Easter Trip in Pictures

We had a fantastic getaway in GA with my sister and her crew last weekend.  We left Thursday and didn't come home til Monday, so it was truly an extended weekend. :)  I read a quote recently that said something to the effect of, "The grandparents' house is where cousins become BEST FRIENDS."  And it's true, except in our case we've had to amend that statement to indicate "sister's house" instead.  We love, love, love how these four (and Jack, when he is well and/or awake) always pick up right where they left off and just play hard, fast, and fun together. 

 

We hit a park right away in the wonderful weather we enjoyed the whole time we were there.
This realistic-looking rock wall was way cool.

As always, Noah and Natalie just get each other and pair off that way naturally.

Likewise, Brooklyn and Anna always seem to gravitate to each other.

The park we played at had a hill with three crosses, so naturally we were ALL drawn to that.

 

Noah couldn't help but try to be Jesus in that moment. 

That night we busted out the eggs for dying and decorating.

Next day, against my gut instinct, we headed to a big church-wide egg hunt at my sister's church.

While the egg-hunt anxiety built, I went ahead and took advantage of the fact that we had someone to snap some family pics for us.

Mercifully, the egg hunt went well and all kiddos were smiling at the end.

Then we dug into those hard-won eggs and, as always, sorted out the offending peanut-buttered sweets.

Was such a gloriously pretty day!  Thank you, Lord!

That night we took Emily's church up on its offer for a Saturday night kid-friendly contemporary service.  ANYTHING if we don't have to get up and church-ready first thing in the morning.

Then we felt bad that Jack was in almost no group cousin pics and tried to recreate the moment.  You see how well that went. :}

Before going to bed, Lee led the kids through another round of Resurrection Eggs.

 

Once the kiddos were in bed AND finally asleep, we got baskets stuffed and situated. I wondered if Noah and Anna were going to object to their joint basket they get every year once they saw that their cousins each had their own, but I don't guess it mattered much to them.  I didn't hear anything about it at least. I thought it was funny how Emily's tradition is to hide their kids' baskets and we do the opposite by leading our kids to their basket via a trail of plastic eggs. :)

Easter morning, the kids were up and into their goodies before I ever got out of bed.  Josh tried to help out with the picture taking in my absence.  You see how that went. :S

After the baskets were emptied and enjoyed, the guys got down and dirty and worked a little on leveling the ground for Lee's soon-to-be pool. 

I was amused again to see how everyone paired off  to enjoy the rest of the morning. 

When I could extract the iPads from the clutching hands of Noah and Brooklyn, we held our own private Easter egg hunt.  The kids all agreed this one was way better.  I think that is because they were actually hidden and not just scattered openly on the ground as most public Easter egg hunts are apt to be done.

And that was about it.  We chilled the rest of Easter Sunday and left the next morning.  We'd have been more bummed about the visit coming to an end if we didn't already know we will get to see them again in June!  My only objection to this trip was that, yet again, I didn't get a picture of Emily and me!  Will have to correct that when I meet her at the start of June at our Beth Moore conference.  Can't wait!