It's BURJOWDY!!!
Well, our famous floating family holiday, Burjowdy Day, arrived!
For those of you not acquainted with Burjowdy Day, it is a holiday unique
to our family that began seven and a half years ago. Darcy, then four
years old, had just had the drama and thrill of Christmas and New Years.
She loved having her daddy home from work and loved not having to go to
school. (At that time, she went to a once a week school for
homeschoolers....sort of a hybrid private school. She attended there for
four years. That particular year was her first year there. She had
started out liking it a lot, but, over the course of the holidays had
decided that EVERYONE staying at home was much better!) That Tuesday
evening, as I had been putting her bed, I told her she needed to get her
sleep because she had school the next morning. She was INSISTANT that
she did NOT have school the following morning, NOR did Daddy have to go
to back to work. I assured her that, yes, she did have school and, yes,
Daddy did have to go back to work. She said, "No. Tomorrow is a
HOLIDAY!" Amused, I asked her, "And just WHAT holiday would THAT be?"
Not missing a beat, she replied in total earnest, "Burjowdy Day." I
asked, "Bur-whatey day?" Darcy replied, "Burjowdy. B-U-R-J-O-W-D-Y.
Burjowdy Day." (As though SPELLING it would make it sound like a more
established fact!) I told her I had never heard of Burjowdy Day. She
shook her head at my ignorance and explained, "That is the day when
mommys and daddys stay home from work and children stay home from school
and they all sit on the floor playing games together all day." Sounded
like a terrific holiday to me! But, I told Darcy she HAD to go to school
the next morning and her daddy really did have to go to work.
Later, when I told Grant about our conversation, he was so tickled, that
he decided to take that Friday off from work. We didn't tell Darcy ahead
of time. We surprised her that Friday morning, announcing to her that it
was BURJOWDY DAY. And we spent the day as a family, sitting on the floor
playing games. Since then, we have had a Burjowdy Day every year. It is
a mysteriously floating holiday that pops up when least expected. And,
you never know just what form Burjowdy Day will take. But, it ALWAYS
involves their daddy taking a day off work unexpectedly. Sometimes it
comes in the winter during the blahs after all the other holidays have
passed...sometimes it pops up in the Spring, Fall, or Summer. This year
it popped up in August. One year, the children awoke to find the house
decorated with all sorts of little presents dangling from ribbons from
the ceiling. One year, when we were really broke, our social worker
(well acquainted with Burjowdy Day from the years she has done adoption
homestudy after adoption homestudy for us!) offered us a box of things
her teenage daughter had cleared out of her own room and was planning on
giving to GoodWill. It was a veritible TREASURE trove for our three
children!....full of all sorts of party favors, animal masks, and knick
knacks and inflatibles (palm trees, flowers, etc) that we decorated our
home with. The kids had a BLAST with the Burjowdy Day box that year!
This year, Grant planned a surprise trip to Springfield. We all knew
that we would be racing down to Springfield Friday evening after Grant
got off work (to go to Lamberts in Ozark for Grant's sister's suprise
birthday party), and, then we were planning on driving the four hours
home through the night on Friday since I had to leave for work at the
hospital at 6:00am Saturday morning. We were planning four hours down
there, a couple of hours for a late birthday supper, then four hours back
home again. Unbeknownst, even to me!, Grant had requested that Friday
off and was planning on coming home from work Thursday evening and
surprising us all by saying, "Grab a change of clothes...we are going
down to Springfield early!" Then, we would have all day Friday to goof
around together in Springfield before meeting up with the rest of the
family in Ozark late that evening. Grant planned to spring this Burjowdy
Day surprise on me, too.... But, then someone wanted Darcy to babysit
for them on Thursday evening, so Grant had to let me in on the
surprise...to explain to me why Darcy couldn't babysit Thursday evening.
And, then along came Sunday and my surprise surgery. It didn't dawn on
me until the next day that since I couldn't lift for "six weeks" I
wouldn't be working this Saturday!!!!!! Which, meant we got to extend
our Burjowdy Day plans from Thursday evening clear on through Saturday
evening!!!! I am completely serious when I say that getting to be off
the last two weeks of my old job was TOTALLY worth having an emergency
appendectomy for! I am so glad I had to have surgery! (Tonight, I
called my co-worker to see how the day had gone. He said he would love
to have surgery, too, so that he could be off. He was completely
serious. We both of us dreaded our job that much.)
We left town Thursday and wound up the first night in a really nice hotel
(and reasonable) that had a fantastic pool for the kids. Grant HATES
swimming and manages to never swim with us at hotels, but, bless his
heart, he picked this hotel specifically BECAUSE it had a nice indoor
pool (you taught him well, Pop John!) and he had the kids pack their
swimming suits even though he knew I wouldn't be able to take them
swimming. GRANT took them swimming. I would have dearly loved to have
gotten in the water, but fresh incisions and swimming aren't generally a
recommended combination....so, I entertained myself by taking photos of
Grant and the kids as they swam! The next day, we enjoyed our morning at
the hotel--channel surfing, etc (we can't get cable out where we live and
we don't have satelite....we have about three channels we can tune in and
there isn't really anything on those, so we just don't watch TV at
home...so, the kids and Grant think it is great when we are at a hotel
and have so many channels to surf through!). We had breakfast at the
hotel and didn't bother to pack up until it was check out time (on the
rare occasions when we stay at a hotel, we always leave bright and
early--in a hurry to get on to where-ever we are going....so, it was
really nice to just lounge around and take our time about leaving!).
Then we traveled the rest of the way to Springfield and stopped at
various antique malls, etc, along the way. We checked into a hotel in
Ozark well ahead of needing to go to Lambert's to meet the rest of the
family. They didn't have roll-away beds at that hotel (for Doug), so,
they just gave us two adjoining rooms for the price of one room. The
kids thought they had really arrived....getting to have a room all to
themselves! They watched the Disney channel until after 11:30pm that
night. Well, at least the GIRLS did. Doug fell asleep about 10:30.
Meanwhile, Grant channel surfed in our room...never lighting
anywhere...much to his delight. I was a bit wiped out, but enjoying
every minute of it, none-the-less! Then, today, we had a very leisurely
trip back home....not leaving the hotel until check out time and, again,
stopping at a few antique malls on the way home. We had given each of
the kids a new DVD for Burjowdy Day, so they had fun watching their new
movies in the van on the ride home. (Since it was BURJOWDY Day, I got
them movies they would have chosen for themselves...."Herbie Fully
Loaded" for Darcy, "Batman--the First Season" (cartoon) for Doug, and
"Barbie as Rapunzel" for Rayna. I KNOW, I KNOW....I had decided
absolutely no more DVDs that involve Barbie or violence....but, it was
BURJOWDY Day.) We had an excellent supper Friday evening at
Lamberts....surprising Grant's sister! She and her husband and two
college age sons were traveling through on their way to take one of the
sons back to Rolla for school. They just 'happened' to stop in at
Lamberts there in Ozark for supper and there, waiting for them, was our
family, Grant's other sister and her daughter, and Grant's parents! It
was a really great idea--hatched by my brother-in-law, Eric...but, alas,
Grant's sister is as allergic to surprises as Grant is! (He HATES
surprises pulled on himself....though he likes to pull them on the rest
of us! And, the rest of us LIKE his surprises. I don't know why he and
his sister don't love surprises....must be that same gene that makes
Grant HATE being tickled...even though all his kids and wife enoy being
tickled.) But, even though it was a surprise, I think Jan really enjoyed
the supper together. The rest of us sure did!
Anway, it was a fun couple of days that we had out of town, together as a
family. And, tomorrow, for the first time in TEN MONTHS I will be able
to go to church with Grant and the kids. (Thanks to my appendectomy!)
It has been a long time. A really long time. It will be so good to have
Sundays off again...like I used to have. Even once I start my new job, I
should still have most Sundays off.
