Easter

This past week was pretty packed.  Looking at the pictures, I can't decide which ones to not include!
The girls and I went down to Govan's Branch Library in the city to do a paper folding program.  We were expecting origami, but apparently each time they do the program it is focused on a different thing to make so we were there on kite day.  The girls got to make a small and medium sized paper kite each.  The medium ones didn't fly well, I guess they are too heavy?  But the small ones are good to run with.  We ended up staying for a Hip Hop Dance they were having too.  I must say that Lyla and Celee really enjoyed it!  It is really funny to see Lyla trying to pop her shoulders.  It was cute though, and the lady who taught was very fun and energetic.  I kept wanting to get up and dance too!  But I'm pretty sure it was a kids only class.

On Tuesday we celebrated Passover.  I don't think we did it anywhere close to how it's "really" supposed to be done, but we gave it a shot.  I printed off seder plates for the girls to color and so they'd know what each part of the meal was.  We went through a liturgy that I found on this Catholic website for a Christian Passover meal.  I made the charoset and lamb chops.  We dipped the greens in salt water.  We drank the four cups of "wine."  We even hid one of the matzoh, the difference is we got to find it later and eat it because our Messiah has come.  We read the Bible passages from Exodus.  I think it was meaningful for each of us to think on the slavery of the Hebrews and what their deliverance must have been like for them, and what it means for us.  Each part of the meal was a tangible way to demonstrate God's provision and promises.  I think it set the tone for us for Holy Week.

My parents flew into town on Thursday.  We love visitors!!  We hadn't seen them since Christmas so we all were missing them too!  We decided that the weather was too good not to go to DC on Friday and we decided to chance it and drive.  I still don't know if that was a mistake or not.  We did get stuck in construction traffic in DC and the last 10 miles of our trip took us almost an hour.  We finally did get to a very affordable parking garage just 2 blocks from the Mall.  We decided to do the Air and Space Museum this time.  This one doesn't interest me as much as the others for some reason.  I guess that it's just not my forte.  But I do appreciate that other people are engineers and innovators and risk takers who can imagine, build, and fly to places we never would be otherwise.  Celee is especially intrigued by all the planes and rockets.  Maybe we have an astronaut or engineer in the making?  They did get the Goldie Blox game for Easter which uses basic engineering to complete tasks and patterns.  Maybe we can spark some interest there.

 After the Museum, we walked the Mall.  My mom had never been to DC before, so we walked the whole thing.  We didn't go over to the White House, but we looked at it from the Washington Monument hill.  The Washington Monument was damaged by an earthquake in 2011.  The monument is fenced off more now and the scaffolding covers more of it so hopefully it will get repaired in the near future.  We walked down the reflecting pool and the girls got up close with some ducks that are no doubt very used to people feeding them.  I think they kept expecting Lyla and Celee to give them something, but we didn't have any snacks.  They just wanted to see how close they could get to them.  We went up into the Lincoln Memorial.  The girls and I had talked about the columns there in our history lesson this past week because they are based on the design of the Parthenon in Greece. So they sketched them to try to figure out which kind of columns they are when we got home.

We walked over to the Vietnam Memorial and then back up the Mall.  It is hard to describe to the girls why countries go to war.  I tried to explain it like sisters fighting over something they both want.  I thought they'd relate to that.  But that just doesn't make sense to them.  They just say, "But we fight over silly stuff and this stuff is serious."  Yeah, I know, but it still happens.  Hopefully our leaders can make wise decisions to only go to war when we have just reasons to.  And our kids will be the leaders one day so I hope they learn the lesson the easy way now.

Saturday we decided to show my parents Baltimore Harbor.  They are more the history-type than the store-type, so we went to Fort McHenry.  It is a really well done place!  The video presentation caught me off-guard and I got all verklempt. The rangers there were all so nice and helpful.  They all seemed to really enjoy their jobs!  The girls did the Junior Ranger program while we were there.  This has them looking for answers to questions that are all around the fort so we learned a lot that we wouldn't have otherwise.  Celee and Lyla got to help take down the big flag and fold it up.  They take the big ones down at night and raise the little one because of the wind.

 
 
 







Afterward we ate at LP Steamers in Locust Point.  We had crab of course, but also lobster, mussels, oysters, shrimp and clams.  It was all cooked in Old Bay (of course).  I don't think my mom is a fan of Old Bay, but I thought it was super yummy.  Then we all needed dessert so we headed up to Afters for yogurt, pastries, and coffee.  So good!

When we got home we finally dyed Easter eggs and went to bed.  The next morning the girls found their baskets of course and looked for eggs hidden all over the apartment.  This year we gave them a gift from us in addition to the basket.  The rabbit gets the credit for the basket I guess.  I never really attribute it to the Easter Bunny, but I guess that's the assumption.  So I had ordered the Goldi Blox game a long time ago and it finally came so I gave it to them for Easter along with a bag and a special candy from Jason and I.  We all went to church and were there early!  The girls did get to wear their Easter dresses, which were done several days prior to Easter for the first time ever.  But the weather did not cooperate.  It was chilly and rainy for most of the day so we had our festivities inside.  We had the usual roast for lunch and then I made Hunger Games Plum and Lamb stew for dinner.  (Shout out to our Champaign small group!)  This is only the second time I've made it and it's so rich, but it is sooo good.

The weather was nice, so we hunted eggs on Easter Monday.  I got up early and drove my parents to the airport.  :(  Then we all bummed around all morning half asleep.  Finally the day was too pretty to stay inside so we headed up to Gunpowder State Falls to find a place to hunt eggs.  We hiked down to a youth camp site and had our hunt at a kind of "stadium" there is built there.  It was a very pretty day although the wind was chilly.  Tinkerbell enjoyed getting off the leash for a bit in the meadow.  And the girls found some frog spawn.  I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to take frog spawn from a state park, so I will just say that we may or may not have some experiential science going on in a big bowl in on our table.  And of course if we ever did have any tadpoles that grew from said spawn, we would take them back to the exact spot the spawn came from.

So Easter came and went and Spring is here.  It's still chilly here though and the sun beckons to me to sit in a warm spot.  I can see the end of winter and an end to this season of waiting for the house to sell.  We are set to close on it in six weeks.  I symbolically refuse to wear my Game of Thrones shirt with my favorite house words on it, "Winter is Coming."  Summer is coming.  And I am ready for it.

Spring Has Sprung (at least in the kitchen)

  I decided that we better plant our vegetables.  I am super missing my garden, although if I still had it, it would be weeks before I could get into it.  Still, I figured if we can start some things from seed in the kitchen under the grow light, all the more sooner we'll have veggies we can eat.  Hopefully by the time the seedlings are too big for the starters, I'll be able to move them to the balcony.  I have grand ideas for a balcony garden!  Anyway, it so happened that we planted all our seeds on the first day of Spring, and that this coincided with Lyla's letter of the week (v) which is for vegetables.  I couldn't have planned it better.  I didn't plan it at all so that worked out great for once.  We planted kale, spinach, lettuce, thyme, rosemary, sweet peppers, hot peppers, pear tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes.  It was later when it came time to move these plantings into the kitchen that I almost had a major melt-down.  Have I mentioned the kitchen is tinier than I'm used to?  I already have the top of the pantry shelves covered with plants - either ones I brought with us when we moved or have planted since.  So I bought these shelves that said they could hold 8lbs. with the intention of putting some little starter cups on them to be closer to the grow light which hangs from the ceiling.  Well the shelves fell, dumping yucky potato water, dirt, and some seeds down on top of our microwave and various kitchen things that have no other place to live but the table that was under the shelves.  I salvaged all the actual plants and replanted the spinach which had been the only real casualty in the fall.  But I had a moment where only the presence of my children kept me from loosing it.  Thank heavens I often feel a strong obligation to model good behavior in front of them even when I don't feel like it.  That doesn't always work, but it did in this instance.  After much cleaning up and moving things around.  I came up with a make-shift solution that will just have to do until all those lovely plants can be moved outside.  Thankfully everything seems to be coming alive and growing.

It was sunny and "warm" here on Tuesday, so we headed to the park.  The girls got to ride their scooters and play on the playground.  Somehow they always end up in the trees though.  They get this honest though because that's where I usually was as a child.  They created a fairy store of sorts in one particular tree where you could go buy baskets made from pine needles or get your scooter fixed and washed.  I think they could do this all day.  But when it did get chilly it was time to go.

Wednesday Celee and I got to go to a cooking "class" at Carrabba's.  My wonderful friend Flo had invited me to go along with her, and when she couldn't go Celee got to go with me.  I thought that they would show us how to make some things and we would get to taste it and that was it.  They did show us how to make everything from Sangria to the appetizer to the bread to the main dish.  Then they sat us all down for a full meal.  The main dish was Linguine with clam sauce.  This was not something that I or Celee would have ever probably ordered, but now we know!  It was awesome!  And it was too much.  We brought Jason a box home complete with cannoli's for dessert.  The fun didn't end there though.  It was the official 1st day of Spring and so Rita's was giving away free Italian Ices all day.  We walked down (even though it was a bit of a chilly day) and stood in the long line to get ours.  They were super yummy too and they have lots of neat flavors.  And we shivered happily eating our Ices as we walked back up to the apartment.

 The girls got to go to a parent's night out party at a gymnastics studio with friends on Saturday.  They had soooo much fun!  Celee and Lyla are totally siked to try out for one of the cheer and dance teams there for next year.  They must have have fun because they came home covered in "face" paint talking non-stop and bouncing off the walls.  Gymnastics isn't exactly Gwyn's cup of tea, but even she had a blast.  Jason and I got to go out together too so it was all around win!  And we decided to have a work out date.  We never get to go to the gym at the same time (I'm not paying for kid stuff at the time) so this was super fun for me.  I think our next date Jason will definitely get to pick the activity, but even he had fun.

We woke up this morning to quite a bit of snow.  Not Champaign amounts of snow, but the most we've seen here.  So of course we had a Snow Day!  We went and sledded.  We build a snow lady up on top of a boulder overlooking the parking lot.  Gwyn and Celee worked on a snow fort.  We kept trying to build snow ramps for the sleds to fly on, but Lyla is the only one who ever hit the ramps right.  She caught some pretty sweet air one time.  I don't know why, but Lyla also insisted on eating the snow while laying in it.  I just kept trying to remind her to only eat white snow.  Our neighbors came out and sledded and had snow fights with us for a while.  When the girls were completely soaked and it was time for lunch we decided to go in.  I don't know why, but snow always makes me want Indian food.  So thankfully I had what I needed to make Tikka Masala when we got back.  To top that off, La Cakerie was having free snow day cupcakes for kids!  So after picking up Gwyn from a friend's house we all went down.  I had been looking for an excuse to go down to Towson to try La Cakerie for several weeks, so this was my chance.  Definitely worth it!  They have the yummiest flavors and their icing is amazing.  I may have to find reasons to go down there more often. :)

 So it's Holy Week.  Somehow the fact that it was Palm Sunday totally slipped by me!  I do miss that about churches that follow a liturgical calendar.  Celee actually reminded me that Sunday was Palm Sunday very late in the day.  We'll try to make up for it by celebrating Passover tomorrow.  I still can't find horseradish, but we'll just have to make do.  For us it's the symbolism and the focus on God's provision that matter anyway.  We'll have to see how the meal goes though.  I am really looking forward to the focus that this week holds.  All the rituals, celebrations, prayers, all culminating in Easter on Sunday.  I think this year I need this focus desperately.  I am walking up the other side of the valley lately.  Still low, but rising.  I am so thankful for the many friends we've made here and for my wonderfully sweet husband.  Jason just keeps amazing me how he pursues me.  I've never been really good at being honest about my emotions, but he has learned how to keep after me in loving ways to get me to open up.  Then he walks along with me in it.  Thank you Jesus for a wonderful husband!  My parents are also coming in to town for the weekend.  We will surely find many fun things to get into.  I am almost finished with the Easter dresses, so no midnight sewing the night before hopefully.  I've got most of the Easter basket stuff already.  I only need to pick up a few little things.  This Holy Week is looking good!