Make Memories: Check

Saturday morning I woke before the sun and looked at the clock:  5:38 a.m.  I was so excited to load up the car and get on the road to visit my Dad that I just couldn’t sleep.  I stared at the numbers on the clock and listened for the kids feet to hit the floor running.  I was so ready to go “home”. 

Finally, a little before 9 a.m. we were on the road and much to Chad’s chagrin the removal of my wisdom teeth did not cease my incessant chatter. 

Have I ever told you about Easter at our house?
I don’t know, he answered.
It was so cool.  Mom and Dad were so mean to Damon.  They would hide his Easter basket in the craziest places, I explained. He found them hanging outside a window, in the car, in the attic. . . while Chad drove, I shared the precious memories that have been preserved in the treasure chest of my heart.

I remember it so well.  Having retrieved our baskets from their hiding spots, my sister and I were required to wait until our brother found his before we could begin our search for eggs.  The rules were that no eggs could be found until Damon found his basket. . . a task that seemed to get increasingly difficult with each passing year.  Over the weekend, my brother, my sister, and I recalled these memories as we gathered together at my Dad’s.  These little traditions have nothing to do with candy, or baskets, or eggs, but simply the good feelings that come with remembering a wonderful time. 

That’s what these traditions are to me. . . memory makers that never lose their appeal.  They don’t fade with time nor do they ever go out of style.  They are perfectly preserved treasures.  Here I am now, so many years later, making memories with our own little ones.  Even now I wonder the stories they will reflect on as they are raising their own families. 

Maybe they won’t remember that their hands turned strange colors for a few days, or that they experimented with mixing colors, or that they colored more eggs than we could possibly ever use but I hope they remember the way if felt to be together.  I hope they remember that we laughed and that the afternoon was as colorful as the eggs.

When Chad and I got married we didn’t talk about how we would do holidays.  My family did it one way and his did another.  We never really considered how we would work it out.  Somehow, though, it’s working out.  As we colored eggs we talked about the real meaning of Easter and I know that they got it. I knew that they understood.  As we talked and I listened to Chanelle talk about Easter I realized that it doesn’t have to be one tradition or the other, but it can be “both/and”. 

I dig that. 

As each year goes by I am realizing that Chad and I are driving this bus.   That just as our parents created traditions for us, we are doing the same for our kids.  By taking a little of his and a little of mine, here we are, creating our own. 

 

This is good stuff. . .

Even Girlfriend got in on the action.

There are times when I get caught up in thinking that creating memories is about making sure that all the details are perfect.  That everything is planned in advance and executed perfectly.  With each passing year, I am understanding more and more that the most important detail is that we are present.  This weekend, we were present.

Cousins playing together, big kids playing together, sarcasm rolling off the tongue as easily as a kind word.  This is our family and I love it. . .

And sometimes, when you don’t plan too much, the most unexpected of things might happen.

This little party crasher won’t soon be forgotten.  Leave it to my husband to pick up a wild animal. . .

. . . and put it on my son’s head. . .

If our goal this weekend was to create memories. . . Mission Accomplished.