Easter Brings Hope (and a little fire)

 As Easter approached our church was still virtual and trying to find ways to connect with the congregation. We were able to participate in one of the activities that reached out to the children. As a family we decorated bags filled with various goodies and dropped them off at several church member's houses. It was a fun way too see people and maintain important connections.

The Easter bunny loves her themes and this year was no different. As you can see in the picture below, the name of the game was color. Callie loves yellow and Reese is a fan of blue. The Easter bunny couldn't get enough of all the different ways to interpret this theme. The girls were pretty impressed on Easter morning.

By this time we had gotten into a rhythm when it came to virtual church. Reese loved being in charge of at home communion and Callie enjoyed not having to wear her Sunday best as we lounged on the couch. Because of our post-church plans, however, we did get in our Sunday best this time around. 

Of course, if you look closely at the picture you will see that Reese's twist on communion this Easter...milk and cookies.

The weather was beautiful which allowed us to gather not only with the Chrismans, as we traditionally do, but also with the Abrahams. We were so happy to spend time with each other on the patio in the sunshine. Chris opened some wine, we ate some good appetizers, and engaged in wonderful conversation.

The conversation was so good, in fact, that we had a slight emergency situation. Chris was responsible for the grill, but he also loves to be social. At a certain point, Sarah and Kelly noticed some pretty intense smoke coming from the grill and felt the need to say something. Chris made a mad dash to the grill only to find out that the lamb chops were fully engulfed in flames. 

The irony here is that Chris had taken at least 30 minutes to individually wrap each lamb rib bone to prevent it from charring only to char everything else. We should also note that this accidental fire produced lamb just the way Chris prefers - charred on the outside and somewhat rare on the inside. 

Of course we had to get our annual church photo of Callie, Reese, Ella, and Claire. Hard to believe that this was the last time Ella would be in town for Easter since she will be heading off to college in the fall. They are all looking so much older