Happy Cinco de Mayo!

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo all of us here at Serenity decided to have a fiesta! But before we continue, let’s have another lesson.

Many people think that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Independence Day, but it really commemorates the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla. After the Mexican-American war, Mexico was in major debt to France but had no money to repay the debts when France wanted them. Despite the Mexican president’s compromise to pay the debts back two years later, France invaded.

At this time France had one of the greatest armies in the world and wasn’t worried about being defeated in the least; the nearest country was the United States which was involved in its own civil war. France hoped to invade and rule Mexico with the main objective to halt the growth of the United States.

When the French decided to attack at Puebla, the French army numbered nearly 6,000 whereas the Mexican army only had approximately 4,000 makeshift soldiers (many were simple farmers who were not prepared with the proper equipment for such a battle). Due to the French general’s arrogance, the French army was ordered to attack at the Mexican army’s strongest point. The Mexican army used guerilla warfare tactics and defeated the French army in a major victory.

This story is what is celebrated on May 5th! And our fiesta today was a ton of fun. It was a blast to eat all the different Mexican style food that was prepared for the festive occasion. Take a look at these photos to get a glimpse of the tasty food we enjoyed today – pictured above is Texas Caviar and to the right is a Mexican flag dessert!

Happy Birthday, Lois Seifert!

Not only is today Easter, but we are also celebrating Lois’ birthday! Lois went on a short trip with her family to celebrate in Fargo – they even had birthday cake instead of pie. Lois said, “I like pie even more than cake!” Lois’ family made her favorite – coconut meringue pie; m-m-m delicious!

Once Lois came home to Serenity we surprised her with a birthday cake, too! Let’s just say she had a busy day eating all her scrumptious birthday treats. Happy birthday, Lois!

Spring and Easter Crafts Galore

If you know us, you know one thing – we don’t just sit around! Lately we’ve been letting our spring fever set in – we’ve been busy making lots of spring and Easter crafts.

Earlier this month you could catch us decorating windsocks. It was fun to get out all the spring and summer colors! Though they’re not all outside yet, we’re waiting for the day when we can go out and sit in the summer breeze and watch our homemade windsocks fly!

We also had a blast catching up with our friends while making craft Easter bunnies. Actually, we did several Easter rabbit crafts this month to celebrate the season. With our first project, we decorated small bunny stuffed animals with tutus and flowers. We completed these by attaching wings to make them fairy bunnies! After these were done we decided to make candy holders for when the real Easter bunny would come to visit – take a look at Orval’s picture! In our third project, we took the time to make bunny table decorations. These Easter rabbits were complete with big feet and perky ears; and we used them to decorate our dining room throughout the season.

And what would Easter be without some old fashioned Easter eggs? This week we sat down and dyed a mess of hardboiled eggs every color under the sky. It was fun to remember how we used to dye eggs when we were kids and how things have changed since then – including fun stickers to make the dyed eggs look like monsters!

Take a peak at these photos to really get a glimpse of the fun we had throughout this month. In the topmost picture is Henrietta who is putting her fairy bunny together. To the right is Orval who is showing off his Easter bunny candy holder; and on the right is Muriel who is dying Easter eggs! Below is a picture of the Easter rabbit table decorations we made.

Tis the Season