A Colorful Weekend

We have had a very full weekend. It all started on Friday. Brennan had a test late on Friday so I picked him up after and we got Quiznos for dinner and then got his freebie birthday treat at Cold Stone. Yummy! We then hurried home to catch the UNI game against Michigan State. Unfortunately we had to witness a disappointing loss. It was a fun game to watch though! Then, as a pre-birthday present I agreed to see Sherlock Holmes with Brennan at 10:30. We are already too old for that. At least I am. I couldn't stay awake. And the parts of the movie I saw just seemed creepy. But Brennan liked it and I guess that is what matters! After not getting to bed until 1:30 in the morning, we had to wake up early so Brennan could get to work and I could run 10 miles. It was excruciating but I still managed to do it. Not sure I'm going to make it to 13 though...

On Saturday the fun and festivities only continued. Last year Brennan and I went to the Festival of Colors at the Krishna temple in Spanish Fork. The Festival is a Hindu celebration of Spring where you throw colorful chalk dust on each other. There weren't a lot of kids there last time but we thought it was something kids would enjoy. So at the last minute we decided to offer to take our nieces and nephews. We were WAY late but luckily they hadn't thrown the chalk yet. However, they were all out of chalk dust for us to buy!! I was so bummed and afraid the kids weren't going to have any fun without any dust to throw themselves. I mean with little kids it's not like we were going to get right in the middle of the mass of people, so without chalk of their own they weren't really going to get colorful. We were so blessed to cross paths with lots of incredibly sweet people though. The first was a man who must have noticed my lost and pathetic look with five little kids circled around me wondering what they were supposed to be doing. So he came and gave the kids the rest of his bag of pink chalk. Life saver!! Then Brennan ran into someone he knew from high school and she was kind enough to give us almost a full bag. Then a nice couple shared some much desired blue chalk with the kids. A couple guys came through with orange chalk and wiped it across all our foreheads while saying, in a great Rafiki imitation, "Siiiiimba". It was great! I am most grateful for the girls at the end though. We walked up to the top of the hill just to see if we could find anymore chalk and then we were going to head out even though some of the kids weren't satisfied with their level of dirtiness. And then these girls just squatted down and shared SO MUCH of their chalk with the kids. They handed out handfuls left and right of all sorts of colors.

I was so pleased with how the kids reacted to it. I was pretty worried that they were going to hate it and wonder what on earth Aunt Rachel had gotten them into. Mallory was a little worried when we first got there because there were so many people and it was so loud! But as soon as we got the chalk and started throwing she loved it! And little Henry just ate it up. Being the youngest, I wasn't sure how much he'd like it, but he clearly thought it was great. Pardon the large number of pictures to follow. They are just all so fun that I had a hard time narrowing them down much.

The whole gang. What cuties!
Rationing the small amount of chalk we had at the beginning. See all the eager hands though?? Makes me smile.
Check it out while you can!! Gavin's smiling! This was before he remembered that every party is supposed to have a pooper and this one clearly didn't..he took it upon himself to play that role. :)
Who is that hooded figure sulking in the background????
The whole gang back at the car. We did a lot of dusting off to try to save Stacy's van. I hope we did a decent job. Thanks for letting us use the van Stacy!!
Libbie.
Mia.
Gavin.
Mallory.
Henry. He has the cutest smile. Ever!
So I just had to get a picture with him. :)
Me and Brennan. I love him. And so appreciate his more than willing attitude with all of my crazy ideas of things to do with the kids. I couldn't do it without him.
Mia's very colorful hair. She was quite proud of it.

Well I don't think the parents were too excited for the mess they had to clean up when we brought them back. In fact, I'm sure they weren't. But the kids seemed to have fun and I try to remember that that was why we did it. I sure love these kids and I'm grateful for once that I was the youngest and for the opportunity it has given me to have special relationships with them.

I made Brennan's favorite, Better than Anything cake, and we celebrated with my brothers later that night.
Mallory looks worried that he won't be able to blow out all 23 candles.
I just had to include a picture of the new little guy. I love him too. If you can't see it, his shirt says "my aunt rocks". I didn't have anything to do with that....;)