Little Girls in their Easter Dresses

My mom has a favorite story about when we were kids. We lived in a small house in LaGrande Oregon. Our grandparents (my dad's mom and dad) and my great Aunt Ella lived about a block and a half from our house. When we lived in that house I was 3, my sister two and my brother was not even a year old when Easter rolled around. Shanny, my sister had just learned to walk and we frequently walked around the yard together and played together outside when the weather was good.

On this particular Easter, mom got us both dressed up in our beautiful frilly, pink girly dresses and was getting herself and my brother ready to go to church. Shanny and I decided to wait outside and play but we were admonished by mom to keep clean. At some point I must have decided that we couldn't have any fun playing if we didn't get dirty so we decided to go for a walk instead. I must have figured out a way to open the yard gate and we were out the yard and walking down the street. About a block from our home, the city had been working on laying new tar on the road and Shanny and I discovered the joys of tar!!

Mom said we looked like little tar babies when they found us. Covered completely in tar. Our dresses were ruined and our hair was saturated in the tar. Mom ran us over to Aunt Ella to see if Aunt Ella could possibly help us and Aunt Ella promptly got out the kerosene. Later in life, I was to learn that this was Aunt Ella's answer to most stains. Just clean it with kerosene. In this case it was fill a large tub with kerosene and then attack each of us with a soft brush to get the tar off. The dresses were a total loss, but then, we never made it to Easter mass anyway, so it didn't really matter.

I have always loved Easter and watching all the women and little girls in their Easter finery. I never really liked wearing it myself but I loved watching others wear it. This particular little pixie is Named Haley Doyle. She is one of our many adopted grandkids. We love it when she comes in to visit and she especially loves it when her grandpa Dan will let her sit on his lap and they watch Elmo on the computer. Haley is also quite the dancer and she loves Roy Orbisson as well. If you were watching our video blogs a few weeks ago you may have seen Haley and another little girl dancing to the music. You may have also seen Haley get broadsided by the little girl's foot when Haley got in the way of a very complicated step. It didn't hurt Haley much just gave her a startle and set the entire audience to laughing! I think we got the action on Mike Morales's video.

So Anyway, here is to your Wonderful Easter. I hope that you all have a very nice sunny day filled with youthful zeal and fun. Here is a vid for those of you who like Easter music. See if this might replace the old tune "in Your Easter Bonnet".

Easter on Whidbey Island.