Easter Excitement

Happy Easter!  I hope everyone celebrated the joy and hope of knowing Christ has risen, conquering death!

We had a lot of excitement in our day, some good, and some not so good.  Bob and the kids went to church earlier than me, because I was trying to finish getting food prepped for our potluck over at the L's house after church, and I knew we would need to be early to get seats for all of us.  So I came later in the Sienna, and of course there were no spaces left in the parking lot.  I was bringing an extra carseat of ours to loan to some friends, so I didn't want to park too far away, and there was a space along the curb right across the street from the church.  I backed in, and pulled up to straighten out the car--when all of a sudden, I hit part of a drain that was sticking out, and my front tire exploded!  It was such a complete shock!  I didn't think I was that close, and I was really just thinking about being late.  So then I was late AND upset.  What on earth were we going to do?!?  I found Bob inside and spilled my tale of woe.  He was glad I had just hit the curb and not someone or something, LOL.  I was very upset though.  We've been having some disagreements with some procedural issues in our church lately, but honestly, the parking issue may be the straw that breaks the camel's back here.  Bob doesn't like parking in front of the houses in the neighborhood anyway, because he feels like the neighbors wouldn't like it and it's a bad testimony.  So he prefers to park down the street, and across another bigger and busier street, in the parking lot for an elementary school.  That works okay when it's just him in his minivan, but sometimes I have to take Micah out to the (big) van (he goes through phases of pitching screaming tantrums in the nursery and I take him there to settle him down), and when I have to walk all the way over to the school, crossing a busy street with a tantruming toddler--well, that just doesn't work well either.  So when we are late, there just really aren't any good options, and it is incredibly stressful.

At least everyone else had come in the big van, so we were all able to go home in that, pick up the food, and head over to the L's.  Bob drove his van, and he went back to the church to drive my poor listing minivan across the street into the now deserted church parking lot, so at least the church neighbor didn't have an eyesore sitting in front of his house!

We had an absolutely lovely time as usual with our friends-who-are-like-family.  There were the L's, the P's, the McC's, The L's grown son and his wife, another family who moved here over a year ago from Ohio where they were in my parents' OCF Bible study, and one more newer family.  It was so nice to relax by eating delicious food and just fellowshipping!

Kendra, one of the newer moms, had suggested having an Easter egg hunt for the kids.  Bob had actually gotten up early and ran over to Walmart to get plastic eggs this morning!  We enlisted the help of all the teens to hide the eggs, and they enthusiastically met the challenge.  We told them to hide the eggs "obviously" in the front yard, for the little kids to find, and then in more challenging places in the back yard.

I think this is the first time pretty much all the younger kids (Anna on down) had even hunted for Easter eggs.  I never did it growing up, so it wasn't a meaningful tradition that I have wanted to for sure pass down or anything.  But the kids all had such a ball searching around for the eggs!  Well, Drew wasn't really all that interested in looking.  He did enjoy eating anything he found in an egg, however.

Back in the back yard, the middle aged group of kids had a tougher time!  Here Jonathan is demonstrating this higher level of hunting, as he vainly reaches for the egg in the crook of the tree above him.  He had to use the stick Isaac is handing him to jab it down.  Many eggs were hidden way up in trees; hopefully they were all found, especially the hard-boiled ones, LOL.  The weather was so absolutely beautiful.  The kids mainly just stayed outside and played once the hunting was over.  The older kids played a game of volleyball.  It was just such a pleasant day!   Kendra was surprised that this was the first time we'd ever done an Easter egg hunt over at the L's house, but as we were thinking on the past few Easters, it seems like they have been mainly cold and rainy--not much good for egg hunts!

After visiting for awhile, the next exciting thing happened--we got our very own Easter bunny!  Don't worry.  This is not one of those spur-of-the-moment pet store sales or anything!  Karynn and Zachary, the L's grown son and daughter-in-law, are moving into a smaller apartment, and they were trying to give away 2 of their bunnies.  Back in March she asked me if we wanted one, since I always have loved seeing their bunnies.  Well, truth be told, I have always wanted a bunny.  I just think they are so adorable!  Lynnea had offered us their bunny maybe a year ago, but I just couldn't see how it would work, so I passed.  Of course, the only different thing now is that I'm pregnant, so it must have been those crazy hormones!  Anyway, I said we'd take Bruno, but that we needed to wait until after all our spring break college trips were over.  That made today be a perfect day to make the big exchange!  Zachary and Karynn loaded us down with a cage, food bowl, water thing, litter box, dog pen thing for exercise, plus an old rug to put that on--everything we could need!  We cleaned out a space in the study for Bruno's cage, so he could out of the main traffic flow a bit.  He seems to be settling in quite nicely.  Eventually he was coaxed out of his cage, and he got to run around the pen with Caleb, and then with Jonathan.  He was so cute, sniffing everything and reaching up on his hind legs!  I'm sure I will be posting a ton of bunny pictures.  He's so adorable!

Caleb in particular has been wanting a more interactive pet than the fish we currently have for quite some time.  He was absolutely THRILLED to hear we were getting a bunny, and he has read most of the multitude of bunny books we have gotten out of the library, becoming quite the little bunny expert.  Hopefully he will retain that level of diligence when it is time to clean Bruno's litter box and cage!