Easter Recap

Group pic in the Wilsons' backyard - Easter 2023! ❤

At the end of my most grueling week of grad school thus far, it was refreshing to hang out with friends and family this weekend!!  This kids table pic makes me happy.  Harvey was not amused with me taking a photo.  I love the backyard swing and the Easter egg hunt pics, as well!

The weather was pretty great, so we all ate outside (croissant sandwiches, salad, mac n' cheese, and a sugar cookie for me).  It was a lovely spring evening where the kids blew bubbles and played on the bouncy house castle (and had occasional fights/meltdowns that the parents stepped in on) while the adults caught up on life and planned possible future trips to Florida and Hawaii! =)

I just love how kids are so fascinated by airplanes (top right pic below).  Melissa made an Italian cream cake and Teresa made a candy-filled Easter cake (impressive, but the coconut made them a no-go for me).  Tate was distraught when the bouncy house came down, but the kids had a lot of fun with it while it lasted!

Saturday morning, our fam met JoBug, Babah, Blake & Wendy for an Easter egg hunt + brunch at the Gaillardia Country Club (where JB and fam are members).  It was a nice setup and a fun time with face painting and candy-filled eggs for the kids - the brunch buffet was a WW challenge, but I enjoyed it and did fairly well!

J&K with the Easter bunny (and their bags filled with Easter eggs).  The eggs were all just laying in plain sight on the grass, but there were tons of kids divided by age groups, and it was mass chaos as they all ran out to grab as many as they could! lol

Jace is really into the Avengers lately, watching through all those movies with Rach!  So he and I spent the ENTIRETY of our brunch meal talking about his favorite characters and scenes and discussing what makes someone worthy to hold Thor's hammer. lol  It delights me to see him so excited about all that - he now loves the Hulk... and Thor... and IronMan... and Spider-Man... and AntMan... and Captain America.  And let's be honest, I do too!!

Taking a deep breath and reminding myself of this today!  Thankful there's a legit break coming in two weeks!

A couple cute pics from their talent show performance a while back (they did a 90's-themed lip-sync and dance routine).

Gideon, Jace Michael, and Kyndal Faith

Love this one of Dylan and the Miss K, third grade besties and volleyball buddies!  (It has a sparkly FB filter Rach added to it).  

I completed three major group assignments over the weekend, along with recording this video for my Empathy class (the rules was 20 image-based slides for 20 seconds each, incorporating Biblical examples and stories from our own life).  It wasn't perfect, but I'm posting that presentation below because it includes several of my friends, for whom I am immensely grateful! ❤

On that note, my research for the Grief presentation showed that social isolation drastically increases the likelihood of premature death from every cause for every race.  Feeling loved, seen, and supported is VITAL for all of us!  Sometimes broken relationships that hurt us make us want to isolate ourselves to stay safe, but that is  quite literally the pathway to loneliness and a quicker death.  So my encouragement for you today is to stay close to Jesus if you are rebuilding trust in people.  And to show up and step up for the people you love!  Cultivate healthy connections and Christian community - it sharpens us and helps us keep growing - it doubles our joys and divides our sorrows - and it matters more than any of us may realize now!

"All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on forever... There are three things that remain—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."  ~1 Corinthians 13:8,13