Easter is a major holiday in the UK - a four day "bank holiday" weekend, which means no school or work on Good Friday or "Easter Monday". We have taken advantage of the extra down time to get caught up...on sleep, housework, and family photos!
On Friday, we all spent several hours doing "spring cleaning" type activities: dusting, vacuuming, cleaning, laundry, mopping floors, and just general all-round tidying up. You'd think with a much smaller house it would be a much faster task, but no, it still takes most of the day. Besides the obvious motivation of wanting to have the house look nicer, we had extra motivation this time: our flat has been invaded over the past few days by mice - eek! (You can read about it on Chris' blog - no need to spend time in our Easter post talking about mice)
On Saturday, we all went to a movie and enjoyed hearing Jim Carrey remind us that "a person's a person, no matter how small" in Horton Hears a Who! We also spent several hours decorating Easter eggs and putting up Easter decorations around the house. Because we like to focus on Easter itself on Easter Sunday, we also did Easter baskets for the children on Saturday morning. Here's a picture of some of our Easter eggs and other crafts. Especially note the eggs on the right, which were painted by hand by Chase at school this week. Oh, and of course, that's his Superman Easter basket in the background!
Here are some chicks and a bunny that the kids glued together. The cards in the background were also one of the crafts we did together. The egg cups were one of Isabelle's Christmas gifts last year.
Today, Easter Sunday, we had to be at Church extra early to rehearse with the choir. Getting to church early is a challenge for us on a good day, but this morning, it was extra fun because it started to snow as we were walking out the door! Luckily, we managed to catch a bus that was being driven by a Formula 1 race car driver moonlighting as a bus driver, and made it to South Kensington in record time and only five minutes late (which in Mormon standard time is like twenty minutes early!)
While we were singing, Isabelle and Chase got out the crayons and began drawing. Isabelle drew a really nice picture of Mary Magdalene kneeling at the empty tomb, but when we sat down to write this blog entry, we couldn't find the drawing. If we find it in the next few days, we'll add it here, but below are two of Chase's drawings. The first is a drawing of Jesus with Chase (note Jesus' red sash) and the second is a picture of the Hyde Park church building where we attend church.
Monday morning update: We found Isabelle's drawing. If you can't read the speech bubble, it says "My Saviour. He is gone!"
And of course, after church, we had to make sure we captured everyone's Easter Sunday outfits. Isabelle had a new teal dress and crocheted cardigan that we found on Oxford Street after looking through five or six different stores. Chase got a new tan linen vest and trousers from Marks & Spencer, but decided he liked it better when he just wore the trousers (you can't call them "pants" here, because that means "underpants") with a pink polo and his navy blue blazer. Mom and dad dressed to match. Anne with a teal blouse and white skirt, and Chris with tan slacks, pink tie, and navy blazer.
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