Resurrection Day

Macy’s morning started off like any other…with a basket full of gifts.  Oh, wait just a second.  Today is Easter!

Macy grabs an audience (her baby, puppy, and Elmo) to come watch her open her basket

Bunny ears and a bunny around the neck!

The Easter bunny even brought special hunt-for-Easter-eggs glasses for Macy to wear

Every year for Easter, my mother-in-law puts on an Easter egg hunt you do not want to miss.  She fills 150 eggs for her 5 grandchildren full of chocolate, quarters, and maybe even some dollar bills and fills up big Easter eggs for us grown-ups.  After lunch, we all go out to hunt (which usually involves me telling Jeff to find my eggs while I take pictures of Macy hunting hers) and then we come in to check out what’s inside.  Never a dull moment at the George household.

Here are a few family pics of our Easter Sunday…

Let the hunting begin…

All the kids wait patiently for the adults (except for Macy of course)

Hunting Easter eggs is serious business

Happy Easter everyone!

Matthew 28:1-10

28 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

Hallelujah!  He is Risen!

The Hunt of the Century

Last year, when we made our quick trip home for Jeff’s grandfather’s funeral, we just-so-happened to be home for Easter as well.  I hadn’t realized how special it would be to share Macy’s first Easter with both sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  It was truly amazing.

We were invited to an Easter Egg  Hunt at a church here in Houston and decided to go.  Macy had no idea what was going on, but we had fun sitting her next to her basket and snapping a few photos.

(Pause while I look for those pictures.  They must be on the other computer.  Bummer.  I think they are on my facebook page…try clicking here.)

Anyway, this year I figured Macy would actually know what was going on and had already been playing with her Easter basket.  Let’s hunt for eggs, Macy!

Jeff hula-hoops while we wait…(don’t ask)

Macy lines up to go hunt eggs

Alright, where are they?

There’s one!

Family photo (I have no idea what Macy was looking at)

Macy & Mama

After the egg hunting, the kids were taken to…a Dora moonwalk!  Macy kept saying, “Hi Dora!”

Jump, jump Macy!

I love moonwalks!

Next to the Dora moonwalk was a big slide.  My mom and Macy did the slide together, but at that moment, the camera told Jeff my memory stick was full.  Oops.  I confess that I am not very good at deleting pictures off of my stick.  Sorry, Mom.

I deleted a few pics quickly and managed to catch one good shot of Jeff going down with Macy…

Wheeeee!

Tomorrow, we’ll be spending the day with Jeff’s family and the evening with mine.  Jeff’s mom really knows how to do an Easter egg hunt, so we’ll get more use out of Macy’s basket.  Happy (almost) Easter!

Grand Canyon part 2

A couple of more pictures from our time at the Grand Canyon from Jeanette’s camera…

Everyone who went…Larry, Gary (Jeff’s uncle), Jeff, Macy, me, Jeanette, and Mom

More about our trip here.

Tired of Being American

Emily: Do it again, please! [walks to her seat at the table] I’m not quite sure what other way there is to say ‘no walnuts in the salad’ except to say ‘no walnuts in the salad.’

Lorelai: Mom, she just made a mistake.

Emily: She doesn’t listen, she doesn’t care, she has no work ethic.

Lorelai: She has some work ethic. You made her remake the salad four times.

Emily: I like things done correctly.

Richard: Preferably the first time.

Emily: Thank you, Richard.

Lorelai: You know, Mom, in Europe, they eat the salad last and the main course first.

Emily: We’re not in Europe.

Lorelai: We could pretend.

Emily: Really, Lorelai, you can’t wait ten minutes for another salad? The situation’s that dire?

Lorelai: Four salads ago, no, not dire. Right now it’s ‘your money for nothing and your chicks for free.’

Emily: Rory?

Rory: She didn’t have lunch.

Emily: Fine. [gets up from table]

Richard: Where are you going?

Emily: Apparently, we’re going to be European tonight.

Richard: Oh, wonderful. I was getting so tired of being American, day after day after day.

A Very Grand Canyon

After Vegas, we made the drive to the Grand Canyon.  It was about 5 1/2 hours total (with a quick stop to eat) and wow, did Macy not want to take a nap.  That made the first few hours, well, not awesome.

On the way, we stopped at the Hoover Dam.  It reminded me of that movie “Fools Rush In”.  If you haven’t seen it, there’s a couple of scenes where the female lead character drives over the Hoover Dam and throws a coin in.  I’m sure they don’t encourage that, but it makes for a good scene in the movie.

She slept for a couple of hours after that and before we knew it, we were there!  Jeff’s family – his mom, dad, and uncle – had already made it to our hotel, so we caught up with them and let Macy run around the hotel and stretch her legs.

And the next day, we were off to see the Grand Canyon!  In a previous post (Hiking Equipment), I mentioned that Jeff and his uncle were planning on hiking the Grand Canyon in a day.  Yes, that is all the way down and all the way back up in a day.  Crazy, I know.  So anyway, this was Jeff’s first chance to scope out the canyon man to man…er…canyon.

We paused to take a few pictures…

The next morning, Jeff and his uncle got up at about 4 AM and were out hiking by about 4:30.  (This is an estimation, because I was still asleep).  And my in-laws, mom, and I had a very different plan that day.

The previous day while at dinner –

(My mom sees a brochure for a helicopter ride)

Me: Wow, that’s not quite as expensive as I thought it would be.

Everyone else:  (Laughter)

Me:  I mean, c’mon – Macy would be free!  (this was for children under 2)

Everyone else:  (More laughter)

Me:  Okay, okay.  We’ll skip the IMAX (which was about 10 bucks a person).

Everyone else:  Let’s go!!

(Maybe I should write a play).  🙂

Okay, well maybe that is not exactly how it happened, but I somehow managed to get everyone to go on a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon.  A miracle (considering my mom gets motion sickness)?  I think so.

So when the boys headed off to hike…we headed off to fly!

Posing in front of the helicopter

Macy got her own set of headphones…

I’m not sure about this helicopter thing Mommy.

Beautiful scenery…

Not too long after we got back from our flight, we got a phone call from Jeff’s Uncle Gary.  They had cell service and only about 1 mile and a half left on their hike!  We drove to back to the Canyon to pick them up.

The two hikers…made it all the way down and back up in a day.  So proud!

Overall, I think Jeff’s dream vacation was pretty awesome.  I mean, it’s not every day you get to take a helicopter over the Grand Canyon.  Good vacation indeed.

Customer Service

I would like to take a second and interject a brief work on customer service.  Since living overseas, I’ve gotten somewhat used to not having a lot of customer service.  However, on our way to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, I was pleasantly surprised by the customer service of our rental car company.

We put in a reservation with Budget Rental Car for a mid-size car and a car seat that we would pick up in Las Vegas and drop off in Flagstaff, New Mexico.  This, of course, makes the price go up some, but I felt like it was worth it to not have to make the 5 hour drive back to Las Vegas with my lovely almost 2-year-old.

We got to the counter and the problems began.  Um, we don’t have a one-way mid-size car we can give you.  Hmm, we also don’t have a car seat we can give you one-way.  Can we give you an SUV?

Jeff’s immediate response was “no”, simply because we knew the gas cost was going to be enormous.  We were planning on driving the car all the way from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon and from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff.  With gas at almost 4 dollars a gallon (and in the tourist areas at about $4.50), he knew it was going to make a big difference in our overall costs.

I could tell the guy actually was trying to work with us.  Jeff did some quick math to figure out the difference it would cost driving an SUV versus a mid-size car.  And then the guy apologetically started offering discounts.

This, of course, I did not expect.  I don’t know what I expected, but I have gotten to used to people kind of shrugging their shoulders when what we reserved was no longer available.

This was kind of nice.

First of all, he gave us a discount off of the rate we had been given for the mid-size car.  This helped with any extra gas cost of having the SUV (and made it still cheaper than the mid-size car rate).  Then, he threw in the car seat for free.  Wow.  To top it all off, he gave us insurance and a pick-up service just in case we had car trouble.  Also free of charge.  I was totally blown away.

I will definitely go back to Budget.

We ended up with a Chevrolet Traverse, which is definitely a car I could get used to driving (now if I only had $35,000).  Jeff’s favorite part was the camera that gives you live video in your rear view mirror when you put the car in reverse.  My favorite part was how high you were off the road (when we lived in the States, I drove a Saturn).

All in all, our driving experience was pretty great.  It’s a smooth ride and we had PLENTY of space to put all four of us, plus our stuff.  Love the SUV.  Love Budget.  Sometimes America is a pretty awesome place to be.

On the Road Again

Plane tickets.  Check.  Photo IDs.  Check.  Suitcases bulging.  Check.  Macy strapped in the car with a banana in hand.  Check.  Must be time to travel again.

This time, our travels took us to the faraway state of Nevada and then later the little-bit-closer state of Arizona.  Jeff and I had never been to Las Vegas and with only 2 days to see it, we were going full-speed ahead.  Well, as full-speed as you can go with a toddler.  Our first stop was the strip.

At the Bellagio hotel in front of the carousel

Jeff & Macy check out the fountains

On a sidenote, the Bellagio was probably my favorite hotel…simply because it had this beautiful green area in the middle of it, complete with butterfly exhibit and a small version of a Ferris wheel.  It was the “best” place to take a kid.

After having dinner with good friends, we crashed.  I didn’t even think about it, but 2 hours of “jet lag” IS a big deal for a toddler (not as much as 14 hours of course :)) and so Macy was up and ready to play at…5 AM.  Yay, Macy.  So we did what any other family would do at 5:30 in the morning to kill time…we went back to the strip to see what it looked like with the lights on.

There was a lot less traffic, if you were wondering.

One hotel boasts their very own Eiffel Tower

If money wasn’t an issue – this is the Cirque I would have liked to have seen.  It’s called “Love” and features music from The Beatles.

The lit-up strip

And then Jeff and I ran in to this wedding chapel to renew our vows.

Not so much.

Later that day, we took Macy to the MGM Hotel to see the “big kitty cats” – or in adult speak, the lions.  They are in a glass enclosure and come out with 2 trainers holding large handfuls of raw meat.  Fortunately, the lions seem to like the trainers okay.  Or at least, the lions  like the meat in their hands.  Macy was pretty enthralled with the whole thing.  She kept saying, “Hi big kitty”.

And one last photo of our Las Vegas experience…

The quintessential photo in front of the Las Vegas sign

All in all, the Vegas portion of our trip was fast and furious, but a lot of fun.  We thoroughly enjoyed seeing some “old” friends and making new ones.  Thanks to our hosts…hope to see you on the other side of the world soon!  🙂

And now on to Arizona…Grand Canyon here we come!!

Geography Lesson

And now for a little geography lesson from Mrs. Emily Gilmore…

Lorelai: Very tasty. New cook?

Emily: Yes, Marisella. She’s introduced us to some wonderful dishes so charmingly specific to her native country.

Lorelai: What country is she from?

Emily: One of those little ones next to Mexico.

Lorelai: How charmingly specific.

Influencers

It’s hard to say that your parents do not influence you…

My dad’s shoes

And the shoes I got today…

Hmm.  I guess “like father, like daughter” is an appropriate expression here.  🙂