this woman’s work

The hotel here does an inside Easter egg hunt where they blow up a ton of balloons and then hide the plastic eggs among them. It’s a good idea because while the big kids made small work of their hunt, the little kids were as enamored with the balloons as with finding the eggs. Afterwards our four (Noah, Madison and their two cousins who are 3 and 1) played in the ballrooms running in circles tossing them in the air and kicking up their heels. (See pure joy photo in previous post.)

Can you imagine how much fun that would be? It was awfully fun to watch them! We played with helium balloons, too, and also met the Easter Bunny, visited the petting zoo (farm animals in the hotel hallway), and had a kicking buffet that featured some of the best salmon I’ve eaten in a long, long time. (Not to mention really good coffee.)

The girls bonded over balloons although there was some argument about whether or not we were going to live at the hotel or go home with Violet (we’ll be staying with them at the end of our visit) and I’ll admit there was shouting. What can I say — the girls were both pretty tired.

At the end the hotel management asked if any big kids wanted to pop the balloons to help with clean up so I handed Noah a pen and he went in and started stabbing. Madison wasn’t interested but Violet took a pen and systematically and with great seriousness began murdering balloons. She was pretty intense about it and it made us laugh.

Oh and Aunt Karoline and Uncle Wick didn’t know that the Easter bunny made it here so they brought back-up baskets. The kids are swimming in candy but are willing to share so this is not such a bad thing.

S/he somehow figured out that the kids were in a hotel and managed to gift them with junk — much of it chosen to keep boredom away while riding on a plane. Smart easter bunny!

Today we’re hooking up with Brett’s side of the family but otherwise laying low because we are TIRED. And we may have woken up at a luxurious 9am our time, but we went to bed at 3am. Of course we’re in Portland where coffee was cool before coffee was cool so it’s all good.

I’m still rocking nervous about my presentation on Saturday. Current worry? What if nobody shows up? I’m counting on audience questions so I know what to say next. Also I left my index cards at home — oops — but they should be easy to replicate.

At our luxury-ish hotel they have terry cloth robes and a super-magnifying mirror in the bathroom. I give the robes an ironic thumbs up (I think robes are silly but fun) but the magnifying mirror doesn’t do much for a person’s self-esteem. Fortunately the world doesn’t look at me through magnifying mirror glasses so I’ll go back to ignorant bliss.