Nine things I've learned in the last five days:

1. I will never again use Kool-Aid to color Easter eggs. The colors aren't vibrant, purple turns brown, green is impossible (even if you mix yellow and blue), and the color doesn't stay on the eggs very well at all.

2. Woodpeckers will from now on be called Woodeffers by me because they do nothing but eff up the wood on the side of my house. And they chuckle from the trees when I chase them off, only to return to their previous effing pecking spot the instant I go inside.

3. Traditions started in childhood continue to matter—as much to my daughters as to me.

4. Photos sent via text messaging are the next best thing to Skype which is the next best thing to being there.

(Though it would have been nice to be there to hug Baby Mac, who looks a wee bit scared of—or, more likely, annoyed by—Mr. Bunny.)

5. Popping Vitamin E pills really does help with cracked heels. Literally popping the pills, that is, and rubbing the oil into your heels.

6. I can't get enough Bones. The series. We may be late comers to the series, but thanks to instant streaming on Netflix, Jim and I are well into the fourth season and never at a loss for what to watch on TV despite having canceled cable several months ago. (And we will surely be just as sad to end the marathon viewing sessions as we were when we finished Lost. And Firefly. And Lie to Me. And Friday Night Lights. And Sons of Anarchy.)

7. Jim is dead serious about preferring chocolate desserts over any other kind. Even ones that look—and taste!—as delicious as the Mini Cheesecakes I made for Easter dinner.

8. I'm no longer compelled to stay awake until my children come home after a night out, proven by my being sound asleep when our Easter weekend houseguest, Andrea, went out with friends Saturday night and got home well after the bars had closed.

9. Despite huge changes to the dynamics and logistics over the past several years, the best part of each and every holiday has remained the same: time with my favorite people, my family—all except the desert dwellers, of course.