Icy Easter

I have to say that I never ever remember an Easter being this cold! Last night we had a freeze warning. This morning we woke up to sleet. It was 43 degrees when we got in the car for church. I was shocked and freezing in my short sleeve cotton dress! This afternoon has turned out to be beautiful with the sun shining brightly. It doesn't matter what the weather's like. Easter's the time to celebrate Christ's resurrection. That makes even the worst weather seem like such a trivial thing. Happy Easter!

See the sleet!!

Easter Eggs Falling From the Sky!

The girls were fortunate this year to be invited to 2 Easter egg hunts. The first was at the YMCA. They really go all out for the children in the community. There were moonwalks, horse rides, face painting, hot dogs, cotton candy and popcorn-all free! Of course the best part was the egg hunting. I had never seen it done this was before. They had a small plane (down here we call them crop dusters) to fly over an open field and drop lots of plastic eggs filled with candy. The girls had a blast picking them up.

Saturday we went to an Easter party at the home of a family we went to church with when the girls were small. They go all out with this party. There's music and tons of food, wooden eggs to paint and a jelly bean guessing jar. They divide their yard up for the different age groups to hunt eggs. In Emma's section they have tons of candy filled eggs, large stuffed animals, toys, etc laying all over the grass. There's so much that the children don't have to rush and fight because everyone gets plenty. It's so incredibly generous of this family to do this every year, but especially this year. They just found out about a week ago that their 5 year old son has leukemia. The mom is at the hospital with him, but she wanted this party to go on. The dad, with the help of several church members and friends, carried on without them. That says so much about how giving this family is to their friends and community. Let's all pray for a quick recovery for their little boy.

Finding the positive in any situation

Today was supposed to be a fabulous field trip. We had been on this one last spring and really enjoyed it. We take an open ferry across the bay to an island and visit their estuarium. Afterwards we all have a picnic lunch outside.

My girls had 3 friends spend the night. We got up on time, dressed and packed the cooler. We were all so excited. I was only slightly worried about the weather. When we got out of the car at the ferry dock, I was really worried about the weather. We're here in the deep south. It's been in the 80's lately. We've been to the beach several times. Today it was 45 degrees and blowing like a hurricane!!! We were all freezing. I just kept imagining us as icicles as we crossed the middle of the bay! LOL! We stood in line on the dock for about 30 minutes. Finally, someone came off the ferry and told us there were engine problems and that the ferry would not run today. I have to admit I was a little relieved (maybe a lot!). I couldn't wait to get back into my warm car.

Now onto plan B. Of course all of the kids were disappointed, so we had to think fast. I just knew I wanted to go some place warm. We agreed we would all go to our barn and have a picnic. We have several acres for the kids to roam and lots of trees around us to block the wind. We got there, spread out a blanket in the sun and finally had our picnic. It was so nice. We were even able to take our coats off. We had so much fun. We were able to walk around and explore nature. The kids played in the glen and looked up close at a caterpillar. We discovered the differences between water oaks and live oaks. We spotted several different kinds of flowers and even a beautiful butterfly.

Even though the original field trip was cancelled, the day turned out to be wonderful and full of fun. Plus is was a whole lot warmer!