Dear Kids,
          I hope you’re all having a happy Easter this morning. There’s a big chocolate rabbit sitting in front of me on our dining room table, and his ears have already been eaten off. Some things never change. I hope you had fun at the Easter picnic. I wish we could have been there, but yesterday Dad and I were driving home from Arizona.
          Our trip went pretty well. Nancy came with us, so we had a lot of fun talking about people and books and music and everything else. Driving down, we discovered that the road south of Page was closed for construction, and they sent us out on a long detour on the Navajo reservation. We had to stop for gas, and a couple of Indians told us about a shortcut to get us back onto the main road, below the construction. It was supposed to be five miles of dirt road and then a really good highway. Trouble was, we took the wrong dirt road, and it was twenty five miles of bumpy washboard with piles of sand on the edges. Dad was afraid of getting stuck in the sand, so we bounced down the middle at 15 miles an hour for almost two hours. We were so grateful to finally reach a paved road that we had no complaints after that, and the rest of our trip south went fine.
          My Aunt Elma’s funeral was a blast. Sure, we looked into her coffin and said, "Yep, there she is," but otherwise, it was a continual party, from the viewing to the funeral to the cemetery to the luncheon to the afterparty at my cousin Jennifer’s house. Charley and Andy and Bonnie flew down on Southwest, and Rich and Jeanne drove from Las Vegas, so they added to the fun. Our Milano cousins are loud and crazy like us, and they still make jokes about farting and bodily functions. Uncle George’s kids are just the same. So we laughed a lot and ate a lot. Some of my cousins are really wealthy, and the house we stayed at looked like an Italian villa. But they had a son on a mission, and LDS stuff all over the house, so we felt right at home. We drank real orange juice, squeezed from oranges off their trees. We walked around their neighborhood (more villas) and saw flowers blooming and fruit trees blossoming. I’ve always loved Mesa in the springtime.
          Now we’re back home where it’s winter still. No leaves or flowers or blossoms. But the air is clean! We drove past our lot this morning, and a big backhoe is sitting there. Another basement has already been dug. So life is moving forward! Last week in West Valley, a Mexican couple came to see our house there. We’re not even putting it on the market for another month, because we’re painting and repairing things, but I think the house will be really easy to sell.
          So life is really good! Love, Mom