Idol Worship

I confess. I got sucked into watching American Idol for the first time this season.

It was fun having a top two contestant from Utah, and I'd have been happy if David Archuleta won.

But honestly? Throughout the competition, I only ever rewound one song to listen to it again. A David Cook song.

Rock on!

Spring Break

Jack and I left town over spring break and enjoyed a fabulous vacation on the east coast. Roger was home working and finishing up some final projects for school--his semester is just ending. By the way, he'll be completely done with his MLS degree in August!

We flew into Baltimore and spent a night at my brother-in-law Bill's house with his wife Lorraine, a 5-year old, a 3-year old, twin 1-year olds (who we met for the first time), and their big friendly dog. Their home is busy and happy!

Then we drove down to Washington, D.C. and spent a few days with good friends, Pat and Jack. Highlights included taking (my) Jack to visit the federal court where I used to work, having lunch with my cousin Julie (an honest-to-goodness lobbyist), visiting monuments after dark and taking the D.C. Duck tour. Jack especially enjoyed taking hundreds of photos at the air and space museum and the museum of natural history.

After that we headed south to Charlotte, North Carolina, to visit my cousin Tracey and her family. But we didn't take a direct route. We drove 150 miles out of our way to the Outer Banks, visited the Wright Brothers memorial at Kitty Hawk and spent the night at a hotel on the beach! It was very, very good for our souls to see the ocean.

We had a fun visit in Charlotte, mostly just hanging out and catching up. We met Tracey's one-year old daughter for the first time, and Jack and their older daughter reconnected. A highlight of the trip was going to our first Passover Seder dinner. Tracey's husband Josh is Jewish (reformed), and she recently converted. It was cool learning about Seder traditions, which were fairly raucously but lovingly observed in Josh's family. One of the highlights was singing a song about the ten plagues set to the tune of This Old Man, and I actually tried gefilte fish.

Jack was thrilled to get a $5 bill for finding a piece of hidden matzah. I won't be surprised if that's the tradition he remembers most when his Primary class studies the Old Testament at church.