There's a kind of hush ... all over the house this week.  No one to play games with, or play house with, or play Webkinz with!  Just a mundane, ordinary sameness is permeating the entire house!  The Scrabble is put away, Go Fish cards have been returned to their hiding place, the Tinker Toys are dismantled ... only solitude reigns.

Maryanna and Macy Lee, along with mom and dad, Tim and Beth, were only here a couple of days but we got hooked on having kids in the house again!  They are so sweet!  Beth is Bill's niece, so that would make Maryanna and Macy his great-nieces!  And they are great!  They live in Amite, Louisiana, just south of Kentwood, LA where Bill grew up.

Maryanna and I have always enjoyed cleaning in the kitchen together.  We first developed a love for this unusual practice when we would end up at Grandmother's house (Anna Belle - Bill's mom) in Kentwood.  We would clean, scrub, straighten, vacuum, sweep and swipe away ... we even created some dirt to remove if we couldn't find any!  Maryanna was especially good at spraying the cleaner or the Pledge or whatever products we were using.  Yes, we were quite the cleaning team!  I figure in another life she and I will have our own cleaning service!  Move over, Merry Maids, here we come!  We've got the experience and the knowledge to take over!  Surely those golden streets will need polishing every now and then!  All the while we were cleaning away, we would be sharing some of life's deepest meanings and philosophical truths!  Not to mention the fun we had delving into a virtual treasure trove of "whatevers" that we uncovered in Grandmother's kitchen cabinets and drawers. 

So, in keeping with our love for this sort of thing, one of the fun things we did while Maryanna and Macy were here was this fun activity:  we (or, rather Maryanna) straightened my pots, pans and lids that are housed in, around, under, over and other places in the general area of a revolving Lazy Susan!  The pots and pans were either in the process of falling off their spaces, had already fallen off and were blocking the turning capability of the turnstile, or were just plain out of order - teetering, if you will!  (kind of like my life sometimes!).   I forgot to say that I only love cleaning when I have someone to share this experience with!  Now, I must remind you that it is much easier on the visual senses to picture Maryanna entering this war zone, than Aunt Velta entering .... hence, this space was in the disaster that it was!  I would most likely be permanently ensconced if I even attempted to enter such a zone.

Anyway, Maryanna took every last piece of cooking equipment out, asked for the cleaning spray - of course! - and cleaned the entire area.  Then, she patiently replaced every one of the pots and pans back in their former abode, nesting them just so, and voilà! I now have more space than I did, and the pots and pans are breathing a sigh of relief!  Free at last!  Plus, everything looks neat and orderly, and the Lazy Susan actually revolves freely, without obstruction!  Thank you, Maryanna!  It was so therapeutic for both of us!  But more than that, it was fun, making a memory not only for Maryanna, but for me! 

During our conversation, I asked Maryanna and Macy if they also helped their mom, Beth, with chores around their house, etc.  Maryanna said, yes, that she did.   Macy, (who was functioning in an observatory capacity, primarily, while all of this activity was going on), muttered something akin to I like to watch or whatever - in other words, she prefers more of a supervisory role .....  She is such a sweetheart, too, and is so energetic it makes me dizzy!  Some of the things she says just crack me up!  For instances, not too long ago she had some surgery that was rather serious and the recovery was painful at first.  While she was in the hospital, and experiencing quite a bit of discomfort, she looked up at her mom and asked, "Mom, why did you sign me up for this surgery?"  Much like signing her up for dance lessons or T-ball!

All in all, we had a fun visit, but it was much too short; however, we were happy to take what we could get.  Oh, one of the other fun things we did was visit the local Hallmark store, and lo and behold!  There was still a fairly good selection of Webkinz creatures, so each of the girls got to choose a companion pet for the earlier one that was waiting for them when they got here.  And, I forgot to tell you how enlightening it was for me to observe the adoption process on the Internet, while the girls registered their pets, named them, got the password code, etc., and finalized all of the formal adoption papers.  For some reason, Macy named her pink pet pig "Bill".  So far, Uncle Bill hasn't exhibited any negative reaction to this unusual naming, or even hinted that he is offended over his latest namesake.

The Lees came to our house after having had a ball in Gatlinburg!  (No way for us to top that!) We were happy to hear their tales of having visited the magic shows and other fun places; in fact, we even had a mini-performance of some of the magic tricks they learned!  Stumped me!

So, Beth, Tim, Maryanna and Macy: You must plan another trip before too much time goes by!  A visit that isn't dependent on such things as Spring Break or having to go back to work!  Maryanna, my cabinets will surely need cleaning and my pots and pans re-arranged within the next year!   Thank you for coming such a long way to let Uncle Bill and Aunt Velta get their hugs caught up to date!  We love you all!

Here's a picture of the two little angels, still sleepy-eyed before they left us heading back to Louisiana before 7 o'clock in the morning!  Macy on the left; Maryanna on the right.  Oh, in case you're wondering about the cast on Macy's arm: it resulted from an overly-ambitious participation in an Easter egg hunt!  She won out over her opponent and got the egg!