An Easter Weekend to Cherish!

We have officially spent our first holiday in our new home. I was so excited when my sister told me they were planning a trip down for Easter, little did I know we would already be settled into our new home. Bob, Carolyn, Claire and the tadpole (the baby swimming in Carolyn's tummy) all flew down to Charlotte on Friday morning. We practically hit the ground running the entire weekend! On Saturday we took the kids to the Easter Bunny Brunch at one of the recreation centers in Charlotte. There we had a pancake breakfast and met the Easter bunny. Chase was not overly excited that I put him on the Easter bunny's lap:

After breakfast we took a "parade" with the Easter bunny to Latta park nearby where a church was hosting their 10th annual Easter egg hunt. This was just wonderful! There were SO many kids! Thankfully, the hunt was split up by age group, so Claire and Chase only had to compete with 0-3 yr olds :) We had a blast. The weather the entire weekend was very hot and very sunny, except Saturday morning it was a little overcast. This worked out perfectly considering we were outside for quite a while.

Getting ready for the egg hunt to start!
Carolyn and Claire with her new balloon animal

After our morning in Latta park, we drove up to Concord Mills to meet one of Carolyn's friends, Joy and her husband Chris. It was nice for Carolyn to get to see some old friends while she was in town!


Throughout the entire weekend, Bob and I (okay, mostly Bob) spent lots of time in the kitchen preparing Easter dinner. Friday, during the day, Bob and Jason had to first put together the new grill that the Plaza's so kindly bought for us as a housewarming present! It is a Charbroil grill...I will take a picture and post it. That took a good three hours for them to assemble. Of course we had to try it out before cooking the lamb on Sunday, so Bob barbecued chicken on Saturday night, which was awesome. Sunday's dinner consisted of:

Garlic leg of lamb-grilled
sweet pea soup with a hint of mint (this was AWESOME!)
corn pudding
poblano au gratin
lemon creme puffs for dessert

The whole dinner was just excellent! A job well done, if I do say so myself :) There are no feast pictures because I was a little busy slaving in the kitchen with Bob.

This picture is for Granny Annie...I tried very hard to get a picture of Chase with his new bunny-what an adventure!

Claire in her pretty Easter outfit

Chase in his "Bob" Easter outfit, and cute little Claire :)

The Easter bunny came!

Our family picture on Easter

Claire was in LOVE with Bailey...poor cat.

Sadly, on Monday evening, they had to head back to Boston. It is always hard to say goodbye. Of course I wish they were closer to us so we could spend as much time together as possible and so Claire and Chase could be best bud cousins... maybe, since the weather was so convincingly wonderful while they were here, Bob and Carolyn will look into jobs near Charlotte and I will be able to have some of my most favorite people nearby! Chase has been asking where Claire has gone ever since they left! :)

Miss you guys! Can't wait to see you again soon when you are a family of FOUR! What an awesome Easter. God is good :)