Easter weekend was one of those times when my new life felt a million miles away from my old life. Not in any sort of better or worse way, just extremely different. Whereas last year was spent having a quiet Easter in Auvergne with French Maman and French Nana, this year was spent entertaining and distracting two young Irish boys who's mother was stuck in the hospital recovering from surgery.First up; the movies. Movies always seem like a good idea. We saw Draft Day and stuffed them with popcorn and Bluebell ice cream. Because ice cream and popcorn does not a meal make (well, for growing lads it doesn't, for me, it's more than OK), we had steaks (chicken fried and regular) at the Longhorn Cafe. Places like the 'Longhorn Cafe' seem like rugged places for rough and tumble boys.
Another rugged place is a ranch, so that's where we went the next day (the next day being Saturday). Boys love ranches. Even big boys.
The little boys busied themselves throwing horseshoes and fishing while the big boy, Gregory, got to man the monster barbecue grill with Texas Girl's husband (If 'manning' the barbecue means sitting on one's tukhus while slamming can after can of Miller Lite. He had two excuses for this; 1. Miller Lite is like drinking water and 2. They needed the empty cans for target practice.)
Not wanting to get my hands dirty, at least not in a mucky, yucky, dirt kind of way, I decided to leave the boys outside and dye eggs with this cutie patootie. (Easter egg dye is a much more preferable way to dirty hands, it's far more dainty like). 
On Easter Sunday, the boys discovered that the Easter Bunny found them all the way in Texas (a forwarding address must have been left in Dublin). And I guess the Easter Bunny found Gregory's forwarded address too because he woke up to find this sitting on his nightstand...
... Gregory's very first Easter basket! His face was absolutely priceless when he spotted it, he loved it! (Proof positive that the Easter Bunny and baskets are way cooler than bells that fly in from Rome... flying bells?! That's plain crazy talk.)That night we were having Easter dinner at Miss Vicki's house (Miss Vicki of the Golden Girls Staycation). Since Gayle was in town from Seattle, she decided to come along too.
She didn't want to miss the fish fry. That's right, we were having an Easter fish fry! Miss Vicki's husband knew that I had been craving fried catfish something fierce since I returned from France, and not wanting me to eat any ol' catfish, he said he'd cook me some, and that day for cooking, turned out to be Easter. So instead of the usual lamb or ham, we had this... 
... fried catfish, fried shrimp, and fried oysters (not pictured because they were still in the fry daddy)! If that's not a big ol' welcome back to Texas I don't know what is. And for dessert, a coconut cake as cute and delicious as the Easter Bunny himself.
Wait a second... is the Easter Bunny a boy or a girl? I used to be certain he was a boy but now I'm wondering. Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway because unfortunately the poor Easter Bunny didn't make it out of our house alive. Apologies to any of you who are still waiting on your baskets, Fifty feels terrible about that.
P.S. Fifty didn't actually kill the Easter Bunny. He destroyed (and as of yesterday, decapitated) some other poor, defenseless, toy bunny... once a psycho killer, always a psycho killer.
