story but I think they were able to eat and get out in plenty of time to make it before their entrance window closed, although they had to hustle through their meal.

Anyway, it was a pretty dorky looking dude and two pretty cute girls. We think they were all going as friends, but I wanted to give him props for overachieving. Times two even!

Easter Sunday

We had been stressing all week because we were expecting to have a larger group than our already large holiday gatherings, and the forecast was not looking promising. More rain was expected, right around our noon start for Easter dinner. The young ones were expecting an Easter egg hunt, too. We weren’t sure how that was going to work if we had to do it in the house. The aunts sent A LOT of eggs for the girls to hide. We have a big house, but I’m not sure we had enough hiding spots for them all.

Thankfully it ended up being a nearly perfect day. Some people ate outside. We had pulled all the outdoor furniture out of storage Saturday and were able to use it. Hell, if the pool was ready kids could have jumped in. The egg hunt came off without a hitch, outside as was ideal. This wasn’t good but one of S’s siblings came down with a stomach bug so his family stayed away, which made us a little less crowded.

After all the prep and stress it ended up being a nice day all around. The final guests filtered out around 4:00, M and her boyfriend headed back to Cincy shortly after, and our house was quiet again. Sometimes that’s the best part of the holiday gatherings, the chance to exhale and relax.

Monday

L and I had to get up early today as she had a 7:30 PT appointment today. News had just broke that Pope Francis had died. That reminded me of when he was elected in March 2013 and that news broke just as I was picking the girls up from school. As the white smoke was blowing in Rome, we had a sudden snow squall in Indy, which seemed appropriate. And then M came running out of school yelling “There’s a new pope! We don’t know who it is but there’s a new one! It’s eight o’clock in Rome!” Right after we got back from PT she texted the whole family to let us know Francis had died. Some things never change.

As for PT, it is going well. Her therapist is impressed with where L started and how she’s progressed through three sessions. She was supposed to ease out of the boot last week, but as she only went to school one day that plan kind of got blown up. At the session Friday her therapist told her it was fine to officially ditch it. After nearly six months in a boot or cast at school, she’s finally back to two shoes again. Thursday was the first time since November she wore khakis to school.