Christ is Risen! Celebrating Easter

My favorite holiday, Easter, has come and gone, but the best part is that we can celebrate the cross everyday of the year! The day began early for our family as Makenna was scheduled to sing at all 3 morning services at church. The Easter bunny left baskets for the girls with a swim theme (swimsuits, noodles, pool toys, etc.) and candy. Then it was off to church. Once again, our church, CCV, went above and beyond to create an environment where all felt welcome and cared for even though about 6000 people were celebrating Easter there. It was an awesome service standing in the presence of the Holy Spirit. A comical moment in the day is when John showed up to church wearing the same shirt as our close friend, Bill. We had a great time teasing them along with the people sitting behind us in church, but it reached a whole new level of comedy when Pastor Jeff walked out on stage wearing the same shirt too! See the picture on the right of all three of them together. We really enjoyed watching Makenna and the other kids singing just outside the sanctuary as people entered the church. Click here to view the video.

We spent Easter day with John's side of the family (our usual arrangement) at his brother, Bob's, house. As always with John's family, the day was filled with old stories (the Budweiser raft story will never die), new stories and LOTS of laughter. This was an extra special year as our nephew, Earl, was able to join us. It never ceases to amaze me how well all the cousins get along considering they range in age from 23 months to 21 years. It was also nice to finally meet our niece, Piper's boyfriend, John (who I found to be a very nice young man). As usual, the older boys spent a lot of time playing video games and the younger kids spent a lot of time feeding the horses. It was a great time....I love John's family!

The day ended working on Kiley's "State Float" project for school. It was first assigned nearly 2 months ago, but here we are, starting it on Sunday when it's due on Thursday. Kiley is doing Pennsylvania, so we spent lots of time on the internet gathering information and flipping through photos of our trips to Pennsylvania. Hopefully, we'll finish it before Thursday and won't be up late Wednesday night finishing the project......hopefully!