House O' Sullivans

Saturday, June 3, 2017. Casey Bert turned 46. Forty-six. Forty-six!!!! He is now closer to 50 than 40. We be gettin' old. We started his birthday out with a treasure hunt, as per family tradition, to find his gifts. This year I entirely outsourced the task of setting up the hunt to Sophie, who did an incredibly creative job of it. This clue was stashed up in the maple tree, folded into half of a walnut shell. Genius. "Go to where a bunny eats." You can clearly see that the bunny was eating the clue hidden in her hutch. This one says: "Go to where a chicken nests and take a small rest." Sophie's chicken was guarding the next clue in her nest. The next clue was skillfully hidden in the handle of the blender. The clues led Casey to nearby Benjamin Franklin Park (aka Scott Avenue Park). We all got on our bikes and rode over to the park where we surprised Casey with french toast cooked on site under the willow trees. Zeke, cl...

Sophie lost a tooth on the notable holiday, Palm Sunday. I loved her overt demands of the Tooth Fairy. Family tradition states that if you loose a tooth on a holiday, or your birthday, extra money is in order. Obviously she was digging deep here. Since Zeke had a soccer game the Saturday before Easter, we didn't make it out to the Sullivan homestead for the annual Easter egg hunt so we staged one in the backyard. On Easter proper, we trekked up to Kaysville for dinner with the Goebels. Newel and Karen and my mom were out of town and Uncle Phil was en route to Morroco for a humanitarian trip with the military, so the straglers needed to band together in an act of solidarity. Saturday Easter egg hunt in our backyard. I reminded my kids of the time a few years back that I stuffed the Easter eggs with prunes, individually wrapped, when I was on an extreme health kick. That made them feel gratitude for the small influx of sugar. Lindy, posing in the lovel...