Just in the last two weeks we've gone from this-so warm that the kids were playing with squirt guns even while there was snow on the ground......
.....to this-two inches of snow mixed with sleet and hail that made driving Aidan's birthday guests to and from the party a dangerous proposition.....
...to one day later-Easter egg hunt....
....to a day of intense heat yesterday (and still 70 degrees at 10 at night)-with enough wind for kites...
...to balmy weather this morning that has now turned to rain.  In New Hampshire we always say, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute and it will change :-)
 
You know the joke about the guy drowning in a flood who declines the boat, the helicopter, etc., and then asks God why he didn't help him after he arrives in Heaven?  And God says, I sent a boat, a helicopter, etc.  What more did you want?  I feel like I could be that guy.  Am I ignoring signs?  Or are these signs just tests of faith?  Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Earlier this week I got an email from our agency asking for a letter from our doctor explaining a couple of things on the medical forms.  Our agency got these forms "pre-approved" in China in August because my husband takes a medication normally prescribed for depression but, in his case, that's not why he takes it.  My doctor offered to write a letter of explanation in addition to the medical form but we were told it should be sufficient.  It's not.

So I called the doctor's office Tuesday and was told he would be out until today.  First thing this morning I went there and have learned that he will not be back and they're not sure when he'll be back.  Something must be wrong with his family, I presume, because in 28 years of seeing him, I have only known him to be out for planned or expected things.  His partner can probably write this letter for us, but he's on vacation until the 9th.  He may be in today; couldn't be sure if they said that or not-stress affects the hearing, you see.
 
Aidan was probably up at 7:00 this morning.  At 9:00 he asked when it was going to be Easter.  I said, it is Easter.  He said, yeah, but when is it going to be time for Easter?  I asked what he meant, and he wanted to know when it was going to be time for him to have his Easter basket.  It was sitting on the counter, he had looked at the contents, and then for two hours he hadn't touched it because he didn't know that it was okay to do so.  This is his third Easter with us, but that just goes to show you that adopted children are different.  I was floored.  He was happy; he dug right into the chocolate bunny (which he requested) and put quite a bit of it away before we left for church!
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Aidan's ELL/ESOL teacher noticed that he has trouble seeing, had the school nurse check him out, she found weak long-distance vision, and the doctor's office found the same thing today (we had also been "testing" him on it at home).  So we're making an appointment with the eye doctor.  But in the meantime the ELL teacher and I talked tonight and she said it was his near vision that she was concerned about because sometimes he has to put writing close to his face to see it.  My husband is worried that he'll have such thick glasses he'll look like this.....
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but I'd rather think that he will end up looking like this (Don "the Dragon")...
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I guess only time will tell.
 
Tonight we had calling hours for my mother, and I think that my assistant principal summed it up perfectly when he said, "You have an amazing family.  I have never been to such a happy wake in my life!"  We are a very happy family.  The happiest times of my life are those spent with my siblings, and Mom and Dad are directly responsible for the harmony that we enjoy. 

Never doubt that we are people with strong opinions and all kinds of quirks, but we communicate honestly-too honestly sometimes, but we never stop communicating with one another-and we compromise and, most importantly, we forgive one another for being human.

My brother in-law and sister made a 655 picture slide show for the wake.  They also put a bunch of these pictures on a website for friends and family to view.  Feel free to check them out, but do forgive us if we look grungy-a lot of the pictures are after days of raking the cemetery, bringing in hay, clearing land, etc.
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http://danbury.weebly.com/

 
Mom took her last breath just before six tonight with most of us "kids" holding her hand or stroking her hair.  We will have calling hours on Monday and the funeral on Tuesday.  We have a family cemetery that we created when my father died, so she will be buried beside him and not far from my second sister who died at 55.  I am okay.  I wondered how I would be, and I'm sure that I will have emotional moments-or I think so-but my Mom never cried so I might be more like her than I thought.  I don't see death as an end, but just as a transition, and she is far better off than she was in that sick and aging body.
 
It has not come yet, but my sisters and I had one last slumber party at Mom's house last night, listening for her breathing, listening to see if it ceased.  Today we will go to the funeral home to make arrangem
 
On April 1 we had a snow day; on April 9 we were all playing outside without coats and trying not to track mud into the house.  Here are some shots of the two weekends.
 
My mother in-law sent this youtube video to me.  It is an absolutely fabulous pair of dancers in Guangdong, but I can't save it to upload it, so here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=GsTqmEeBKhw&vq=medium#t=41
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Our agency told us that we could have a LID for weeks before being notified of it.  Since another family in our group got theirs the first week in March and their LID was March 1, I contacted the agency just in case they had got ours and not notified us.  They had and had not.  So our LID is March 18!    Don't know why it's 2-1/2 weeks after theirs-they were all hand carried to China-but we'll take it :-)