{Easter 2016 // A Recap}

You guys!!! We had an amazing Easter weekend...but I have been going through pictures and editing for 2 full days!!  Anyone else overwhelmed by the amount of pictures they took? So, warning...this will be a picture heavy post.

Anyhow, our Easter weekend was wonderful. Amazing. Moving. And pretty much perfect. It was one of those weekends where I will bottle up the memories and cherish them for years and years to come. It was a Jesus and family filled time. My favorite.

Friday was Good Friday. I had to work, but praise Jesus for working at home. In between emails Mason and I were able to spend a lot of quality time together. We made resurrection rolls and dyed our Easter eggs! We had so much fun together. I got off work at 3 so we loaded up and went to visit Nate's family about an hour away where they were camping. We weren't able to camp because we had a busy and jam-packed weekend already. But, I am glad we were able to visit. The park they were staying at was nestled in huge rolling hills and right on the river. It was beautiful. And there was no cell reception, so it was nice to unplug for a bit.

    

Saturday morning I had to be up bright and early to help our church set up for the city-wide Easter egg hunt. Nate and Mason came later in the morning. Our church hosted it with 3 other churches and we were able to provide 13,000 eggs for the hunt. I got there a bit early, so I hung out in my car until I started to see some familiar faces. Then we got busy marking off two large areas for the hunts, taping off areas where staff would be working, setting up bouncehouses, etc. It was a great time of fellowship and I got to spend some quality time with a fellow 5-6 year old boy mama and our preacher's wife. They are both such sweet ladies and I just adore them. The park started filling up around 10:30 and it got packed fast. It was such a good turn-out. Our outreach coordinator did a presentation on what is most important at Easter for the kids before it was time for the scheduled hunts. Mason did so great in the egg hunt. He had his eyes set on the golden eggs and went after them. He came back with a bucket full of plastic eggs. After the hunt we visited a bit before we had to leave for Mason's first soccer game!! I will have a full recap on the game soon. He did so good!!!

Right after Mason's game we headed back to where Nate's parents were camping! It was a nice and relaxing evening. We hung out with the family, Mason rode his scooter and played on the playground. Mason and I also did our Easter scavenger hunt. Then we ate an amazing dinner of brisket, beans, potato salad, cucumber salad, deviled eggs, Texas caviar, etc and then capped it off with homemade blackberry cobbler. That's camping done right, if I may say so. We left around 7:45-8 because had an early Sunday morning ahead of us.

We woke up bright and early on Sunday to do the "Easter bunny" before we had to leave for sunrise service. Mason loved his baskets and the goodies in it. Nathan and I gave Mason his Superhero Bible and it was his favorite thing of all. We thought it would be a couple of years before he could really read it {bibles are hard to read because of the words in it}, but he surprised us by reading so much of it with no problem. He read us different pages all the way to sunrise service. We couldn't help but smile from the inside out. Then we were greeted with this amazing view on our drive....

Sunrise service was amazing!! We gathered at the old wooden Cross on Kooken Hill. It's on top of one of the hills at the golf course and is visible to all the passer-bys on a big interstate. We got there a bit early, so Mason continued to read his bible, Our Youth Minister delivered the sermon and we all sang Old Rugged Cross and Because He lives. It was a beautiful service.

We went and had breakfast before returning to church for our normal 10:45 service. It was a beautiful service as well. After church we went straight to my parent's house to celebrate Easter with my family! We had a delicious fajita lunch and the kids hunted so many eggs. Mason found $4 dollars in prize eggs. He was ecstatic. We also had fun with confetti eggs.

                    

Then we headed over to Nate's parent's house to celebrate Easter with them. As always, they had Easter baskets for all of us waiting! Nate's mom is always great to give even the bigger kids something for each holiday. After Mason went through this goods he went to see if his magic jelly beans grew anything! And they did. They grew lolli-pops!! Mason's uncles and aunts hid 20 something eggs for him to find outside. We did that and then loaded up and went out to eat. Nate's parents didn't feel like cooking after just getting back from a weekend of camping. It was a great evening!
   

That sums up our very busy, but amazing Easter weekend! I hope you all had a great Easter as well. I can't wait to catch up and read all about your Easter!!