The Scenic Route: Easter 2014

This weekend ended with the celebration of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus!!!! I love knowing that people all over were traveling to be with the ones they love to celebrate on that day. For those of us who have died and now live with Christ, the day is EXTRA special. :)

Our Easter looked a lot different this year since Julie's dad just passed away. Normally, we would eat outside at her house, but since she wasn't there, we went through the holiday without her and her husband...

The day began with some time in my room putting the finishing touches on the Easter surprises I've been planning for my brother and sister.

My Mom and I put together a few small gifts for them. I put some of the gifts in eggs that I hid in places where they would be sure to find them as they went through their morning routines. Some of the eggs had two part clues that they had to match up and figure out in order to find their gift. Four of the eggs had things to trade for the real gift.
 
I loved this...We haven't put baskets together for them in a few years and I don't think they were expecting an egg hunt. I did not give any indication that anything was out of the ordinary. My sister told me that when she came out she noticed one egg and then another and then another but didn't touch them "just in case".

I heard some whispering in the living room. My brother told me that they were talking about the eggs and decided they'd better just leave them alone!

 
The egg that got my sister's attention and led her to hint around with "Are we supposed to be doing something with these eggs!??!" was in the dishwasher.

My brother came across three eggs but was doing his oil pulling so he didn't say anything. I went to the garage and asked him if anything was getting in his way...He then went back and gathered the three eggs and I told him to start collecting any teal eggs he came across.

They got down to having one egg each left to find. One of the eggs had the second part of the last clue...That egg was in my brother's shoe so I "had" to make a run to the grocery store to help that part of the hunt continue!

After all of that excitement, we put the finishing touches on lunch and sat down. The menu:

ham
mashed potatoes
gravy and mustard sauce
green beans
deviled eggs
olives
pineapples au gratin
Jay's fruit salad
60 minute rolls
Jay Juice

and Lemon Spice Cake

We took our time eating lunch and then during clean up my brother and sister shared the first half of the play they performed in with Jay. Eventually we moved on to the "mysterious" eggs in the backyard. They had been driving my brother nuts since noticed the first one while he was taking care of the dog that morning.

The eggs in the backyard had John's account hidden in them waiting to be unscrambled. After the eggs were collected they set about the task of sorting out the account. Once they were satisfied the adults put in their two cents and then I read through John 18-21 pausing for the bonus questions that I wrote on the back of some of the papers. Since John didn't include the details of Jesus' ascension, I turned to Luke 24:50-53.

The rest of the day was very restful...I took some time to read while everyone else watched "Call the Midwife" and then we ended the day with this week's session of Behold Your God.

I'll recap Friday and Saturday's activities tomorrow because they were pretty exciting! :)