After the drama and difficulty of yesterday, it was so wonderful to have a day of pure family fun today.
Church was in the morning. As usual it was amazing, and I had a chance to participate by lighting the Lent candles and reading a script they provided for me. The messages were wonderful except for one part of our Pastor’s sermon when she told a personal story that had racist elements. Lily did an awesome job of interrupting racism by writing our Pastor a sweet and thoughtful note pointing it out. We know our Pastor well enough to know that nothing was intended, that she will be grateful for the correction, and will probably make a statement to our congregation just to apologize. We are all learning and there is not no shame or embarrassment for anyone to make a mistake and learn from it in a safe environment, even our Pastor. That is the culture that we love soooooo much at our new church. I’m also super grateful for Lily’s voice. I felt a little uncomfortable during that part of the sermon, but I couldn’t articulate very well what exactly was wrong. Lily knew exactly what to say and I loved her loving email sharing our concern.
After church, we all loaded in the car, and everyone hung out in the car and also watched as Mary and I continued working on her bike-riding. I was so amazed! She did it! She learned it!!!! She’s biking now!!! After 3-5 tries, she was able to ride down the entire parking lot of Mountain View Highschool. Then we started working on turns as I told her to lean in the direction she wanted to turn. After 10 or so tries she got really good at gradual turning. I thought we had made amazing progress for one day, and was satisfied with that, but Mary really wanted to learn how to start on her own. She kept trying and trying and trying, until she started on her own once. Then twice. Then 3, 4, it must have been 5 or more times she started on her own before it was time to go. Mary!!! You can start. You can go straight. You can turn in both directions. You’ve got it!! You know how to bike!!!!!! Next week will be Ammon. Congratulations Mary!!!!
Then we went straight to Suzanne’s 60th birthday party. It was a very well planned and coordinated surprise party. Suzanne thought she was meeting MaryLou at the family home to go through items in the home that needed to be sorted and dealt with. But when she arrived, the plan was that MaryLou would lead her to the backyard where Suzanne would be shocked to see family members there for her birthday. That plan mostly worked except I guess we didn’t properly debrief Ammon because he was running all around the backyard, and didn’t come when we called, and so while he was running around the backyard, he saw Suzanne and then started yelling for her….haha….it was cute in the end. Yes, Suzanne was surprise to see Ammon (and confused because she thought it might be MaryLou’s grandson Aiden, but he was too short to be Aiden) and then she came and saw the rest of the family.
We had a wonderful time talking. The food was delicious as was the pie, German chocolate and icecream we had for desert. Also it was so so fun to talk to everyone.
It was also so adorable to watch Basil play with Walter and Willow. Here are some pictures and videos.
It seemed like everyone had a really great time. We love Suzanne so much. She is such a wonderful part of our lives, and our children absolutely adore her. We hope she has an amazing birthday tomorrow (her real birthday!)
Mary napped on the way home next to Basil. It was so cute!!
At home we did Karaoke. We’ve been listening to a lot of Alicia Keys in our home and Lydia has been practicing singing Alicia’s song, “Rise-up” and has been really looking forward to Karaoke. Tonight we made it happen!
