Easter 2015

Hi all! Here's a recap of our Easter weekend 2015. The weather was lovely on Saturday, so we decided to drive about an hour north to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. We had heard great things about this excursion and we are so glad we did it. Talk about beautiful!

The tulips were so incredibly vast and vibrant. They were especially radiant in the sunshine and with the blue sky backdrop. 

How about this farmer crew?!

We made our way all the way around Tulip Town and we all picked out our favorite tulip color: 

Kendall - purple

Katelyn - pink and Cyclone (red with yellow on the edges)

Missy - Cyclone

Michael - yellow

We loved the beautiful day and flowers, and it certainly didn't escape us that we were there the day before Easter. The tulips were an awesome reflection of new life bursting from the dirt!

We went to a nearby park right along a river for a picnic lunch after our tulip trek. Then the kids (Michael included) played at the park until we hit the road back home. 

~~~

Later that afternoon, we made "Resurrection Rolls" - a first for us, but hopefully it becomes an annual tradition. Have you heard of these? I had a couple times, but had never made them. A colleague of Michael's said his family makes them every Easter and he shared the full recipe, so we went for it. 

The ingredients are crescent rolls, butter, large marshmallows, and cinnamon. There are bible verses and a children's bible story of Jesus' resurrection to be read along with each step of making the rolls. The story for making the rolls basically goes like this: after Jesus died on the cross, his body was removed and prepared for burial with oils (melted butter) and spices (cinnamon). Then the body (marshmallow) is wrapped in cloths (crescent roll) and placed in the tomb (oven). 

After they bake, the powerful visual is on display. He's not in the cloths and not in the tomb. The marshmallow melts and leaves an empty space in the center of the roll. 

And they're a pretty tasty snack too. It was a fun, kid-friendly way to show what Easter is all about.

Then the Easter activities continued with coloring eggs…

It was fun to prepare for Easter Sunday with a day full of activities on Saturday. And boy were the girls ready for the Easter Bunny to pay a visit the next morning!

~~~

Rise and shine! The girls each had different colored eggs to find along with their baskets. They loved the search and Kendall gave each egg a shake, shake, shake!

Katelyn had worked tirelessly for the previous couple days to hide eggs** for the Easter Bunny around our house.

(** decorated paper eggs hidden by a post-it note :)

After the egg hunt, we got ready for church, and made it there - get this - 3 minutes early. Early! That never happens. After a nice service we came home and I snapped a couple pictures of the girls in their dresses. Kendall's is actually an Easter dress from Gramma Debbie that Katelyn wore three years ago. 

Happy Easter from the seesters!

We have met some truly wonderful people through Katelyn's preschool and we have really connected with one particular family. They moved to Bellevue from southern California in December (a month after us), so we can relate to each other well from the "new in town" perspective. They invited us over for Easter dinner and an egg hunt. It was so nice to celebrate the holiday with friends since our families are so far away. 

Katelyn, Kendall, Mia, Christian, Nyla (the littlest), Sofia (Katelyn's preschool friend), and Noah (another preschool friend) 

We had a full and fabulous Easter weekend and are so grateful for new life and new friendships!