Have you heard the good news?

He is risen.

That's my favorite thing about Easter in the Christian tradition. Everybody makes such a big deal about Christmas and the savior being born. The really big deal, in my opinion, is that they rolled the stone away and found it empty. That's the real miracle if you choose to believe the gospel at all, that's the one that I always find hardest to take on faith.


Anyway - the best part of Easter outside the Christian tradition is getting together with family. We hosted this year, and we had some Southern California and East Coast In Laws up for the day.





Bill and Joan MacDonald (Bill is Rachel's Uncle - Dolores' brother) came up from Anaheim...

And Jay and Theresa Julian (Theresa is Dolores and Bill's sister) came out from Philadelphia...

Jay and Terry are the kind folks who gave Jake his fatastic voyage last Summer. It was great for me to get a chance to thank them personally for that. It's the sort of thing that I wish I could have done at Jake's age. Jake has much broader horizons than any of his friends because of it. He knows there's a much bigger world out there because he's been there.

Anyway - back to Easter - I found out that it was the first time in over 30 years that either couple has celebrated Easter outside of their homes. And they both were glad to let someone else worry about it for a change.

I did a lot of the cooking...

And I had a lot of help...

Dolores made her Green Beans Florentine, and Lauren made these awesome...I don't know quite what you call them...sort of muffin cake jelly tarts with frosting. They were...well, not so much "grubbin'" as freaking yummy!

And it all came together nicely and right on time.

Theresa looks a little weird in that photo as I had to merge two shots together.

Jay and Terry also brought one of their traditions out west for us. They hid individual Easter baskets for everybody aroung the house. That was way more fun than I thought it was going to be.

All of the food came out great, save for my corn muffins that stuck to the paper cups. Everyone had fun. The weather was great. We all got a chance to visit and catch up. Great day.

Also, Jake has been saving up money for a new bass guitar for months, and he got a couple of gift cards to the music store that put him over the top. So Rachel took him and a couple of his friends down over the mountain to Zone Music on Monday. Wish I could have gone, but I had to work. Maybe she'll post about it on her blog.

Laurie's up for a visit now. She and Rachel went to town to walk around while Jake is at baseball practice. I'm working hard this week to help close that project I've been talking about.

Oh, and stealing away some time here and there to sneak in some World of Warcraft with Aunt, Uncle, and Cuz.

Oh, and one more thing - Laurie hadn't seen Michael Moore's Sicko yet, so we watched that again last night. I'm glad I watched it again, and I hope a lot more peope watch it again before the elections. We are a scared, uninformed, and in debt society - we need to change that so our government will listen to us instead of to the corporations.

Sorry to throw in the political stuff at the end there. Hope it didn't ruin the post for anybody.

Did I mention He is risen?