recounting march

the weekend of march 15-16, we went to new york city to see my brother-in-law, brian, perform with the american sympony orchestra at lincoln center. (i forgot my camera so sorry for the lack of pics). brian did a great job and had some of the prettiest music to sing. the whole oratorio was well-performed and i especially liked the music from the destruction part of the piece (no surprise - i always love the big, climatic scenes/music). pat and i went down saturday afternoon and stayed at the same hotel as ann and brian. this made for an especially nice weekend sans kids!! and as always, a great hinckley quote came out of the weekend. here it goes:

the scene: (ann, brian and two of their friends plus us eating dinner after the performance)

brian (to his friends who sat with annie): "did ann say 'bravo'?? you want to see your wife cheering you on after a performance."

ann: "it's just embarassing."

me: "it's ok, brian, i was yelling at the intermission (while everyone else was clapping) and pat told me to stop."

ann: "see, it's just not the hinckley way."

[the hinckleys also used to only hug at weddings and funerals, but i think all of us in-laws are softening them there.]


then easter weekend, pat and fritz flew in to surprise pat's parents for their 50th wedding anniversary. all of his siblings were there (including three others who flew in for the surprise). his parents were truly surprised. everyone was asked to bring a gift that to symbolize a family moment - i.e. pat's brother gave them a bag of wheat in reference to the year that he kept bugging his parents that they had to do better on food storage and so his parents gave him a huge bag of wheat for christmas.

pat's mom and dad
here are his parents opening pat's gift which was a lockable wallet. when pat was little, money kept disappearing out of his dad's wallet. i think some older teenage siblings were suspected until pat's grandpa came over one day and pat showed him his stash. his grandpa said something like: "should pat have $80?"
here is pat's mom opening the pasta bowls that his sisters bought. this is in reference to what has become an infamous hinckley story. when pat's mom was pregnant with ann (the youngest), the kids were driving her crazy. she took a tablecloth, put it on the table and dumped the spaghetti out declaring: "if you're going to act like pigs, you can eat like pigs." half of the kids were offended and walked away while the other half thought it was the best meal ever! the siblings have often been defined by that split. i'll let you guess which way pat went.


here's pat's brother russ modeling his dad's old jumpsuit (which he used to wear at home). russ gave his dad a track suit in honor of the jumpsuit's memory and then his mom confided that she had never been able to throw it away. so russ did a little modeling later in the weekend.

once again, the weekend didn't fail to give a great hinckley quote. this one was from pat's mother, jean:

pat's sister (in reference to all the kids coming in to surprise them): "you probably didn't think you had such thoughtful kids."

pat's mom: "no, i didn't."

pat's brother: "i'm offended." (as he feigned leaving the room)