Ever since the pandemic I have been craving a full Easter weekend. Once upon a time, I'd go to Buffalo on Friday and have a leisurely weekend at my parents' house. Prunes and noodles on Friday, relaxing on Saturday, and family time on Sunday. It was the best mix of relaxing and fun. We've had years where we've come back on Saturday because of Knighthawks games or sports, or sometimes we simply deem it easier to come back so we can all go in one car again on Sunday. This year we considered both options, especially since we've wanted to get Carter's friend Ben to a Knighthawks game and this was likely the last opportunity, but once it turned out Ben was on vacation for spring break, we decided we might as well stay. It was nice to just get some extended time with my parents since I feel like we've rarely had that in recent years--holidays or otherwise. I used to take the boys there for entire weekends periodically, especially when Craig was on the road and I appreciated a little backup for my solo parenting weekend. But that hasn't happened much for a long time, mostly because of weekend sports commitments and probably because life in general is tiring and quiet weekends at home getting things accomplished feels important, too.
I did a lot of food prep Thursday night, along with packing. I had a work meeting Friday morning that I couldn't miss, so that set us back a bit, but we eventually got packed up and on the road in time to eat lunch en route--Mighty Taco, of course. We met my mom at their church for the Journey Through Good Friday, which we haven't been able to do in years. It's a walk-through experience that goes through the various stages of Jesus' death, from a table set for the Last Supper, to Jesus washing the disciples' feet, to praying in the garden (the altar was transformed with foliage!), to a place to reflect on the beating Jesus received, lifting of a cross beam like the cross had to feel the weight, and then a series of stations to reflect on our own sin and perform a symbolic action as a reminder of how Jesus forgave us. It's always very thought-provoking and is a nice way to start the weekend in the right frame of mind.
We headed to the house after that and I started prepping food for Prunes and Noodles. I cooked Jacob's pasta, cut the scotcharoos, and tried to make gluten-free pigs in a blanket with Brazi Bites cheese bread and beef li'l smokies, but they didn't want to wrap very well and ended up more like pigs on a pillow. I almost didn't bring them, but people still really liked them. We ate well, had some good family time, and found out my youngest cousin is pregnant...with TWINS! It's super exciting, especially since they've dealt with a lot of fertility stuff, but WOW, that's going to be something. But it'll be amazing to add to the fun little crew of grandkids her sisters have already created, and obviously my aunt and uncle are thrilled.
We headed off to church after that. That's always a very meaningful service. It had a couple noticeable differences from past years, including no longer doing the cross with the red strips draped over it, but it was nice. We stopped at Trader Joe's across the street afterward to grab some muffins for Jacob's breakfast on Sunday (plus some flowers for Craig's Aunt Marie), and headed back to the house. We ended up playing a spirited game of SkyJo, which we first played over Easter weekend last year. It's a really fun, fast moving game that we all enjoy.
Saturday morning we tried to get moving, but it was a bit of a process. We slept in, my mom made the boys pancakes, I helped her with her high school reunion Excel file, and we eventually got ready and headed out because Jacob wanted to go to the outlets. We had lunch at Chipotle along the way and then did our shopping. We ended up not buying anything this time around. We had a pretty chill night--dinner at home, more SkyJo, and eventually shooing the kids off to bed so I could get the Easter baskets set and some eggs hidden. Jacob didn't want to look for eggs so I just set his basket out, then hid 12 eggs and a basket for Carter.
Craig arrived around 11:30 that night after a Knighthawks loss, but we were up bright and early to get to church by 8:45. Church was lovely as usual, and then we headed to the breakfast in the gym. They had eggs and a bunch of donuts and pastries, fruit, and a yogurt parfait station. Even Jacob was pretty content. When we walked back to get our jackets, we took a few family pictures, including a couple with everyone's favorite prop. Yes, that is a plush Jesus. Odd, I know, but we couldn't really pass it up.
When we got back to the house, it was Easter basket time. Jacob got some white chocolate, a peanut butter bunny, Pez, Tootsie Pops, bamboo toothbrushes and a set of tongue scrapers (teenagers are weird), a Monopoly card game (it's supposed to be similar but faster!), a good Apple lightning cable (he's been complaining about our "unofficial" ones), healthier gummy fruit snacks, and a glass water bottle. Carter got a bunch of Easter-themed candy, a magic trick, and a couple Lego-ish things--a violin (close enough--in Lego form they'd look the same) and a Squishmallow-based set that has a scoreboard, baseball stuff, and hot dogs. Given his Lego food land (and his love for baseball), I figured it was a fit. He also got all the eggs, half of which had money in them, and half of which had Cadbury eggs.
After that, we loaded up and headed out to Craig's Aunt Marie's. We got to spend a couple hours there hanging out with his cousins and his parents, catching up, looking at pictures, and eating. It's always nice to visit. After that we headed to his parents' house, without his parents (because family dynamics can be messy), and spent a couple hours with his brother's family (and our sister-in-law's sister's family, plus a couple friends). I ate way too much, as usual. The entire visit wasn't an ideal situation because of the family split, but we did what we could to catch up with everyone. Still, we felt a bit like outsiders, and once his parents came back and were immediately dispatched to their room, it was about time for us to exit as well. The boys also had homework waiting (because, of course, they had all week to do it) and a post-break Monday loomed...so we headed out a little after 6pm. It was nice driving home in daylight. We had just enough time to unpack, sort through things, and relax a bit before it was time for bed. Facing a "real" week back to school and work (especially since my next couple work weeks are going to be crazy) was a lot, so any rest (sleep or otherwise) was helpful.
On the bright side, I realized on the way back that spring really had sprung over the weekend. Maple trees were showing green and the flowering trees had started to bloom. Hyacinths and daffodils were out. Easter itself was sunny but cool, but the rest of the weekend was a bit warmer. It caught me off-guard even though we're probably a bit late this year. It's been so cool up until now that I had sort of forgotten trees would be starting soon. After all, forsythias and a couple other things had started last week, but they seemed to go dormant again when it got cold and snowy. But seeing things come to life so quickly caught me by surprise. On Monday we had a very spring-like thunderstorm weather pattern come through, and right around dinner time we had a rainbow show up. It's hard to do it justice in the photos how wide the bottom was. It was a double, as well, but even more than that, it looked like the main band almost had a double within it because there was something beyond the violet color that the camera couldn't pick up. It was pretty cool, though.
So apparently spring is here. I welcome it, for sure, although I will miss my comfort leggings and cozy tops. My closet is in an odd transitional period where I moved out a lot of the turtlenecks and moved in some short sleeves, but I can't do a whole lot more than that because we still have lots of 50s in the extended forecast, interspersed with 70s. So I'll be going back and forth for a while, it seems. We'll be off to the beach this weekend, ironically...although I'm not sure there will be much beach weather. Jacob's tournament is on the Jersey Shore (where they're having wildfires right now, oddly), so we'll be in Atlantic City and looking for an escape to Ocean City, of course! Craig is off to Vancouver for a playoff game so Carter will be coming with us this time. It'll be a long drive so I'm hoping for a few fun highlights this time around to offset it a bit. Just have to survive a couple busy days of work first...
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