April showers bring May flowers..

..what do Mayflowers bring?

Pilgrims!

You know how some things seem to stick with you and seem funny no matter how 'mature' you get or how many years go by? Well, that old joke still gets me grinning the same as when I was a little girl.

1963 - I'm the 2nd kiddo from left back row sitting on hearth

This April brought more than purty April (or May ;) blossoms... though there have been plenty of those and more to come!

April also brought us Eli-o home from school for his summer job with Ben up at Lassen.

if you click this pic & think you see Ben giving me one of his 'looks' you are correct ;)

It's always so heart-warming & thrilling to have any of our three big kids come home. Eli's first 24 hours were no exception. He broke me and then impressed me all in the same time period.

The boys were only staying the night before moving into their cabin at the Park. After supper, while everyone was otherwise engaged, I had gone upstairs to do a little 'mothering' in the boy's rooms and arrange for extra bedding in case it got cold in the night.

On the way up the stairs I noticed, and climbed past, a shirt Eli had thrown in the middle of a step before he'd gone down to shower (an old classic Baker Hause 'no no' rule). I'd usually call to the kids or move any offending item like this out of the path and scold the child responsible, but figured I'd let it go this one time. Silly Mama.

On the way back down that steep narrow stairwell I'm hauling an extra bundle of blankets, completely forgetting about the shirt, when suddenly Slip!Wham!Bam! down I go; slamming my head and tail bone first & then spraining both wrists and ankles in an attempt to keep myself straight, while sliding, so as not to end up a tangled broken mess at the bottom of the staircase.

I immediately let out a whoop, a scream, and then a holler and mixed cry of surprise, fear, & pain... surprise at my stupidity, fear of what might happen in the fall, and pain cuz of what did happen ;)

Eli, down in the shower, is oblivious to the drama, while Papa & Ben, in the living room, start laughing and joking saying, "Well, that didn't take long!" thinking Eli had just done his usual jump-out-of-nowhere-and-startle-Mama-out-of-her-wits-routine. But then, not hearing Eli's sinister 'Got Ya!' laugh, only me crying in pain (hey. it kept going. I couldn't help it :p), they decide to come investigate.

Miraculously  it ended up I wasn't broken; just extremely banged up. Here's where Eli's superb educational expertise came into play. He gave me a thorough check-up, determined the extent of my injuries, and proceeded to do a professional physical therapist fix. He talked me through some painful moments, explaining in medical and physiological ways what was happening and what he was doing to help me.

He was able to take care of everything except, naturally, my poor tailbone. From prior experience (a fall from my horse as a young girl and the resulting doctor's visit way back when) I knew that injury was going to have to rely strictly on time before it would heal. A week later I have no major residual affects from the fall -well, other than the fact that it's still painful to sit ;)

1964 -being tricky with 'Melody' (that's her filly 'Star')

We're still not sure whether Eli set all this in to motion so his Mama 'n Papa could be soo amazed and impressed with his knowledge and skills.. but hey, it does feel wonderful to know he's definitely cut out for his chosen career as a DPT physical therapist!