BUSY day

I try not to plan too many things for one day, but every once in a while it turns out that way. I had scheduled two things for today - Paul taking the kids to Home Depot for the 9:00 workshop and the five of us going to see the Peking Acrobats at Bucknell at 2:00. I bought the tickets for the Peking Acrobats back in August. If I only found out about the event sometime in the past three months, I wouldn't have bought the tickets in light of our current budget, but I'm very glad we went even though it wasn't cheap. Paul and I saw them when we were in China, and I loved the show then and wanted the kids to experience it (and we don't plan to take them to China). The second community egg hunt (less than a mile from our house) was also at 11:00 today. This one includes a free lunch. Very recently I found out our church was hosting its first ever Easter festival from 3:00-5:00 today, and the first of four Easter services at church was to be held at 6:00 pm. As a choir member, I was expected to attend and participate in three of the four Easter services, and the choir was singing one song at the very end of each service so I needed to stay for the whole service this evening. I am accustomed to singing in a Good Friday or Maundy Thursday service, but our new church didn't have either of those services (this year anyhow).

Paul was able to stay home and work for three hours  as he skipped the egg hunt and free lunch, but he was with us more than usual today. Paul decided to attend the service tonight and stay home tomorrow morning. We put the three kids in Children's Church this evening because Nadia and Ian are planning to sit with Grandma, Pop Pop, Uncle Al, and Aunt Millie during the second service tomorrow morning. Since Paul went to church tonight, he's going to stay home tomorrow morning and get some work done, and he's going to put the ham and potatoes in the oven for our Easter dinner.

Although it was about 15 degrees warmer out for the egg hunt at 11:00 compared to the one last Saturday at 1:00, it still felt cold! It was very windy, and we were outside a lot longer at this one. Oliver got 6 hard boiled eggs and several plastic eggs with candy in them during the egg hunt for kids ages 1-3. Ian and Nadia were in the egg hunt for ages 4-8. Ian got six plastic eggs (no hard boiled), and Nadia got 5 hard boiled eggs and several plastic eggs with candy in them. The plastic eggs were the ones that *could* have been prize eggs. Altogether the kids had more than 20 plastic eggs, but none of theirs were prize eggs. This was the first time this happened to us when we went to this particular egg hunt. Some of the prizes at this egg hunt are really nice (three of the prizes were bicycles for example!). If all the eggs had been hard boiled, the kids would have been more disappointed that they didn't win any prizes, but since many of their eggs had candy inside, they were content (tootsie rolls, Jolly Ranchers, Hershey kisses, etc.). They also had Happy Meal prizes strewn on the ground with the eggs for the egg hunt for ages 1-3, and Oliver picked up two of those. The lunch included hot dogs, baked beans, bottled water, hot chocolate, and an assortment of desserts. The only thing that cost $$ was a bag of homemade potato chips (we skipped those). Oliver gave the bunny a high five when she came around to the kids before the egg hunt, but after the lunch when I wanted to get a picture, he wouldn't come anywhere near the bunny.

The acrobat show was outstanding, and it was a good multicultural experience for the kids to experience Chinese culture. They had live music during the whole show. It wasn't *quite* as good as the show we saw in Beijing, but it was outstanding! Oliver was a little scared at a few points (especially when they were doing stunts while wearing large costumes). The lady beside us laughed when Oliver said "That's too loud. Do a tiny one" in response to some loud drumming two men were doing. Ha ha! She commented at the end how well behaved my children were and that she enjoyed watching Oliver almost as much as watching the show. Then we went to our church's Easter festival. We were there for only the second half of it. The line was too long for the face painting, and they had run out of hot dogs and chips, but the kids enjoyed snow cones, popcorn, and cotton candy as well as some games and holding some baby ducks. Nadia didn't hit any balloons when she threw her three darts, but Oliver actually hit a balloon with his second dart! They let him stand on the table since he's only two.

At 4:30 they had an egg hunt. Oliver was in a different area, and Nadia and Ian were in the same field (they had the kids separated in three groups). Over 400 kids were at this egg hunt! Nadia didn't want to use her Princess pail this year that she had used the last several years, and it worked out fine just to have two baskets at the other two egg hunts because they didn't do all the egg hunts simultaneously, but at the church they did all three at the same time so poor Ian didn't have a basket. OOPS! I felt badly. I could have at least given him a bag. There weren't any prize eggs at the church's hunt, but all the plastic eggs had candy inside. The kids were VERY confused about going to church on a Saturday evening. The choir wore white robes (to make us look like angels at the resurrection scene) for one song. I washed and dried mine to avoid ironing it. As I tucked Ian in tonight, he gushed about what a great day it was. That put a smile on my face!