Easter at home

We had a low-key, calm Easter weekend, consistent with our usual style. Usually Jeff is gone at a track meet on the Saturday before Easter, so it was extra cozy having him home all weekend... and all week, every week for the foreseeable future! This pandemic is causing plenty of negative effects in the world, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the handful of positives to come out of it! I may feel invaded and maxed out by the constant in-yo-face presence and demands of our kids, but I don't feel that way with Jeff home. I love having him around all the time!

Since we're used to track season swallowing up our pre-Easter Saturday, we forgot to do the kids' egg hunt on Saturday. It was fine though, because we finished our 2 week post-Denver self-quarantine and took the kids to see their local cousins at Grampa Dan's Saturday morning pancake breakfast. The kids played and played, then the girls went home with the cousins for a couple of hours, after which they came to our house for more playing. Rose missed her cousin-bestie Layne!


Before all of the cousin-ing, Jeff and I both got up early to run on the beautiful Saturday morning. Jeff ran to his parents' house 10 miles away, where we met him later for pancakes. I ran 7 miles around beautifully blooming apple orchards. The apple blossoms were delicate and lacy and pink and white! I used my run to finish listening to the last third of Handel's Messiah, and let me say that glorious music mixes well with glorious flowers. Listening to the entire performance of Handel's Messiah is my number one favorite personal Easter tradition. I listened to the finale, Worthy is the Lamb that Was Slain/Amen twice nice and loud in my ear phones, then jogged amidst the flowers in the silent stillness after it was over, soaking in nature vibes on a very deep level. Natural beauty always makes me feel closer to God, and listening to that joyful praiseworthy music in the midst of the blossoming orchards was transcendent. My spirit soared!

On Sunday morning, after subjecting my breakfasting family to another two rounds of Worthy is the Lamb That Was Slain/Amen chorus, we gathered for our Easter lesson. We sang Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, then Amber taught us about the resurrection. We had all taken turns teaching the resurrection story all week, and it was Amber's turn on Sunday. I hoped that she would have the story learned well after hearing it in several different ways all week. She used the pink glove we had been using all week to talk about resurrection (glove=body, hand=spirit, death=glove without hand, resurrection=hand back in glove).

For her lesson, Amber said "Jesus wore a glove. And he died." All of our careful explanations and object lessons this week, crashed, burned, and condensed in the eyes of a five-year-old. I coached Amber through the story of the resurrection, so we could at least SAY it one more time, even if it didn't stick. Eventually these lessons will stick in the kids' heads, right? I must keep believing that.

After our family Easter lesson, I started a batch of rolls for our White family Easter lunch and played hymns on the piano during their first rise. Rose sang "Gethsemane" while I played. Amber came and joined in, even though she didn't know the words, and it was sweet. After the music, the girls helped me roll the rolls. They loved it. While we worked, Jeff filled the Easter eggs with the small amount of jelly beans I found at WinCo, plus some pretzels to make them seem full-er. Once the big pan of rolls was rising, we banished the kids to Jay's room while Jeff and I hid the eggs in the front yard. Then we turned them loose. The game was afoot!

Emotions ran high. Jay spotted an egg just out of reach on a tree branch, and the girls crowded around trying to jump for it too. When Jeff reached it and handed it to Amber, Jay was aghast--tears came to his eyes and he was seriously indignant at the injustice. I was surprised that Jay cared so much! It was oddly hilarious watching him take the hunt so seriously. Before they even started, we told the kids that once they had 11 eggs, they had to stop hunting. Our mismatched collection of eggs equals out to 33 total, so that came out to 11 per kid.

Jay wasn't the only one whose emotions got the better of him. Rose and Amber both cried several times during the 15 minute (max) egg hunt. Amber found her eleven eggs with a little help, and was the first to finish. The next finisher was Jay. Jeff kept egging the kids on with comments like "Amber is in first place!" I kept laughing and telling him to stop, because they were clearly already overly intense about this whole situation. Finally there was one egg left and it was nowhere to be found. Rose wandered the yard with tears streaming down her face, barely even looking anymore. Jeff and I laughed and searched and laughed and searched for the lost egg. Jeff finally spotted it underneath the railing of the front porch, and order was restored in Rose's universe. Seriously, though, it was an intense emotional time.

I have to admit to feeling kind of irritable off and on all morning until our egg hunt. Then, for some reason, I snapped out of it while watching the kids get so intense and weepy over plastic eggs. Perspective, maybe? It was seriously so funny though! Jeff and I stood watching our kids sob over eggs and laughed our heads off, joking that we must be horribly sadistic to get this much humor out of our kids' distress. But seriously, it was awesome.

The rolls were baked by 11:15, and we were driving to Grandview for Easter lunch at the Gibbons' house by 11:30am. After lunch we had family sacrament meeting. Layne gave the opening prayer and we sang a verse of I Know that My Redeemer Lives. We had the sacrament. Then Jeff told the Easter story, we listened to a hymn, and Amber said the closing prayer.

After our White family sacrament service, we had Grama Leslie's traditional bunny-shaped Easter cake. We sat and talked for another hour or so, then gathered up the wild children and drove home by 3pm for a quiet afternoon.

I love having a holiday to celebrate Jesus Christ's birth and his resurrection. He is risen! I know that he lives.

The sweetest pink and white blossoms! 

 Looking north up through the vineyards towards the apple orchards.

Irrigation makes our valley grow. 

 This is an interesting way to grow apples. Maybe more convenient for picking?

There were several shriveled old last-year apples clinging to some of the branches, right in among the new blossoms. How did they even stay in place? It seems like they would have fallen or blown down by now. 

 Pollinator beehives stacked on an apple box.

 The beehives were evenly dispersed along the road through the orchard. Mt. Adams presided on the horizon like he always does on clear days in the Yakima Valley.

 I came out of the orchards up at a different canal (3 miles north of the big canal we live next to).

 Mt. Adams up above, apple orchard on the left, white apple boxes on the right.

 Apple boxes

Later, at Grama and Grampa's house: Grama's cat is always glad when the grandkids leave. 

Cute girl cousin biker gang: two sets of sisters, two sets of cousin-best friends. 

 My rolls turned out beautifully. I like how some of the kid-rolled shapes turned out kind of wonky.

Ready for the Easter egg hunt! 

 Jeff, assisting with the up-high egg.

 Tragic tears to joyous smiles in one second flat.

 Examining the loot. We had so few jelly beans that the kids could eat all of the contents of their eggs at once this year, no problem, no stress. I like that it was all over, done, and eaten within half an hour after the hunt. No lingering candy this time!

Sadistic sneaky egg-hiders. Muahaha.

 I balanced my phone on the porch railing, then cropped the picture so it looked less...ramshackle. Everyone chose their own outfits for our family picture. Our bishop asked each family to email a family Easter picture. All of the pictures were shared on our ward Facebook page. It was fun to see a lot of faces that we haven't seen in weeks and weeks.

Happy Easter from the White House!