Family Traditions

Just like any holiday, there are tons of family traditions that are associated with Easter. Many families gather together to dye easter eggs, some make food to leave for the Easter bunny, and others might attend the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. In our family, we do a few of these, but we put our own little spin on things, as usual. My Easter tradition starts on Ash Wednesday. Many people, including my family, begin lent on this day. This year, like the past few years, I gave up soda. I should have just given up Dr. Pepper because that is usually the only type of soda that I ever drink. However, I will have to admit, I messed up! I drank soda 2 times during lent. :( I indulged in a cherry limeade one day, on accident. I didn't realize that they had sprite in them. OOPPPS!! The next time, we are not going to mention but I drank a Coke. Once again, OOPPPS! I think I will be forgiven on theses two times. Lent is about bettering yourself as a person and as long as I realized my mistake, I think God will forgive me. The best part of our family's Easter traditions is on Easter itself! Our plans are never the same due to schedule conflicts with both sides of the family, but we always manage to see each other! Church is a must on Easter Sunday, and let me say, Mom and Dad expect us dressed to a ten. After hours of prepping to fit their standards of attire on this blessed day, we all pack up, and in Mom's fashion, show up 1.5 min late to church to see all the amazing older people we have grown up in the church with. We always have "brunch" with my mom's side of family. I still to this day don't really understand the whole "brunch" thing. We never manage to eat it until at least noon so why not just say lunch? I think my Mimi likes the fancy sound of just saying brunch. Since my Mom's side of the family is quite small, we don't have many events with them. When we were little we always hunted Easter eggs in Ponder, but we don't really do that anymore.  However, any time with them is truly special. My Poppie never leaves us with a dull moment. After "brunch" with them and some good quality time visiting with my Mom's cousins on that side, we head back to Krum to hang out with the more wild side of my family, my Dad's side. This is where our family traditions get a little odd. Where most families just hide the eggs and let the kids go find them, this family likes to do things a little different. We never count the eggs before we put them out because that just makes things boring the rest of the year when you can't accidentally mow over last year's eggs. When this family hides eggs, they hide eggs. Last year it was my sister and I's year to hide the eggs. We spent about an hour hiding eggs, that should have just taken us 15 min. We climbed to the top of 20 ft. trees to hide one egg. We got out stools and hid the eggs in real bird's nests in the gutters. We even resorted to hiding eggs under the deck, in holes. While some might think this is a little cruel, and it kinda is, it makes for quite an interesting time when the whole family, including the hiders, are out looking for eggs for hours. Even after the hunt is over the wind will blow an egg out of the top of a tree and the race is on again. After all of the egg hunting, our family resorts to "riding the tractor" (according to Daniel) or, like in the past, crawdad fishing. Yep, that's right! In our Easter dresses, you can find us in the bottom of the creek crawdad fishing. Who does that? :) Another weird thing our family does is to buy multicolored chicks. Nothing is more exciting to our cousins, that live in the city, than a few chicks that are Easter colors. Not only that, we have new hens after they grow up! All of these traditions make Easter my favorite holiday. It is the one holiday where you are not stressed out about what gift you are going to give who, instead it is all about having a good time with the ones that you love and appreciating the real reason of Easter, the resurrection of Christ. The one thing that I miss about Easter as a child is my Gommie. Gommie is my great-grandmother that passed away when I was 12. Gommie spend hours slaving away in her kitchen, like many holidays, to make for sure that everyone in the town of Ponder would have Easter cookies in every shape. We would get bags of the best sugar cookies I have ever put in my mouth shaped like ducks, eggs, chickens, rabbits, and whatever other Easter shaped cookie cutter she could find that year. Come Easter weekend the people of Ponder would start stopping by Gommie's house to get their cookies and by Easter Sunday, once everyone else had gotten theirs, we would finally get our Easter cookies. This made my Easter! I looked forward to Gommie's cookies more than I looked forward to the Easter Bunny making his way to Krum! Every time Easter rolls around the memories of Gommie really start to surface, which makes me realize that everyday, especially Easter, Gommie is looking down on us to make for sure that our wonderful family traditions are carried out! 

I hope that tomorrow morning when you wake up for Easter, you celebrate the family traditions that hold your family together. Additionally, I hope that you remember the real reason of Easter while you celebrate with your family. Regardless, have fun with the ones that you love! Happy Easter!

The Road Goes On Forever And The Party Never Ends

Since day one, if you ask my parents, I have not been the biggest fan of having plans. Yes, I do like to know what is ahead and when, but more than that I require options. Sometimes this makes my life more difficult than it should be, however it keeps things interesting! With my first year of college closing in on me, a lot of people have asked what my plans are for the next three years and even my life. I never know what to say. As many people know, I can't make a decision to save my life, because once again I like options. That is one reason why I have developed this highly effective hand gesture. When people say raise your hand if you want to do so and so, just hold it half way up parallel to the floor. This way you aren't exactly saying yes and you aren't exactly saying no. Okay, so back on track! What do I want to do with my life? That is a question that I probably won't be able to answer until I am on my death bed and I can respond with "everything that I have done". I could basically sum it up with I don't have plans, I have goals and dreams. As long as I accomplish my goals and dreams in life, I think that there is no need for any form of track to follow, God will always lead me to where I am supposed to go. I have one main goal. It is a daily goal. It is to live life day by day. I don't care about what I am going to have to do tomorrow that I am dreading, I want to have a blast doing what I want to do today. As Robert Earl Keen would say, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends." Well, I want to live life by that statement. Have fun your whole life and the road will go on forever. Why worry about what if? Party/live it up. Push your limits and live a life you want to tell your future grandchildren about. It has taken me a little bit to learn this but I give up caring. I don't care what you, your mom, your best friend, or your dog thinks about me. Like it or leave it! I am going to drive down the road of life going 90 to nothing, music blaring from my radio, living it up with my friends and family knowing that God is leading me down the right path. Then someday, when the time comes, I will hit that dead end of my road knowing that I had one heck of a time doing what I love to do. Love the life you live!

Born Together, Friends Forever

I have always said that I would never wish twins on anyone, not even my worst enemy. After the past few months out on OUR own, I would like to add something to that statement. While I would not wish twins on anyone, I would wish a twin for someone. You see, being a twin is hard! You share EVERYTHING! Not just material objects. You share birthdays, graduations, Christmas', parents, often times friends, and opportunities. It was not until my 18th birthday that I had ever had a birthday celebration where my sister wasn't right there,  blowing out the candles beside me. My twin sister Shelby and I have had our ups and downs. We have fought until we drew blood, we have said things to each other that we definitely did not mean, but through it all, NO ONE could tear us apart. We have been together 18 years, why should we let them? We have had "friends" try to put a wedge between us, but with time we always figure it out. We fight one minute, then try to fight each others way out of trouble the next. I know that for the past 18 years Shelby and I have slowly been driving our parents to their grave. So, that is why I say that I would not wish twins on anyone, they are hard to raise. However, I would wish a twin for someone, they are the best friend that you could ever find. Tonight, when my sister needed me, I would have not thought twice about dropping my plans to support her. As I know that, without a doubt, she would do the same for me. She has fought for me with everything that she has got, and fought me with it too, and I would do anything to stand up for her. So, maybe after all of my griping, being a twin isn't bad at all. While other people walk into a situation alone, I have always had my sister to hold my hand (or push me) through it, I always have someone to talk to, I always have someone that I can trust with just about anything, and most of all I always have someone to call my best friend. I mean, after all, I love you Choo Choo Train House!