Easter Weekend Part 2

The Saturday before Easter, we had tickets for an Easter egg hunt in Alexandria, VA at the Lee-Fendall House, a historic house from General Lee's family.  The grounds and gardens were beautiful and worked so well for the egg hunt in conjunction with the gorgeous weather!   Natalee seems to grasp the concept of what everyone was doing quickly, but needed just a little guidance every now and then but she was so proud of the eggs she did grab!  The Easter bunny also made an appearance, but while Natalee found the bunny at the mall very intriguing, she was not too amused by this one! 

After the egg hunt, we wandered around historic Olde Towne Alexandria for a bit and found a great place to grab some brunch! It is such a neat area and I find it fascinating looking at all the old buildings.  Finally, later in the day we went to church for Easter service, and that evening the "Easter bunny" must have come by the bring the kids baskets and hide the eggs!

Easter Weekend Part 1

First, before going into much detail about Easter, I have to preface, that while we do discuss the idea of the Easter Bunny, die and hunt eggs, Ed and I make it very clear to the children that Jesus' resurrection from the grave is the reason for the holiday. 

Friday night, to kick off Easter weekend, we died eggs to get ready for the Easter bunny!  Nico did a wonderful job, actually painting eggs instead of dying them.  His eggs looked beautiful!  Natalee had a great time and was quite entertained with dying eggs.  She threw her arms in the air and yelled "Yay" each time her and Daddy dropped an egg in the dye. It was very cute!

Trip to PA with Pops

As soon as Gigi left, Pops came into town to see us!  The kids and I are so blessed that my mom and dad put in the effort and money to come as often as they do to see us.  The kids just adore both of them so much and look forward to these visits. While Pops was here, it so happened that the 1 year anniversary of Ninny passing away came around.  In order to pay our respects, we planned a little trip to PA to visit Ninny's gravesite, and explore Amish country a little. 

We arrived  in Columbia, PA early on Palm Sunday morning, April 13th, which was the day that marked one year from Ninny passing. Once arriving, we went to Holy Trinity church for Palm Sunday service. The service was very special to my dad because this was the church Ninny and my grandfather got married in, the church that my dad went to school at and was an alter boy, and now he was able to sit during Palm Sunday service with his daughter and 2 grand children. The service was long, as it was a Palm Sunday Catholic mass, something my kids are not used to, but they did great!  Dad and I were very proud of them overall. 

After mass, we went to the cemetery where we visited Ninny's and my grandfather's gravesite.  We walked around searching and luckily found my great-grandmother's and probably my great-grandfather's gravesite. I say probably because there is only one headstone and the engraving is not indicative that he is also there, but leads to the possibility. It has his name and year, but the headstone is dedicated to "Our Mother" for my great-grandmother. Another oddity about it, is that on the headstone her last name is her married name from her 2nd marriage (not Salzman) but that husband is not mentioned nor buried nearby..sort of strange.

After shedding a few tears and saying a couple prayers, we piled up back in the car and headed to the heart of the Amish Country. We stopped in Strasburg and rode the Strasburg Rail, and then an Amish buggy ride around the countryside. We stayed a quaint place called Hershey Farms, which is owned by Hershey, happened to be right up the road from the place my dad, Jason, Ninny and I stayed back in 1993 when we came on vacation.   It was a short stay in the beautiful Amish country, but we had a great time and I am hoping to get back again before we move away! 

Swim Lessons

For the last 3 months Nico has been taking swim lessons at a nearby rec center.  He has made amazing progress since February!  He has gone from not wanting to move away from the step or the wall to jumping in the swimming three strokes to his teacher and floating on his back!  Nico has also mastered a front float, a jellyfish float, tuck float, front and back glide, changing directions of travel while swimming on front or back, and combined arm and leg action on front for 5 body lengths.  Even with all those, I think the most favorite thing Nico has learned is to be able to retrieving items from the pool floor!  He has one more month of swim lessons before a summer break, and I can imagine that by then he will be treading water as well.  I am very proud of him! 

I tried to take a few pictures during a lesson the other week.   Parents sit in the bleachers up high above the pool so we can not see the kids too well, so the pictures are not the best.