Happy Easter!!

I can't believe we have spent yet another holiday away from our family in the US! You would think that it gets easier, but really the only easy thing is that we are sleeping when our family is together, so we can pretend it doesn't happen! I know it is sad, but never as I was growing up did I imagine being apart from my family for so many holidays.

I try to make the holidays as fun for the kids as I can, so when Eensie requested homemade Swedish pancakes with Nutella for our Easter morning breakfast, I attempted to honor his request and was pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out! This may be a new Easter morning tradition, but when we get back to the US we'll have to go to the late church service because they take a bit of time to make!!

We did really make the best of our situation, and our Easter turned into a wonderful celebration with dear friends!! Danny and I attempted our first uncooked ham (it was a 10 pounder!) and it was a huge success! My "meat man" kept warning me not to cook it too long or it would dry out and then my mom kept telling me to make sure I cooked it enough so it didn't make people sick! It came out just right at the correct temperature and very juicy! Nobody has gotten sick and it is now Wednesday, so I will declare it a success! We asked everyone to bring a dish that they would typically eat in their home countries for Easter, so everyone had a taste of home! There was sooooo much food and it was all delicious! I think we all ate leftovers for the past two days!! The only disappointment was my lemon pudding cake! I did not set it flat in the fridge and it kind of fell apart!! Oh well, it still tasted good!! Notice the chopstick holding it together - so thankful for clever friends!!

We were fortunate with beautiful weather, so we were able to do our egg hunt outside! Most of the kids had never seen plastic eggs - can you imagine?!! They usually use real hard boiled eggs and hide those! We let the littlest children start first and then the oldest finished so they could find the really hard ones! I loved watching the kids get so excited when they found special eggs!!

We all really enjoyed ourselves and were once again reminded of how fortunate we are to have found such beautiful friendships on the other side of the world!

Our attempt at a family picture - it took a bit of bribery, but at least we are all looking!!