Full Circle

I love Easter. Springtime, new life, hope and new beginnings. I love Easter dinner and Easter candy and coloring eggs and egg hunts and, of course, eating a few pieces of chocolate before breakfast too.

Last Easter marked the beginning of our very long journey to Phoenix. The Monday after Easter, Tim left for his first two week stint in Phoenix while we stayed in Chicago. If I had known then that it would take the better part of a year to get all of us here, I would not have been happy.

This year, we enjoyed our long awaited visit from Mimi, Pop and Auntie Jenn. It was a different kind of Easter for us. One that included swimming in our pool and lying around in the sun while the kids took naps.

It was so nice to have them here. To have people who really know us and who really love our kids.

It was a refreshing break from our anonymity and identity here. We are the people from Chicago who don't know how to deal with their pool (I'm pretty sure we were the only ones swimming this weekend) or their desert landscaped yard. We are the people who are always asking questions (to neighbors, the woman in the checkout lane, the guy at Starbucks, the mail lady...), and who have very few answers.

But this weekend, with Mimi, Pop and Jenn, we got to take a deep breath and do what we know. We played cars and trucks.
We read new Pinkalicious books.
We shopped and ate Mexican food and just hung out and let Cate and Timmy entertain us.

My mom helped me to FINALLY get my china put away. And I don't mean finally in the sense of after the move. I mean finally in the sense that my beloved wedding china has never been out of the box. We had nowhere to put it in our old house, so it all stayed in the original packaging. For nine years. So we got it out, washed it, admired it, and put it all away.

Everyone got cleaned up for Church on Saturday afternoon. It seemed like a good time to go with the kids and it worked well with our lying around and relaxing schedule.
When I picked Timmy up from his class, the teacher told me that he had been a "gentleman" the whole time and was sharing so nicely. So nice to hear since he hasn't always been displaying his most gentlemanly side since we've been here.

I don't seem to have any pictures with their Easter baskets, but it was fun to watch them hunt around together for their Easter morning surprises. When Cate spotted her basket, she exclaimed, "The Easter Bunny brought just what I wanted!" A Sleeping Beauty Barbie. So, of course, Timmy followed suit when he found his new Mater and Mc Queen cars to replace the ones he lost.

We had a great weekend and it was hard to see them leave this morning. All of the anticipation of the visit and it went by so quickly. I hope that we are able to learn to adjust to short visits and having to say good-bye at the end. For now we will look forward to Nana and Rusty's visit next week and start planning our first trip back to Chicago.