Back to Easter

Last year, Jacob and I had to travel over Easter.  After missing the holiday--or parts of it--over the course of the pandemic, missing it again was such a bummer.  I just wanted a normal Easter weekend like I used to have, and it was going to have to wait another year.  I had to miss Good Friday church, the return of the Journey through Good Friday at my parents' church, Easter church, Easter breakfast, Easter foods, and all of the family time.  It absolutely broke my heart, even though the Oklahoma City adventure was sort of interesting and exciting in its own way.  It barely felt like Easter at all.  I tried to watch Good Friday church and worked a bit on a mix CD of Easter-oriented songs (I did one years ago but had slowly made notes of songs for a second one over the last many years and transferred them all to my computer before the trip), but our Sunday felt very un-Easter-y aside from our "fancy" Outback dinner.  I definitely felt a loss missing all of those things.

This year I was eager for Easter again, but originally we were supposed to be traveling again.  But with his injuries I had a bit more hope we might miss that weekend.  Fortunately (I guess?), Jacob ended up taking the spring off.  I mean, the injuries that led to it sucked (and we just hit the year anniversary of when his bad run of injuries and associated struggles began), but I think he just needed a break for his mental and physical health.  And it allows us to do some fun things instead of those trips, so it's working out nicely in more ways than one.  I will say, however, that this Lent didn't feel particularly notable.  It was too early, and we just didn't seem to have a lot of interaction with it.  I used to try to make it to church more often during Lent, maybe Sunday sermons usually mentioned it more, or maybe I was just more proactive finding Bible studies or something.  Regardless, this year half the time I forgot it was Lent and I think it left us a little mentally unprepared for the holiday.  Aside from having to make plans like food and Easter baskets, it almost didn't feel real and I just felt like it wasn't hitting quite like it used to.  Maybe that's because my faith has evolved and even struggled a bit over the past few years, but either way, I just wanted to enjoy my Easter.

Usually we go up for Good Friday with my family and then usually we have to come home for something on Saturday.  This year we didn't have anything specific, and once we found out Craig's larger family gathering would be on Saturday due to his brother's family heading to Florida for spring baseball, it just made sense to stay all weekend and have Craig meet us on Sunday since he had to work on Saturday.

Friday ended up being a scramble.  I had two nights that week where I had work responsibilities, including Thursday, and after work I had to go to Wegmans for last-minute ingredients, too.  I tried to get packed up as much as I could manage on Thursday night, but I spent quite a bit of time just prepping food--boiling eggs and making croutons--and by the time I was done, I was tired.  Friday morning I had a work meeting even though I took the day off, and that set me back further.  I still had more food prep to work on, and in the end we didn't get going nearly as soon as I wanted to, which meant we had to miss the Journey through Good Friday at my parents' church.  I haven't done it in years at this point, and it's always such a meaningful, immersive experience that gets you right into the Easter weekend mindset.  I was very sad to miss it--again--because I really felt like that would be my Lent catch-up.  I was sad and frustrated, but I tried to get past that as much as I could by focusing on my original Easter mix CD during the car ride.  We got to my parents with enough time to spare to boil Jacob's dinner pasta and get my chicken wing dip ready to go to Uncle Jeff's.

Prunes and Noodles is the long-standing family tradition that my grandma did for years, resurrected by my cousin many years ago, and still held at the same house, although now it's my uncle's.  Egg noodles, buttery croutons, and stewed plums may not sound like much of a meal, but it's an old German tradition for Good Friday.  I'm not daring enough for the plums, although the older generation is all about them.  I will put some juice on mine, and even Carter tried it this year.  But I filled up on all the appetizers--veggies, cheese, wing dip, and deviled eggs--not to mention a glass of wine, and it made for a very nice evening with family.  It's always nice to catch up with everyone, see the littles, and get a good meal.  

We had to leave by a little after 6:30 to make it to church on time.  Good Friday church at my parents' church is always very nice.  They do a tenebrae service where candles and sanctuary lights are extinguished gradually throughout the service as the Good Friday story progresses.  The climax and peak of darkness is always this loud bang (which I am now fully prepared for) which is (I think) supposed to represent the tomb door being closed.  The best visual is when we lay "sin strips" of red cloth over a giant cross and they stand it up, now fully draped in red.  It's very moving.  We had a relaxing rest of the night back at home watching some basketball, and prepared for a busy Saturday.

I had suggested to the boys that we go to Kith and Kin, the gluten-free restaurant and bakery in Lockport, for brunch and so we could get Jacob some treats to get him through the church's Easter breakfast on Sunday.  We've always wanted to go back after a good dinner there a couple years ago, and just never got a chance.  They didn't open until 11 so we had to wait out the morning, but we survived.  Luckily we got there a little early and were among the first in the door.  The bakery line didn't slow down for a solid hour after we got there!  We all really enjoyed our meals.  We got an appetizer of pretzel bites because Jacob never gets anything like that, and they were really good!

Forgot to take a pic until we were almost done!

Jacob had French toast, sausage, and eggs.  The eggs were apparently much better than I make (ha) and the French toast looked and tasted amazing on good French bread!

I got breakfast tacos.  This was when only one of three was left, but they were also really good--ham and sausage with cheese, peppers, onions, eggs and tomatoes.

Carter got a breakfast sandwich.  I think he expected different bread, but it looked amazing and he said it was really good!

We picked up a couple muffins for Jacob on the way out, which we figured would supplement whatever they had for breakfast at church.  After that we crammed in a stop at the outlets.  They ended up being busier than expected so we couldn't wait in the eternally long line at Nike, but Jacob did get a pair of pants at Adidas, which is a feat at his height.  We went back to my parents' after that and I rushed through getting deviled eggs ready so we could head out to Craig's family gathering--minus Craig.

That stop was once again a bit awkward due to ongoing family issues--essentially Craig's parents were not involved, partly because they went to a Bisons' game and partly because there's a lot of tension in the house.  Our sister-in-law's parents and sister's family were there, along with some of the same friends from Thanksgiving.  Our nephews were not there because the younger two were in Florida for Varsity Baseball, and the oldest one was driving down there.  We were getting together on Saturday because Craig's brother and his wife were heading down there as well on Sunday.  Our niece and her boyfriend were there, and they have a new addition, this adorable puppy Buddy!

I'll admit we spent a good chunk of the party on the living room couch watching baseball.  There was a lot of activity in the kitchen and it was honestly hard to get a word in edgewise so I just hung out with the boys after getting in some initial chats with everyone.  It got a little rough around the time we ate because our sister-in-law's niece is pretty profoundly disabled--a brain injury around birth plus autism--and she ended up having a meltdown for about an hour or more.  I suspect all the noise and people didn't help--it was a lot for even a neurotypical person.  Her family, including her older brother, spent a lot of time taking turns trying to help her, and eventually she came back out and ate for a bit.  Craig's parents got back probably 45 minutes before we left and were immediately dispatched to their bedroom.  At least we'd see them tomorrow.  Eventually we felt like we'd served our purpose, so to speak, so we said our goodbyes and went back to my parents' house.

My parents had just gotten a new card game their friend had told them about, and I somewhat-reluctantly agreed to play (to be fair, I had a headache).  There was a learning curve, but it ended up being a lot of fun.  Even the boys loved it!   

I have no idea why my ones are upside-down.  Probably just how I flipped them but apparently I'm blinder than I thought!

The game was interesting.  It's called SKYJO, and you receive 12 cards face-down.  You turn over two, lowest total starts.  You can draw a card to replace any of your cards, or simply discard one you have, with the goal to ultimately have the lowest total.  The challenge is that you eventually need to flip over those face-down ones, and sometimes you lose a good card in the process, which the next person can pick up.  There's some strategy as you can discard three cards if you get three of the same in a row, but you have to be careful because you don't want to get stuck with big cards or accidentally do that with good ones!  We learned a lot of lessons rather quickly!  We liked the pace and it was a nice mix of skill, strategy, and luck--even Carter picked it up pretty quickly.  We had a lot of laughs and ultimately it was a fun way to spend the night.

Of course, I remembered just as the boys headed up to bed that I still had work to do--Easter baskets and eggs needed to be attended to!  My mom sat guard at the stairs as I assembled eggs and baskets and hid everything.  We were in such a rush in the morning that the boys actually didn't realize until we were at church that they had that to go back to!  Speaking of church, we miraculously made it on time and it was another very nice service.  In my mind nothing will match the sheer euphoria of my childhood Easter services (although that might have been the sleep deprivation from 6:30 sunrise services that sometimes coincided with the time change)--those crammed-full services, flowers everywhere, full chorus of traditional hymns--it was truly outstanding even before I understood what true worship was, and even better once I did.  Our church now usually puts on a pretty nice service as well, but in the COVID era the extreme fullness of the sanctuary on Easter sometimes makes me nervous, so my parents' church felt like a good compromise between the two.

Easter breakfast was delicious--really good eggs, a bunch of donuts and pastries, a yogurt parfait station, and fruit.  Even Jacob fared pretty well, though even with a supplemental muffin we stopped at Starbucks on the way back to grab a couple more things.  The boys eagerly looked for their baskets and eggs, and I think the bunny did a pretty good job hiding them because they really had to hunt for a few!  Jacob's big gift was $25 to spend at our gluten-free bakery, and Carter got a bunch of non-candy things including a couple Fortnite guys, a "test" Spirograph (I wanted to get him a real one but figured I'd get a dollar store one to see if he liked it) with a multi-colored pen, and a balloon dog fidget to add to his desk collection of fidgets. 

We had a nice pork tenderloin lunch with my parents, and then the boys headed out to try to play some baseball.  It was a pleasant day, not super warm, but sunny.  My duty was to try to find flowers for Craig's mom and sister-in-law, so I headed to Wegmans.  Just as I got there the boys called asking for guidance to a different field because the first one they tried was tarped.  I gave them some instructions and went to shop.  Unfortunately I was a bit of a fail.  They didn't have the ones I was looking for--primarily the bulb flowers like daffodils, hyacinths, or calla lilies, or even hydrangeas like I saw at our Wegmans earlier in the week.  It was extra frustrating they pretty much only had cut flowers because I wanted something that would last until the Florida crew returned.  I gave up for the moment and met the boys at field attempt #3.

I made myself useful and tracked down Jacob's home run ball (!), about 20 feet beyond the fence.  It's a softball field but that's still pretty impressive.

Carter is doing what he can to get ready for his season, which should get going in the next 2-3 weeks.  He's improving, so hopefully he'll fit right in when the time comes.  Oh, and I wanted to share this very cool artwork he did at school featuring the Pirates logo.
 

We wrapped up back at my parents' and headed to Hamburg for the rest of the day.  We did park my car right near the Thruway so we could all go together in one vehicle, and we stopped at the Hamburg Wegmans on the way and had a bit better luck with flowers there.  The Florida crew hadn't left yet when we got there but were busy packing up.  We watched some baseball and then watched the Duke basketball game with Craig's parents.  We had a little bit of a flashback to last Easter as we tried to figure out dinner, because it turned out all of our usual options were closed.  Jacob and I did the same scramble last year in Oklahoma trying to find anything he could eat (we ended up at Five Guys getting him a lettuce-wrapped hot dog, which got me quite the look from the cashier), and this year felt pretty similar, just done from one more comfortable spot on the couch rather than endlessly driving from place to place.  We eventually settled for Saturday's leftovers.  We also picked up Slurpees on the way home, which was a helpful boost to get through the rest of the drive.  It wasn't too bad, all things considered, because normally that drive feels like a haul after a tiring weekend.  We did a bunch of unpacking upon arrival, although five days later I think the Easter baskets are still sitting in a bag in the dining room.  Oh well, that's what THIS weekend is for, I guess.  It's been a pretty uneventful break week for the boys because I had a couple on-campus work events and could only take off today.  Even worse, Monday was the only decent day, so they went to hit balls then and have pretty much been stuck in the house ever since due to constant rain and even snow.  It's been a brutal run.  Next week should be better, between the weather, the eclipse, and a big weekend next weekend!  Hopefully lots more to write about then!