Easter with friends

Our Easter day was packed with fun! First, the kids woke up to find Easter baskets with little treats from home (including Peeps!) and home-made hot cross buns. The kids got to deliver some of the hot cross buns and the one braided fruit loaf to our neighbors, and miraculously stayed in a good mood all morning! Then we all went to Church and had a lovely service there. Afterward we headed home for a quick snack (Bagels from the Bagel Fairly (yes, there is one place here that makes REAL bagels and sometimes the Bagel Fairy brings some to our door in the morning!)) and watched one episode of George Shrinks (a DVD gift from the Easter Manya Bunny) then we all headed (along with two other guests from on campus) to the Johnson's house!



The kids went out to play for a bit, and the girls got to practice riding bicycles at a nearby dead end street. They only just learned how to ride without training wheels a few weeks ago when a girl on campus got a new bike and was generous enough to share it with everyone.


While my kids played, the Johnson boys hid the eggs (We dyed them on Saturday - they were all brown to start with, but we worked hard and got them looking pretty regal by the end of the afternoon. We also had several "shrink wraps" for them that I had bought while visiting my sister in Russia - so that made for a more colorful display - here is a picture of one of the Russian style eggs hidden in a pot of geraniums.)


Here are the kids preparing for the egg hunt -they are getting the rules and instructions (only ten eggs a piece, no throwing them at Miss Freathy or Mr. Hoskinson... unless they are raw, etc.)






Unfortunately, these friendly Easter Bunny Boys might have forgotten that my kiddletts are quite a bit shorter than they are, and some of the eggs were in hard to reach/see places!













We counted all the eggs, and ended up with the same number we started with - although it was tempting to "accidentally" leave a few and see what would happen... but, since it was such a relaxing and enjoyable day, I was glad that we actually found all the eggs.








The dinner was delightful! We had roast-beef that was so delicious I wouldn't have even traded it in for a traditional baked ham, even if one could be found! We had the usual grown ups table and kids table, and they even let me sit at with the grown ups, even though it is debatable whether I have actually grown up!
Sam was great and he sat with the kids at their table, even though he is in middle school. The weather was nice (sorry for you folks in the northwest who had rain) and was in the upper 60sF. We followed dinner with leisurely coffee/tea and lots of desserts... YUM.... and watch out, cause here comes three kids on a sugar rush! A manic bit of playing, (see boys in a brotherly chokehold below) followed by the requisite sugar crash. The grown ups must've had some kind of sugar/caffeine high as well because there were all caught (not pictured, thankfkully) dancing along to the High School Musical Dance-along on satellite Disney.






After that there was quite a bit of Mission Impossible/007
stuff going on as we all took turns ambushing each other with the Nerf gun. I have a short amusing video of Steven, zoned in on the TV, undergoing a surprise attack by Mr. Hoskinson, lots of belly laughs!






The girls went back out to practice a bit more on the bikes, and Proud Mommy got to get some footage of her amazing Bike riding girls..... They even managed to ride circles around the grown ups!