Easter 2012

I'm finally getting out my Easter pictures.  That weekend was pretty eventful and chock full of egg-hunty goodness!  On the first, we went to William's school for a church/community egg hunt.  There were crafts inside and a cute little puppet show to teach the kids about the real Easter story and how eggs, bunnies, and candy factor it.  Little Charlotte was not walking just yet so I had a heck of a time trying to wrangle her in and not let her crawl into the street.

Then the Saturday before Easter, we all went to Wegmans for breakfast with the Easter Bunny.  They had some coloring pages and William decorated a couple of cookies while we enjoyed their breakfast buffet.  Charlotte is a HUGE fan of characters.  That is, anyone costume (ie. Geoffry the Giraffe at Toys R Us, Muno and Brobee from Yo Gabba, Gabba! etc.)   She did not care for Santa, but I think if he were in a Santa mask, she would have been more friendly.  Anyway, she couldn't get enough of the Bunny.  She wanted to pet him, wave at him, hold his hand, anything to be near him.  She got pretty upset when it was time to leave and let other kids have a turn.

 After breakfast, we headed out to another egg hunt.  This one was awesome!  We met in a large church where they had baby goats and huge bunnies to pet, crafts and a magic show.  There were so many eggs to be found!  Charlotte was getting better at toddling by now so she had her own basket.

 Easter morning!  William woke to find that the Easter Bunny had left a trail of eggs from his bedroom, downstairs to the family room where his Easter basket had been filled.  We have morning church this year so we couldn't do much but get ready for church.  Charlotte had her first day in Nursery and did just fine.  While we were away, the Easter Bunny snuck back to our house and hid a bunch of eggs out in the back yard.  It was such a beautiful day!

Relief Society 170th Birthday

We just had our Relief Society 170th Birthday Celebration.  It was wonderful!  I got to plan,  decorate and serve fancy food.  I was in heaven!  The theme was "Open the Gift" based on the message of the Relief Society General President, Julie B. Beck.  She says we should "open the gift" and read the book "Daughters in my Kingdom."  It was a great message and we ran with the "gift" theme, with a bookmark gift to each sister. We started at 6:30pm with hors d'oeuvres and punch.  I purposely made not enough for everyone so we would run out in about 15 minutes.  That way we could make it an incentive for everyone to come on time in the future.  I'm sick of starting 20 minutes late!  Anyway, we had lovely event.  We served chicken salad sandwiches, scalloped potatoes, salad with feta, cranberries, and almonds, and assorted fruits.  Our program was great and very moving.  We had three speakers and a couple of musical numbers.  All were fabulous!  Then we ended with some birthday cakes (red velvet, carrot, and cheesecake with cherries).  I believe everyone had a great time.  I look forward to the next activity.  I love having an event project to work on!

Easter Tree

The fabulous Spring weather has prompted me to get out the Easter decor.  I found I have a TON of Easter ornaments.  I used to fill lanterns or vases with them.  Even hang a few from some flowering branches in a vase.  But after I tried (and loved!) my Halloween tree, I figured I'd try my luck at an Easter tree.  I dragged out the white tree (which was WAY in the back of the storage closet with the Halloween stuff) and set it up again.  I didn't realize I had so many ornaments.  I filled that thing in minutes.  I saw a feather boa used as a garland in a tree in the Fall, so I tried it out for the Spring.  Love it!  I didn't have a tree topper for a while until I saw Charlotte dragging around some bunny ears.  Perfect!  Now I'm thinking about other holidays I can fill this tree up for, Valentine's Day?  Independence Day?  Birthdays?  I think this tree might just stay up year round!

William's Video

I sent William on a photo scavenger hunt around the house.  He used Sean's old phone for a camera and a list that I made up for him to take pictures of.  Most of the stuff he could photograph inside, such as toes, a dinosaur, a pillow, a belly button, etc.  But when he asked if he could go take a picture of a tree, he went above and beyond.  The video is a very shaky, and partially covered and he whispers a lot, basically difficult to watch, but it made me laugh.

Best Vacation Ever!

Sean and I just got back from a week long cruise to the Bahamas.  It was AMAZING!!  We dropped the kids off at my sister's house and were fancy free for 7 whole days!  It was like we were in our 20's again.  Every night was date night.  Every day was beach day.  It was just fabulous!  We chose Norwegian Cruise Lines and would totally choose them again!  They had about 8 restaurants to choose from and we got to make our own schedule instead of being told when and where to be for meals.  We even got to eat every meal at an intimate table for two instead of making painful small talk at a larger table with other cruisers that we didn't care about nor would we ever see again.

Our ship left from Manhattan so we drove the 3 1/2 hours up to New York and parked the car at the terminal.  Then we boarded and had a Bon Voyage barbeque party by the pool.  It was freezing, but we were all in a festive mood so it didn't matter.  We saw the Statue of Liberty as we made our way out to sea.  Honestly, I thought it would be bigger, but considering when it was built, it's pretty impressive.  That night we went to a show where a comedian magician chose me to be his assistant.  I was so nervous that I would do something stupid, but it all worked out and he was really funny.  Later, I found out that the performance was recorded and shown on a loop on all the TVs in the rooms.  By the next day, I was a minor celebrity.  Of course I loved the attention, but I was glad when a new performance took my place on TV.

Our first stop was Port Canaveral, Florida.  We tried to rent scooters but there were none available.   So instead, I got a pedicure and took some nice beachy pictures at Cocoa Beach.  There wasn't a whole lot to do, unless you wanted to get drunk, so we went back to the ship early.

The next day was Beach Day on a private island in the Bahamas, Great Stirrup Cay.  Norwegian Cruise Line owns the island so they put out the spread.  It was a beautiful warm, sunny day.  We had a barbeque, did some snorkeling to see the fish and coral, participated a bit in Beach Olympics, and lounged about on our chaises.  I lathered up in sunblock to keep from getting burned, but I wish I could have come back with a little more color than I did.

Then we set sail for Nassau, Bahamas.  This is the diamond and gemstone shopping capitol of the Caribbean.  Since we weren't interested in that, we got to rent our much wanted scooters.  We drove all over the island.  We even crossed the bridge over to Paradise Island where the monster resort Atlantis is.  Unfortunately, they charged a lot to do anything on Paradise Island so we didn't stay long.  Nassau was beautiful and the drive was awesome.  By the end of the day, however, I was happy to turn in the keys and take a much needed shower.

We dressed up for dinner every night.  They had 2 main dining rooms and a buffet.  One of the dining rooms was fancier and had a dress code.  I liked going there because they would have live music (a pianist, a guitarist, and even a Latin trio), and usually no children.  I loved feeling fancy.  I loved having strangers tell me that I looked beautiful.  I felt like a rock star!

It was an amazing trip and I hope it won't be too long before we can relive it.  Now. . . back to our real life.  Back to cleaning up after ourselves.  Back to pot roast, frozen chicken, and macaroni and cheese.