Easter Weekend and Stephanie's Visit

We had an exciting Easter weekend with lots of egg hunting and a visit from Joe's sister, Stephanie, who was on Spring Break from Harvard Law. The Easter celebration started on Thursday at Rowan's pre-school where they had a party. Then I took her to an egg hunt at the church we've been attending (Quail Lakes) on Saturday morning. Why is every holiday about candy? It's fun to have the activities and the excitement...but then for weeks after, all we do is negotiate when sweets can and can't be consumed. We've been encouraging our roommates to partake of the candy basket just so it diminishes faster! We also had a small egg hunt at our house on Sunday morning...Nana sent an awesome basket filled with Easter things that was the ultimate prize of that hunt.

Steph arrived late Saturday night and was able to join us for church on Easter morning. Then we came home and cooked cornish hens for Easter lunch...and ate in a sunny backyard with a few of our roommates. In the evening we had a few other friends over for pizza and played some games. A perfect day!



Joe had to train most of the time that Steph was here...and she was gracious about hanging out with me and Rowan, not really doing much! We checked out some new parks, ate ice cream two afternoons in a row, she treated us to a yummy dinner, and we hit some outlet malls one afternoon. We hung out with the neighborhood kids (there are lots of them...I posted a few pictures) and helped Rowan fly a kite. Steph also introduced me to Wi-i...and after some competitive tennis and bowling games, she handily kicked every one's butts in almost every track and field competition there was. It's always fun to have family here...thanks for coming Steph!



Rowan has been very interested in the meaning behind Easter this year. Several weeks before Easter, while walking through all the Easter stuff at Wal-Mart, it dawned on me that she probably didn't know what it was about. So right there at Wal-mart, I told her a simplified version (she knew Jesus died on a cross...I told her about the resurrection). Her eyes were wide, and when I was done she exclaimed "we have to tell daddy!"

From that day on, every day had some version of these questions: Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why didn't he just run away? How did they hang Jesus on the cross? How did they carry him to the tomb? Did he go to heaven when he died? Who is Jesus? Who is God? Why did Jesus have to die again? What is sin? What does forgive mean? Did Jesus do something wrong? Who killed Jesus? What does dead mean?

Phew. It's a lot of responsibility to have to answer these questions---not only in a way that she will understand and can handle, but in a way that is authentic and comes from a place of real belief for me. It's challenged me to re-think some things that are easy to take for granted....and be able to say with confidence, yes, I believe!

After one of our conversations, Rowan was feeling nervous about dying herself. We talked about it...I tried to take away some of her fears. Then she said "I don't like dying. I don't want to die. I want to stay here forever so that you can always hold me."

I wasn't prepared for that one...and right there in the car, I wept.

To see a few more photos of Easter and the few days after, click here.