Happy Easter everyone.

Well I know it’s a bit early to be saying that, but we have so much to do to prepare for Sunday. What with all the parade activities, everyone is just willowing with delight! As you can see, as usual, my wife out did herself on the Easter décor-and-more! The house looks so festive, but I must admit I am struggling a bit with the whole bunny ear thing. We men willows are a bit too manly for such nonsense, but we do try to keep our wives happy. You know, ‘if mamma’s happy, everybody’s happy’, right? My wife is so special. She fell head over heals for Peter and Paula Rabbit from the Easter Patch. They have no family in town, so she invited them over for Easter Dinner. Kind of strange, they arrived today a bit early and with a lamb in toe! Paula was singing “Peter had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Peter had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow. Followed him to the Willows one day which was against the rules.” What a corny song, but we all gave her a courtesy laugh, willow style! There is an ordinance that no lambs are allowed in the city limits, so we’re not sure what to do. Can’t very well hide it, hopefully we can get an animal permit for a few days though. It will be fun having Peter and Paula here. They told us they would help in any way possible. They are so good at greeting, we thought maybe they could spend their days outside greeting people as they “willow by”! Not quite what to serve them food wise either. They are strict vegetarians. I don’t know what to call us though. We’re not really carnivorous . . . not vegetarians . . . not vegans. I guess we are will-gans. We will eat just about anything, but don’t eat much because we are just so small. They say ‘good things come in small packages’!! Speaking of ‘size’, one of Weston’s class mates, named Waverly Willow was so intrigued with Bernardo the Bunny and his large stature. Apparently Waverly has been infatuated with the Incredible Hulk since his wee-willow days and has always wanted his name to be Waverly Willow Banner. So he lagged behind to talk to Bernardo about ‘body substance and mass’. Now you tell me, do you think he needs to be tested too? We all agreed to call him Waverly Willow Banner if he was honest with us. He told us that he’s “just been eating lots of fruits and vegetables, especially grapes.” Oh brother! I know his family is concerned, however, we all encouraged his parents to enjoy Easter and then deal with it after Easter. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter. It is truly such a special day.

Trip to the Easter Patch cont.

Whew, I’m glad those Willow Buckets were here. It could have been a very ‘wet’ day for some - - - Anyway back to the rest of our field trip. Next we came across this ginormous rabbit named Bernardo the Bunny! It took our family and the other little willows by surprise. The Easter Patch photographer said not to be afraid, that Bernardo didn’t like to eat little willows. Oh, like that made us feel better! I do believe this rabbit had been taking steroids trying to prepare for the rabbit races later in the week. I wonder if Bernardo will be pegged as one who will have to take drug testing prior to the race? Just down the patch from Bernardo there was an inflatable egg jump. We all had so much fun. It was a bit unnerving though, because it was set up on a wooden plank. Several fell off, but thank goodness we willows have so much fur, that no one got hurt. As we were coming around the final bend and heading back to the bus, we noticed this really cool looking Easter Egg cave. Of course all the kids (and us adult willows) wanted to take a peak inside. You could walk all the way to the back of the cave. There were Easter peeps, baby chickens, and little tiny lambs to look at. We got a great family picture as we were coming out of the cave. Of course by then Weston had had enough of his yellow Easter costume, so he had long taken his off. He just couldn’t be bothered by it for all the pictures. All in all, I think everyone had a great time! Can’t wait to come back next year. There is so much happening all this week as we will be celebrating Easter. There will be a parade on Wednesday in the Netwille. Our daughter, Wilena has been named the Parade Princess. She has asked us to just call her “Your Willow-ness” all this week. Don’t know if we will be able to stand all her prancing around!! But she is excited and we will all join in on her exhilaration!

Trip to the Easter Patch

Upon our return from spring break, we started noticing posters all over town advertising the West Willow Easter Patch. How appropriate, since Easter is this coming Sunday. The teachers all thought it would be a great idea to take the school kids on a field trip. Of course my wife Willamina and I thought what fun to go as chaperones! Oh my goodness, the willow shrills of delight on the bus were deafening to our furry little ears. Lucky for us the adult willows were supplied with orange ear plugs. Several of the kids thought they were baby carrots and tried eating them and got sick!! The teachers thought of everything, so they had little pink and yellow Easter costumes for all the pint sized willows. We were greeted by the Easter patch gate keepers, Peter and Paula Rabbit. Such sweet rabbits. They are retired and have lots of time on their hands. They told us that they volunteer in blue vests as greeters at the local Willmart store every Monday and Tuesday. Anyway, there was just a plethora of activities for the kids. There were willow-wheel barrow rides out to the egg hunt. They all looked so cute in their pink & yellow Easter costumes. It was kind of silly that the greeters had an Easter egg to show the kids at the gate to let them know what to look for! These eggs were about 12 times bigger than the little willows. Nice touch however to give them a head’s up!!

Another thrill was the Petting Zoo. There was a family of little lambs. Kind of strange though was the blue lamb which didn’t look anything like the other three. We were told that this lamb had been rejected by its mommy when it fell into a blue vat of Easter egg dye. Felt kind of sorry for the little one. So did our little willows. Especially Weston. He just cried and cried when he heard this story. Got to go for a minute. Some of the kids need to go use the Willow Buckets!

Happy Spring Break!

The teachers at Weston’s school, unbeknownst, to the parents, told all the students that there would be a great surprise and reward for the best paper turned in for the family immigrant’s project. Well we were pretty excited when Weston won. The reward was an all expense paid vacation for a family of four to the Great Willow Lodge, up north. There must have been someone who donated this trip because I know teachers are not paid enough for what they do!

At this writing we are taking a wee time out from all the activities. There is so much for everyone to do, including the parents. There was a bit of confusion though regarding the tanning beds. My wife and her sister, Wena, weren’t aware that the first time you “tan” you should only stay in a few minutes. After the long trip up and the weather being a bit chilly, they stayed in the beds for 2 hours. They came out very crispy and burned all their fur. You’ve heard of ‘baked Alaska’, well they are baked wil-aska! So, they are really in time out. They were told they could go down to the pool and hang out on their towels, but to stay out of the sun!



The kids are having a great time. Weston became a certified Jr. Life Guard for the day. He got to dress like a lifeguard do relay races and practice real lifeguarding skills and learn how to respond in an emergency situation. He is sitting up high on the lifeguard chair, and he certainly is keeping an eye on his mom and aunt who obviously can’t be left alone!

For the adults, there are many fun activities is in the evening! The judges from Willow Idol are here hosting a spring break singing contest. Wyman Cowillow, Eilene Dewilnerous, Raymond ‘check-it-out-willow’ Johnson and Dara DioWilardi are all here and of course it is all a buzz. There are contests every night and my family has convinced me to participate. I’m going to sing one of my favorite songs: “Fur on the ground, fur on the ground, look’n like a fool with your fur on the ground.” I will let you know how I do!

Best go; I think the charbroiled ladies could use some assistance at the pool area getting off their towels!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Top of the morn’in to you all!! We, the Willow Family are so excited to be celebrating this day. We had no idea that we had so much Irish fur, until Weston had to do a project at school about where and when our family emigrated from Europe. The people at Will.Biz showed Weston how to research the family tree on the computer.

He discovered that my great-great-great grandfather, Warwick Waylon O’Willow was tucked into the pocket of a little Irish boy and my great-great-great grandmother
Winifred Winona O’Willowy was tucked in the pocket of a little Irish girl. They made it off the boat intact, and started their lives in United States in little drawers in two separate wee cities in upper New York. They eventually met up at a community center for Irish immigrants, got married and started their own family. Over the years some of them have migrated to different parts of America and I can’t tell you how happy our family is to be here in Netwille.

Somewhere in the Willow family linage, the “O” was dropped from O’Willow and we became the Willow family. My great-great-great grandparents received a leprechaun statue as a wedding present which has been passed down through the years. Somehow it made it over on the boat. His name is Bonzie O’Donnell. He is very special to our family, and we weren’t sure how well Bonzi would be received here in Netwille. As you can see from the picture, all in Netwille were excited to see us decorate our front yard with him and we believe sometimes at night he moves from one side of the yard to the other. Isn’t that just like a leprechaun?

I have told you about our oldest daughter, Wilena being a teen-ager, right? “Fa-Sha” and “Nuh-ua” are just part of her vocabulary. We are trying to keep her little as long as we can but do try desperately to say yes to her whenever possible. Well - - she has asked repeatedly if she could color her fur. We have said no way! My wife got a great idea that we could all dye our fur green for St. Patrick’s Day. We thought for sure Wilenia would be all over that! But no – she thought that would be a very dumb thing to do. Kids! You just can’t figure them out, can you? Suggestions from any of you parents who are going through teen years or have already done so, would be more than welcome. We are just pulling our fur out over this!!

We hired Bee Kay Block to come and get some family portraits of us celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, and had a horrible time trying to get Wilenia to smile for the pictures. She was so embarrassed that our fur was all green! Go figure! My wife worked so diligently decorating our home and I am so proud of all her efforts

Got to go! We are having a true Irish dinner this evening: Corned Beef Hash, Irish stew, bacon and cabbage boiled in water and maybe a little Irish cream over ice cream!

Staples Truck

Say!!! The day after we got back from out fishing expedition, we were soaking our weary little furry appendages and taking the morning off, when we heard this loud pop/boom noise. Of course since we have had so many surprises in Netwille lately, we were very curious and walked down to the main drag of town. To our surprise there was a Staples truck parked in the middle of the road. The loud noise was a tire that had blown out on the truck.

Staples, huh?? What kind of truck is that? The adult willows were excited that maybe this was a food truck that would supply us with food staples that were fibrous, healthy and delicious. You know with Coree Buff’s incentive, we thought anything was possible. Of course all the wee-willows thought the food staples that were on the truck would be ice cream, donuts, cake, cupcakes, cookies and the like!

Not even close on either account! Staples is a company that sells paper products, printer products, pens, etc. to companies. Since our little town is starting to boom, these willows wanted to come check us out and see how they could help. They are so nice. Kevin O’Hall-Aren and Sheria Speck are the representatives in our area. So after some time of meeting with some of the local businesses, they are going to be making frequent visits and deliveries to our area.

I am so glad we were able to help them fix their flat tire . . . the little willows are finally adapting to the fact that there will be no ice-cream deliveries and everyone is excited to look through their Staples catalogs and make purchases that will help their businesses on a daily basis!

Back to our soaking!!

Legend of Sam-I-Am cont.

I'm on my lunch break to finish my story of the Legend of Sam-I-Am....


The wall was amazing and scary, especially since there were two big male types at the base of the wall. Paulz Mitt has a huge big voice which scared our daughter Wilena and the other male is Gregzu Furrth! Apparently Gregzu Furrth has threatened to wipe out the willow community, sort of like Godzilla! Needless to say this was concerning, but we had a goal in mind! Willow-wellness and a Sam-I-Am!!

We got over the wall, and much to our amazement, the big blue fish is real!! Sam-I-Am is no legend! We saw him with our very own furry little eyes! Wilena and Weston willowed with delight and were so excited they had brought their fishing poles! Just think of all the Omega 3 we could improve our little willowy bodies with, if we could just catch that fish!! We tried and tried, but Sam-I-Am was just too big for us to hook. He’s still there swimming around just tantalizing anyone who tries to go after him. Needless to say we were all a little taken back by the ginormus green frog that was living in the same water. Our little willows named him Flicka the Frog, since he kept flicking water at us!!

We did have one small incident though. In all the excitement Weston fell in the water. Good thing he has had swimming lessons back at the community pool! Word had gotten out that we were in search of Sam-I-Am, and some of the paparazzi showed up! Don’t know how they beat us there. We never saw them on our hike over or even scaling the sea wall! They are just very good at hiding themselves aren’t they? Maybe, just maybe we could create some sort of theme park around Sam-I-Am.

Legend of Sam-I-Am

So apparently there is an old legend about a region called Back BeHynd Websu. There is an old sea wall that is high and hard to get over. No one in recent years has tried to accomplish passing over because of the frightening story.

The old legend states there is a huge blue fish named Sam-I-Am. He’s big, mean and doesn’t like to be bothered. Many have tried to see him, some have tried to catch him, but no one has been able. The legend goes on that a female named Jaymie Wydel used to take care of him, but she moved. I wonder if it was because she was afraid. (if there even is such a fish!). When she moved supposedly a male named Martino Mogez took over the care. But since the sea wall is so high, no one has been able to verify if this is real or not.

Well, part of our wellness training was to take on this big wall and try to put this legend to rest! Of course Coree Buff scaled the wall in nothing flat! But he wouldn’t say anything about what on the other side. Said we would have to see for ourselves. Don’t you know that our two oldest Wilena &Weston were up for this! Weston loves to fish! So after we recuperated from our hike, we just had to go back and ‘check it out dog’! Maybe it should be ‘check it out willow’!!

To Be Continued... Its time for work!

Willow Life-Balance

With all the hustle and bustle that has been transpiring with business improvement, stunt acts, etc in our willowy community, it has dawned on some of us that we aren’t quite in willow-life balance. So we decided we needed to incorporate a Family Willow Wellness program in Netwille. None of us wee-willows felt we had the know-how to put together such a campaign, so we asked athletic Coree Buff, cyclist extraordinaire, if he was up for the challenge. He immediately threw down the gauntlet! Coree put together an incentive program with a goal in mind. By the end of the summer, we will have had the opportunity to do Extreme Sports along with a final event which will be a Triwillow-Athon! How cool is that??!! We are a little nervous about that, but excited at the same time.

Part of our training consists of hiking, riding, running and swimming. This past weekend, Willamina, Wilena, Weston, and I decided we would start with a wonderful hike. Because of all Coree Buff’s bike riding, he has discovered some wonderful trails near the coastal community of Websu Port. If you remember that is where our two youngest are living. So we thought maybe we could try out our little willow legs by sporting a hike! Oh my goodness, I believe Coree thinks we are more buff than we are. We are not buff, just fluff!! There were so many bridges we had to cross over rivers, through the trees, and across fields of flowers! It was beautiful though. However, I think we should have started with a smaller hike. Corree expected us to hike 50 Willometers. That’s just a bit much! We tried to connect with our other two children, but one of them had to attend a wedding that her mom was taking pictures for, and the other one went to Savannah Georgia for the week. All in all it was a very good time, and we all sure slept well that night!!