escape.

when i was growing up in southwestern colorado, i remember a bumper sticker my mother had tacked to the bulletin board in her office (also the laundry room/mud room). it said, "escape to wisconsin", words i learned to read before i understood what they meant. our annual summer trips to the midwest did not exactly feel like an escape.
then we moved to wisconsin and the bumper sticker made even less sense.
now that i am grown up and moved to the city, i have a better appreciation for the beautiful green and rolling hills of northcentral wisconsin. i can't wait to escape this weekend.

i am heading to my parents' house for easter and my grandmother's eighty-seventh birthday. i have to say that i really love easter--when i was a kid, my mom would create elaborate hunts for our easter baskets, with full-on riddles, limericks, and crazy clues that sent us all over the house until we found our treasures. one year they were stashed in the dryer. when i was little, it also meant a new dress and sometimes a hat, a one-time-a-year accessory.
but lately, i am just really grateful for a springtime excuse for our extended family to get together. there will be lots of hilarious children, favorite aunts and uncles, and my mother (and my dad. i love you dad! but you all know about mothers. i am proof that you can successfully bond with your child even if you don't spend the first three minutes of her life staring into each others' eyes*).

i have had a really foggy, exhausted week and i look forward to getting out of the city and away from my normal routine. i hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

*i was born c-section. somehow, even though i am far, far away from having children, i am inordinately obsessed with the statistic that a mother and baby bond most during the first three minutes of life.