Easter At My House

Easter, a time for family, new beginnings and spiritual reflection .
I feel honored that some of you have indicated an interest in hearing about my family. I think now would be a good time to write something personal.
Yesterday, was a busy time for me. I had invited the family for Easter Dinner. I felt a little sad that my eldest son, Clay, who lives in Washington could not be with us. Also, my granddaughter, Tia, who is still in Peru. But the rest of the family came and that made me happy.
On Saturday, I shopped for dinner, buying a huge ham plus a leg of lamb for Ovidiu and Andrzej, the Europeans in our family. I thought they had made a mistake at the check-out counter when they said the little piece of lamb cost $30.00. It would have fit in my pocket, plus I had no idea what to do with it. I had never cooked lamb and since Ovidiu does a lot of the cooking at my house, I am forever fearful that I am losing my cooking skills. But my fears were ungrounded and in the end, the lamb was wonderful, the ham was great and the homemade chicken and dumplings were just like mama used to make.
In addition to the Easter meal, our family tradition includes dying eggs and hunting them. Once they are dyed, everyone places a colorful Easter sticker on his eggs, a sticker to which I have given a value..from 1 cent to one dollar. Everyone has to dye eggs, and everyone has to hunt eggs. Landi insisted that I hide the eggs in the backyard so his friends couldn't see him with his little Easter basket.
After appointing Shawna, my granddaughter to the position of policeman, to see that no one peeked, I put on a DVD for them while I hid the eggs. Then they were off and running.
What fun we had. Ovidiu didn't hunt because he volunteered to hold our great, grandson, Bronson. Bronson is a delightful, roly poly six month old and is a handful. Ovidiu, having never held a baby felt quite awkward. His first question was "How do I hold him"?, but after working at it, he managed to get him right side up.
What a delight it was to see all of these grown people running like little kids with their Easter baskets. They were such good sports. I knew they were doing it for me and I was proud of them.
Greg, Shawna's husband (and Bronson's father) earned the prize for finding the most eggs. Ranee and Landi won the prize for finding the special prize eggs. Each hunter got to keep seven of the eggs they had found and were paid the price of the stickers on their eggs. They wheeled and dealed and traded and argued and in the end each had earned a whopping dollar or so, including Chris who had come as Landi's guest.
Then came dinner. After the blessing, we chatted and teased, talked over old times, and ate too much. It was a great success, and as I watched my little family I said a quiet thank you that I was blessed to have these unique individuals in my life. They are lovable, interesting, funny and some times even aggravating and irritating...but they are mine. I was grateful that they were willing to take time from their busy lives to spend time with me...even if I did have to pay them to hunt eggs.
Easter 2008 was a memorable occasion for me. I hope your Easter was everything you wanted it to be.