CANMT Trip: Easter

We don't normally do Easter baskets. But when we are in someone else's home for a holiday we go along with whatever they normally do for the holiday. We told the kids the night before not to go downstairs when they woke up until we were all there. They waited. Then Jennifer and I wanted to go downstairs first with the cameras and Melodie had threw a fit. I realized that she had no idea what was going on, but once she started crying it was a chore to get her to stop. She eventually was able to come down, but you can tell in the pictures that she had been crying and she's not quite as excited as she would have been had she known what was happening. I should have explained it to her better. After all this it occured to me that I could have told her we were doing something like we do on Christmas. She waits while mommy goes first, then she comes out with daddy to see what is in the living room. Didn't occur to me to explain. She was quite happy once she saw all her goodies.

We were going to go to Denton to go to church with the Hunts. Rocky was suppose to get directions, but he thought we'd just rely on GPS. I didn't know this until we left. I don't know why he did that since when we drove through Dallas the first time our GPS got all confused. This did turn into a fight. Sure enough, we got very lost. Then, when we found a freeway that would take us to Denton, it was stopped (the same one that Josh knew away around when we were going to Fort Worth). Completely stopped. By now it had been an hour and we weren't anywhere close to Denton. The Hunts church had already started. I was mad. Melodie was crying because we weren't going to see the Hunts (and because I was mad). Rocky still wanted to try to go. I didn't see the point, but he tried anyway and didn't make any progress (remember that our GPS doesn't like Dallas?). We started heading back to the Gamlens trying to find one of our churches, but the closes one was a half an hour away. So that was out. Now I just wanted to go to any Christian church. It was Easter for goodness sakes! And there is definately a lot of churches in Texas. But, by the time we got back to the Gamlens, they were already home from church. We decided to throw in the towel. We really did try and spent 2 hours in the car doing so. It felt wierd not going to church on Easter.
Jennifer was very excited that this year she would be able to hide eggs outside. After lunch we saw clouds rolling in. We checked the weather. It was going to rain. We debated trying to rush and beat the rain, but decided not to. We quickly took pictures outside before the rain really started coming down.

Melodie and Cassie wanted to take a picture together.

Melodie started feeling the drops.

They are so adorable!

Of course, there has to be a silly picture.

 Jennifer and I took the kids in the kitchen/dining room to make resurrection rolls while Rocky and Josh hid the Easter eggs. Resurrection rolls are something we've made for years and has recently been making the rounds on Pinterest. I was thrilled Jennifer wanted to make them. Especially since we didn't make it to church, I was desperate for something religious. It was great to hear the kids tell the Easter Story as they made the rolls. They all know it really well.

The put the rolls in the "tomb" and it was time for the hunt.



They each had a certain number of eggs they were allowed to collect and then there was one golden egg with their name on it. If they found someone else's egg they were not suppose to say anything. They had a blast! Melodie collected her eggs but was still looking for her golden one. We finally told her what area it was in. She kept walking right by it. We then played hot/cold with her. She finally found it. We thought this was hilarious.

Each golden egg had a dollar in it. Again, this is something we've never done before, but the Gamlens do it. I loved it! We may start doing it. Dinner was great and even Murphy had a special dinner.

This was our last night with the Gamlens, so we let the kids play a bit before we ate the resurrection rolls and bed.

After the kids went to be we played our last round or cards. Eventually we had to go to bed, but knowing it was our last night with them, it was hard to stop. We had so much fun!