Happy Easter!!

This Easter was different for me.  Different in many ways.

My first experience with confetti eggs and silly string

I was able to travel to California to join my immediate and extended family for a tradition that has been going on for years with them.  This was my first time to enjoy it since I have only recently become acquainted with them.  My biological father's side of the family is very large.  As I've mentioned in past posts, he had 10 brothers and sisters and at the Easter event this year one cousin was speculating that there may be as many as 40 cousins between all those brothers and sisters.

My baking gift basket (plus a makeup kit I won for winning a word game)

This year, at a large park in Riverside, California about 80+ gathered together.  It was absolutely the best time.  The weather, after threatening rain a few days before, was perfect and the variety of food and fun was spectacular.  There was more than enough shishkabobs, chicken, sausage, beef, potato salad, fruit salad, casseroles, vegetables, chips, salsa, cakes, cupcakes and cold drinks for probably a couple hundred people.  The games and competitions were total chaotic fun.  There was a raffle with dozens of gift baskets (I won a huge baking gift basket (above) containing cake & cookie mixes, cookie cutters, frosting, hand towels, pot holders, rubber spatulas, cupcake pan, cupcake liners, a variety of sprinkles and decorations and a cookie press, plus much more).  There were word games, board games, card games and a really funny game where you had to open and eat a twinkie by only using your mouth and with your hands tied behind your back.  I did not participate but I sure wish I had pictures to show!

Me and Cousins Sheri and Jimmy with Roger's finger up top :o)

All day long at the park enjoying food, fun and family was just not enough.  I was ready to spend the night and the next day getting caught up.  I did get to meet several cousins who I had not met before and it was like I'd known them all my life.  I loved it!  This is my 2nd visit in the last 3 years, but the first Easter I got to spend with them.  After the fun we had this year, I think we will definitely make this an annual trip.  Jimmy says each year it just continues to grow.
 

Me with Cousins Amanda and Lisa

As an added bonus, before we got to CA I was able to locate a cousin and aunt on my mother's side of the family.  Amazingly enough, they live in Redlands, CA, about 20 minutes from where we were staying near Riverside.  Because of the close proximity, we were able to meet for dinner and I was thrilled to reconnect with them. Aunt Cindy had made the trip with me (as she always does) and I was so excited to be able to share this experience with her.  Aunt Terrie was married to my late Uncle Roy who is the older brother to Aunt Cindy's husband, Tom.  The years have been so kind to these beautiful ladies.

My cousin Janus, her mom (my Aunt Terrie) and my Aunt Cindy

Janus is Cindy's niece and Aunt Terrie is her sister-in-law---it had been over 40 years.....

Another successful trip is in the books and I look forward to making more memories in the future!

My Mom Told Me....

 

My Mom used to tell us kids that raw cookie dough would give us worms.  I must have believed her because to this day I don't like raw cookie dough---even raw cookie dough ice cream, which I am pretty sure does NOT have actual raw cookie dough in it. 

Looking back I think she probably told us that so that she would have enough cookie dough to bake actual cookies.  With 4 of us rugrats under the age of 7, I am sure we were hard to corral, but the word "worms" shut us up quick!  I wasn't sure what she meant by us getting worms but I could just picture the worms we baited our fishing hooks with crawling all over me in the middle of the night and I was not having ANY of that.  She must have seen how effective this tactic was because according to her we could "get worms" from eating raw potatoes and uncooked spaghetti too.  Where that combination came from, I'll never know, but those three forms of food have become synonymous with "worm magnets" in my mind.  I would never let my son eat any of these three things becase Mom's words were still ringing in my ears. 

Doing a little online research I did find that regarding the cookie dough, the concern is that the raw eggs in cookie dough can lead to Salmonella.  So, while my mom probably did not know about the Salmonella poisoning aspect, she had an instinct that told her to keep us from consuming something questionable.  Also in Mom's defense, Salmonella bacteria, under a microscope, look like worms.  So I'm good with that.  It also turns out that years ago raw or undercooked potatoes were associated with Trichinella which is a parasitic roundworm, and while it's vitrually unheard of in modern times, I say "better safe than sorry".  I have not found anything that would cause me to believe that raw spaghetti will lead to worms, but maybe Mom was short on spaghetti noodles for dinner that night and didn't want us to shorten her supply further.  Why we would want to eat raw potatoes or pasta escapes me to this day. 

Now, on to another pressing question of my childhood:  Will eating more than one Flintstone vitamin a day make one of my arms grow longer than the other? 

Mom sure knew how to get our attention.  Being deformed AND wormy was the last thing any of us kids wanted----stay tuned.  Google, here I come.