I'll be honest, Easter crept up on me this year just like St. Patrick's Day did. Though if I'm honest with myself, I should probably admit that I was more just kind of avoiding thinking about it. We didn't go Easter dress shopping until Friday night. I didn't go Easter Bunny shopping until yesterday afternoon. We didn't go see the Easter Bunny at the mall at all.
Today my Easter attitude started out pretty sour as I went for a 4 mile run that I struggled through. I wanted to see the sunrise so badly but it was too cloudy. I was thinking about my dad, and all the fun our family had last Easter at our house, and how none of us could have predicted what would happen in the days/months/year following last Easter.
At the very last (uphill) stretch of my run, I got a text from my mom:
HE IS RISEN! I LOVE YOU.
I finished the run and cried and called her and got my mind right. Because that's the thing. This day is the day that makes all of our hope possible. Often when I don't know what to say, or need some validation of what I'm feeling, I will google "grief quotes" and see what comes up. Today I googled "Easter quotes" and found this:
"Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, 'Christ is risen,' but 'I shall rise.'"
-Phillips Brooks
That about sums it up for me. And as my mom said to me this morning on the phone, "Dad is having the most glorious Easter this year."
And that's all I can say about that, as the one year mark quickly approaches.
So before I recap our Easter, I must share pictures from our family zoo trip yesterday. Callie has an animal "research project" for school due in a couple of weeks. She has to research and present on the Canada Lynx (not to be confused with our dear Minnesota Lynx), so we went to the zoo to gather some information and get some pictures. It was a fun family outing.
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| Research project subjects: top left |
Stay tuned as we begin the research project process. The instructions clearly say "LET YOUR CHILD DO THE PROJECT", so Chris and I will need to be careful not to get too controlling. Ok, that is probably just going to be my problem. Anyway, we need to let Callie do what she wants to do and be okay with however it turns out.
Back to Easter.
The Easter Bunny came and Callie was up EARLY because she was so psyched.
Maya ended up sleeping late (when does that EVER happen? NEVER. Except Easter apparently) so we had to wake her up. She was a little bit bamboozled and clearly had some bedhead issues going on.
She came around quickly. Then they got dressed and I bribed them with jelly beans to take a picture, like the first one I posted. Here are some outtakes.
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| They weren't too bad this time. Jelly beans helped. |
From there we went to the condo for Easter celebration #2. Boom made the girls a scavenger hunt with 20 clues, that ultimately led the girls to find their presents in her car!
The clues were cute and they rhymed. For example:
IMG_3907 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.
"Maya, from diapers will soon be free,
She'll go to this place when she needs to pee!"
After a delicious linner (we ate around 3:30), we went to 5:00 church. It was a small service and very different from the normal Easter services we were used to. That was a good thing, I think. Callie did a great job following along. She wanted to "do what the grownups do", so I had to sneak a picture.
We got home and Maya had bathtime and Callie watched basketball with Chris. I noticed lots of light reflecting around our front door (we face west), and opened the door and walked down the street to see that the sun was FINALLY out. And shining brighter than I have seen for awhile.
He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed. Happy Easter.
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