Company! [April Fool!!]

I just love to have company! It's so fun to have family and friends come to visit. Someone asked if Mike and I have enjoyed being empty-nesters, but it doesn't really feel quite like we've got to that point yet. (Gail and family haven't really been gone that long yet.)

For instance, Nick comes home for occasional weekends, so that's nice. Right after I returned from Reno last week, my Mom, sister Donna, her two daughters Elizabeth and Angela, all came for a few days! Yay! They got to Cedar City on Thursday and we all had lunch together, and got to visit that night. The girls had skiing lessons at Brian Head on Friday, April 1st. It was fun to see that they got all outfitted for freezing cold weather up in the snowy mountains. Mom and Donna were spending the day up there, too, though not skiing--just moseying around and eating out, etc. It ended up being about FIFTY degrees fahrenheit that day -- yes, at Brian Head! Yikes. They were a bit overdressed. It was sunny, so the sunscreen was a good addition :-) as well. And that is why people wear layers when playing in the snow.

Serious Sunscreen application
Turns out Angela is a natural and did really well and loved it. Elizabeth . . . not so much.

BUT, it WAS April first, so I couldn't let them go off for the whole day without a good April Fool's joke, now could I? Having been gone for the past 10 days, I was out of food in the house, so early Friday morning I sent Mike to the grocery store to purchase some much-needed milk and some pretty jelly-filled donuts. At home, I had a little help from my mom and I sucked the jelly out of the middle of the pretty donuts from Lin's market (mmmm, donuts!). It wasn't too terribly easy, either. The straws we had at our house were too skinny to do the job, so Mike went out again and got me a couple of bigger straws at the convenience store. Mom and I got only one donut finished and that's all I could bring myself to do. Oh, we replaced the raspberry jelly filling with ketchup. I just couldn't waste another of those beautiful donuts, so that's mostly why I stopped at one. That, and it was hard and time-consuming.

But that wasn't all. I had cooked three nice, large, fluffy pancakes. I had them get started on those while I made some more. And I put the donuts on the table, claiming I'd already eaten one, so those three were for them (Donna, Liz and Angela). I figured whoever got the trick one would be enough of a joke, right? Well, the pancakes were plenty and no one touched the donuts! I was so sad.

But not TOO sad. I had inserted a paper towel in the middle of those first special pancakes. Donna was eating delicately around the edge of hers when Elizabeth said hesitantly, "Is this a paper towel in the pancake?" And Donna said, "Of course not!" [as in 'duh, silly girl!'] However, I started giggling and said, "As a matter of fact, it IS! April Fool!" So then, they all started digging away in their pancake and found it. It was just a circle cut out the size of the pancake. We all had a good laugh, then they WATCHED as I made the next batch and they all had good stacks ! Lots of good energy to last them on the slopes. Scrambled eggs and spam, milk to drink. No wonder they didn't have room for the donuts. ha.

I left the donut on the kitchen table (just the one joke one, and I put the others safely away and out of sight) in the bakery box, covered in a little plastic wrap to keep nice and fresh. I thought that Gail might come by at some point during the day and then SHE could be the brunt of my joke. Or Caroline. Or someone. So when I got home from work around 4 pm, Gail was there and the donut was gone! I asked Gail, "Did you eat that jelly donut on the table?" She said, "No. Was it the last one and you wanted it?"

"Well, no, not really. I just wondered who ate it. "

At that point I figured Mike must have come home and had probably taken it to work/school with him and played the prank on a student or co-worker. Guess what? He did come home, he did see it and his thoughts went like this:

"Oh! There's one donut left. They must have eaten the prank one. I'll just eat this last one. Yummy!" Until he bit into it! Ha Ha! So, even though he'd helped create the prank, HE was the one the joke was on!!! hee hee. But I was kind of mad about my good joke not being played on someone who had absolutely no clue. . .like Nick, who also showed up that day. Or Mike's sister, Gayela.

Oh well. There's always next year. Any no-one will ever feel safe eating at MY house on April Fool's Day in the future. Harmless pranks always. I promise. ;-)

For the rest of the time Mom and Donna and girls were here:
The girls and Caroline went with Nick on Saturday to Zion National Park and enjoyed the nice weather and beautiful sights and a short hike in the afternoon. I guess you'll have to hunt in Facebook to find Nick's photos, if he took any. If I find them, or if he sends them to me, I'll add them in here.

Mom, Donna and I mostly relaxed around the house. I got to see old home movies of our family that Mom and Donna had put onto a DVD. That was fun!

In the evening, we had a nice dinner with everyone. About 15 or so of us. I don't know. I can never count out the right amount of plates. It's a standing joke at our house.

We also played games till quite late. It was fun.

The Grandmas

Donna and Gail

Gayela and Mike
Nick with Caroline and Angela


Sunday, everyone from Georgia headed north to catch their flight home. But first it snowed in the morning!! Angela built a cute little snowman in our front yard. It was all melted by late afternoon. Donna took a picture of that. The rest of the snow everywhere else was gone way before that. Those springtime snow showers are sometimes very brief. Luckily this one was brief since Gayela was driving home, too. And Nick!

Thanks for coming, everyone! It was a lot of fun. Y'all come back now, hear?!!