A Special Easter Weekend

This weekend was filled with special family time--things I will definitely treasure in my heart. On Thursday Andrew and I went on a field trip that took the entire day. We did not get home until 9:00pm! I will talk more about this in another blog but I mention it now because the trip changed my plans about something that I really wanted to do this year to commemorate Passover. My friend, Frances told me about something her family did together and I was just so excited that I also wanted to do this. I just love the blog world because I get such great ideas from my blogging buddies! Her family participated in a Sedar meal at home together. A Sedar meal is the traditional Jewish Passover meal with foods that remind them of God's deliverance during that time in Egypt. It is so cool to read about and I have seen Messianic Jewish people come and lead these services at churches. Well, we took Frances' idea and had a Sedar meal at home just the four of us on Friday for lunch. Now it really should have been done on Wednesday night or Thursday night but Friday was great for us. It was so awesome and we were able to see how Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. It was a special time to see Old Testament and New Testament come together as we sampled these foods and participated in the reading of scripture, singing scripture together, and prayer. Its all about Jesus and it was great!!!

Friday afternoon we had some pretty strong storms come through our area and we had to keep a check on the weather but meteorologist, Andrew Thompson and storm specialist, Alora Thompson were keeping us informed.

At 3:00 we were at our church for our Good Friday activities. There were stations set up in different rooms of our church to help us focus on Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. We spent about an hour as a family going through the stations talking with our children and praying and sharing scripture. Joey and I were able to having some very meaningful conversations with Andrew and Alora and even share our testimonies with them. They asked questions about the Lord's Supper and we were able to even share with them what we pray for them. It was truly treasured time. I cannot wait until the day we take that supper all together as believers in Christ.

Saturday morning was Alora's first soccer game and it was cold! We were popsicles but she had a blast running around with her team. My brother came to town and was able to come for the game. Alora loves having a fan club. Leah and I met before the game and put in 4.2 miles on the track before the game. It was awesome! That is my new record! Yeehaw!

Saturday afternoon we colored eggs.

Unc came up this weekend and we were able to kick back and have fun hanging out with him. There was much Mario Kart on the Wii, and the coloring of the Easter eggs. To color the eggs this year we bought the usual PAAS dye and also broke out the tempera paints. We had alot of fun dying and painting eggs.

Andrew's first egg is always an Auburn egg, 1/2 blue, 1/2 orange!
Unc had not painted an Easter egg in quite some time (like 20 years) and so the artist in him came out and he took special care to paint 1 egg.

Unc then used his egg to make a statement about consumerism in America. Don't ask!

I painted a bunny for Alora.

In all we painted and dyed 19 eggs. The kids always love hunting the eggs. We had a blast. Every year I make them an Easter basket and in it this year they each got a new ESV Bible. Alora's is red and Andrew's is black. Now they can both follow along in the church service in the same translation as the pastors. On Sunday morning in the church service, Andrew, for the first time in a long time, had his Bible open and was following along with us all. Yeah! He was even asking me if he was in the right place. He would just get lost before with his NIV because the wording was different and so he wouldn't even open it anymore. So now he will keep his NIV in Sunday School to use in his classes on Sundays and Wednesdays and his ESV will go home with us and be used at home and in the church services.

Mimi and Bibi came up Sunday afternoon just in time to eat some Boston Butt. Joey is world famous for his smoked Boston Butt, okay maybe not world famous, but Joey's grilled meat is good! He has often been at the "butt" of many grilling jokes, however, the meat speaks for itself. We had BBQ sandwiches, mac n cheese, baked beans, eggs, chocolate cake and candy all day! It was a great weekend!