Easter Week

We did lots of fun things this past week!

Violet sang in church on Palm Sunday (sorry, I have a video but have not been able to transfer/post to youtube yet).

This year for Spring Break I let each of the older kids pick a day to attend Adventure Camp at the Chaffee Zoo. It is from 9-4 and covers a different topic each day. Isaac chose to go on Tuesday for 'Poisonous & Venomous'. Audrey chose to go on Thursday for 'Zoo Doctor'. They both had a great time and learned lots! Since Violet was bummed that she couldn't go (it's for 5-11 year olds), we all went to the zoo yesterday and enjoyed the bird show, as well as an Isaac-guided tour of the Reptile house (since that was where most of his day was focused), and an Audrey-guided tour of a couple exhibits where she helped (salt-pills for the seals, medicine to a black swan, and a paper-mache Easter egg for the elephant to play with).

Tuesday night we had dinner with our friends, the Lentell's, and then went to work in their garden (I'll share more about this in a later post). We had a great time and got in all our seeds before it started to rain!

Friday was our church's annual Easter Egg- stravaganza in the neighbor- hood park. The kids had a great time, as always. I helped lead some singing with my guitar (it actually helped keep me warm on a rather chilly day, all that strumming, singing, and moving around). The kids sang, made a craft, watched a drama, and hunted for eggs. Violet moved so quickly from egg to egg that I barely got a clear picture of her!

Saturday we took a trip to the snow! As I have mentioned in prior blog posts, we have had lots of rain and snow in the Central Valley this winter. We took advantage of the fresh snow fall from the week and took one last trip to the snow! We brought up our grill to cook some hot dogs and beans for lunch! All the girls enjoying their food. The back of the Subaru worked great for our spread of veggies, chips, and desserts. The boys sat still long enough to eat at least. Violet in the sled with Rod. She LOVED going down the sled run! She had a huge smile on her face, laughing the whole way down! Even after her second run with Alyssa went sideways and they bailed out to stop themselves, rolling and face-planting in the snow, she still wanted more! Violet, Kaitlyn, and Alyssa. Woah Audrey! The boys gave up on the sled run after awhile in order to build a snow fort. Randy, Violet, and I managed to all fit on the sled! After lunch, snow play, and sled runs, we walked from the Columbine picnic area down to the Big Trees' grove. Here's all the kids! And happy parents too! We were home Saturday afternoon in time to start paska that would come out of the oven about the same time as The Ten Commandments movie ended at 11:45 (I still have yet to see the whole thing...I turned it on 2 hours late, and still watched 3 hours). If you grew up in a Mennonite church, chances are you ate paska (pronounced like pasta but with a k sound) on Easter morning. It is a sweet, egg and yeast bread that is spiced with cardamom, and topped with butter frosting and multi-colored non-pariels (at least that is how I've always eaten it). I attempted to make paska last Easter for the first time and I didn't cook it long enough. We woke up to loaves fallen in the middle...big bummer! This year was a success! Yummy! Easter afternoon was spent with Randy's mom and brother, enjoying lunch, an egg hunt, and even a little time at the park before it started to rain. Baskets in hand, ready for the egg hunt!

Whew, what a week! We hope you had a wonderful Easter week, hopefully celebrating with family or friends. He is risen! He is risen indeed!!!