It’s Easter 2016 a time for new beginnings. Besides the obvious religious components of Easter, it always serves as a good reminder of a few other important areas of life.
One is the fact that I can bring back whatever it is that I gave up for lent. Now that I am reading this back, this is probably not (in the grand scheme of things) really an “important area of life”. Previously I have said a temporary goodbye to all sugar, meat and this year it was alcohol.
Next it reminds me that I have either celebrated or am about to celebrate yet another birthday. This always reminds me that while in my mind I am still stuck somewhere in my twenties, my body is on a dead sprint towards the top of the hill.
Lastly, Easter always reminds me how fortunate I am to have the family that I have because a few weeks before Easter is always the time we host the Annual Adoption Picnic. This year was the 7th Annual Adoption Picnic.
A few years back, Jenn and I tried to pass the baton, not because we didn’t want to do it necessarily, but we wanted other people to have a chance to put their own spin on it. Apparently people were pretty satisfied with the way it was running and decided we should keep doing it (or at least… no one else really volunteered).
Things for me have been super hectic, and I felt like we were missing everything for the picnic this year.Turns out, everything is pretty much on auto-pilot and this picnic was the easiest year to date.
I would say the greatest part about the whole thing is just watching all of these kids grow up and then meeting the new kids & families who are joining the group. This year we had about 120 people attend and it was a blast.
Although I had to recruit Nolin to help hide the Easter eggs, it didn’t damper he or Grace’s excitement to participate in the Easter egg hunt, or taking a picture with the Easter Bunny.
It must have been good practice because Sunday Morning, Grace was on it when it came to the Easter Egg hunt. Last year, she would find an egg, open it, explore what was inside and then show it to us leaving Nolin to claim many of the eggs for himself.
This year, Nolin was the one wanting to explore his Easter basket, while Grace ran around the house excitedly shouting “mine”.
Finally Nolin stepped up his game, but the magic happened when he realized he had more eggs than Grace, so he called her over to show her where some additional eggs were.
There may be some sibling rivalry between these two, but at the end of the day they have each other’s back.
We were also lucky to receive one additional Easter miracle this year…we made it the whole way through church.
Our Modern Family 
Wonderful watching them grow.