Spring Break Day 3: Easter Sunday

We woke up Sunday Easter morning in the hotel. And wouldn't you know it, the easter bunny found us, but instead of easter baskets, he left easter backpacks. (homemade ones that were super cute, I must admit).

The backpacks held a little bit of candy and a small book. 

In no big rush, we drove through the beautiful Arizona mountains and headed for Mesa. We parked in the Mesa temple parking lot and listened to President Nelson announce the new ministering program of the church and Elder Holland And Sister Bingham talk about the new, beautiful way to care for our spiritual brothers and sisters. And also announce new temples.

What an amazing general conference with lots of amazing revelation for the world and for the church!

We drove by old family homes. This is Cecil and Marilla Allen's cabin in Pine, AZ. (Grandma Brown's parents)

And this was their home in Mesa.

After driving around a bit, we found our way to Clark and Mitzi's in Queen Creek for family dinner. Wish I'd taken a picture of everyone. But I did snap these pictures of my kids gathered around Grandpa Brown. Priceless!

Easter

Our Easter seemed to last a week this year. 

Everything started with a nice easter dinner at G'ma and G'pa's house. Unfortunately it was rainy rainy rainy, so we had the easter egg hunt in the house. And it turned out great! Its always good to shake things up a bit.

Getting instructions. Each child had their own color of egg to search for. 

I participated in the "Lamb of God" production this year and loved every minute. It was hard to leave my family every Sunday night for a 2 hour rehearsal but sooo worth it. And the week of easter we practiced every night. Love Love Love!

The Saturday before Easter we had our annual neighborhood easter egg hunt. I think this is the smallest group we have ever had. That meant LOTS of eggs for everyone. Especially since Nita's kids filled and hid 200 eggs!

This was also Prom Day for Sydney!

While I waited for Syd to come home, I did a little writing and prepped for Easter morning. 

Easter morning we had our special resurrection rolls (like the empty tomb)  and hard boiled eggs (birth and rebirth).

Church was beautiful. The choir sang beautifully. "Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs." Followed by a delicious dinner with my parents and Geoff!

Happy Easter Sabbath, the most joyful day of the year!

Easter at the Dewey's

Easter seemed like it crept up on us this year. It was sandwiched between the Provo Temple Dedication and General Conference. Easter Sunday was also the missionary farewells for Alison Davis and McKenna Davies, best friends. It was a wonderful, beautiful day! 

After church, we went to my parents for dinner and an egg hunt. Look at these cute cousins all lined up. And proud grandpa in the background.

How many easter egg hunts have I done in this backyard. Pretty much all of them since my parents have lived here since I was two!

Geoff and Mike hid the eggs and were pretty creative with the eggs for the older kids. Each grandchild had a specific color or pattern to look for. Sydney's was yellow. They found the perfect hiding spot!

She found it!

Easter weekend

This is the first year I've needed more than one pot to boil our easter eggs. I've got to be honest, I'm glad to have to use two pots. It makes me very, very happy. 

Coloring eggs can be stressful sometimes. Some eggs crack. It takes so long to get a dark color. There is always using the color you've been waiting for. And there are spills just waiting to happen. But this year turned out pretty well, I must say.

(Do you see General Conference on the computer in the back ground? I'm not sure how much we gleaned from the Saturday afternoon session.)

We marked each egg with an initial so they wouldn't end up in the wrong basket. 

And here's Sydney, showing off the thumb print on her egg.

Beautiful girl!

We started Saturday morning off with our annual neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.

Dear sweet Miss Edna. Our lives would not be as full without you.

(This post is a little out of order.) 

So after the neighborhood hunt, we listened to conference. Lunch. Then colored eggs and listened to the afternoon session. 

Sunday morning, lo and behold, there were Easter baskets hidden in the backyard!

As always, there were new books for the reading in their baskets. And I was just tickled pink to see Hash reading, honest and truly reading, his very own books. 

My mom came over for lunch and watched the afternoon session with us. After that, we went to Uncle Grade's house and had a Jerusalem style dinner. And Owen colored some eggs the traditional Ukrainian way.

He also gave a very nice and well prepared presentation on how Easter is celebrated in Ukraine. Made me want to experience it some day. 

I love to see my kids with their older cousins. And Carolyn is a great one!

Aunt Bryn did a wonderful job preparing a very authentic dinner for everyone. She is amazing!!! Also, DaLynn gave a slide show presentation about easter using her experiences during her Jersalem study-abroad trip. What an amazing opportunity for her. So much depth of knowledge!

And of course, there was another easter egg hunt. This was a fun one because they had to look for eggs with their own name on it. So after the easy ones were found, everyone was yelling out each other's names. It was a glorious noise. Everyone helping each other. Fun way to end a wonderful holiday.