Easter fun!

Our Easter weekend has been a whole lot of fun!

First and foremost, we have been focusing on the REAL meaning of Easter. Over Thursday-Sunday, our church organised and hosted a special Easter Celebration, including a locally made movie called “The Innkeeper’s Son” (which was written and directed by one of our members), an amazing Art Exhibition, and a Garden Cafe. I worked a few shifts in the cafe over the weekend, and Rob helped remove the paintings after the exhibition finished on Sunday night.

We have also been enjoying this gorgeous weather! I can’t remember an Easter so warm & summery. I guess because it’s so early this year. There have been plenty of walks down to the playground and swims at the beach. Best of all, we have enjoyed relaxing and spending time together … without worrying about work for 4 days!

On Easter Sunday, I set my alarm for 7am so I could get up and hide eggs in the backyard before the boys woke up. When they got up, I gave them these special “baskets” I made for them to collect their eggs in:

They were very excited about hunting for eggs outside. Last year we did an indoor egg hunt because the weather wasn’t as nice. But this year it was all outside (the way it should be). It was so cute watching them look together, helping each other. I hid all the eggs in “pairs”, with one being for Ethan and the other for Tyler (this way they would each have the same number of eggs at the end). Whoever found a hiding place first would call the other one over, and they would excitedly pick up the eggs and place them in their baskets.

About a dozen pairs of small caramel or strawberry eggs were hidden around the backyard, with the “big ticket” items in the letterbox — they each got a hollow Cars egg with a little toy included. They thought it was so funny that the Easter Bunny hid the big ones in the letterbox.

After the egg hunt, we read them the Easter story from their Kid’s Bible:

Both boys really understand the true meaning of Easter, and I love listening to their “version” of how it all went down. Usually it’s something like “Jesus was dead on the cross and God made him alive again. We have new life because he was dead for us.”
Yep, you got it!

Today we went to the Easter Show, as we do every year on Easter Monday. My parents and sister always come with us, and this year we also had my second-cousin Tyler (yep, another Tyler!) who is over from Canada at the moment.

I made an executive decision that we would all arrive at 9am sharp (opening time) to avoid crowds and heat. And although it was NOT easy getting out of bed at 7.30 this morning, it was definitely worth it. When we arrived at the Showgrounds, the place was practically empty! We didn’t have to wait in line for anything, and it wasn’t too hot. Perfect!

The boys really enjoyed the “Shrek the Third” stage show. It was great, with lots of cool songs. And of course they are both huge Shrek fans so they enjoyed themselves immensely.

After the show we checked out the Farm World, and then headed over to the Carnival area for some rides. The boys really wanted to go on the Dragon Rollercoaster (a pretty tame one). Rob decided to put them on by themselves! We gave them some coupons, and they waited in line together, holding hands. It was so cute!!

The ride itself was pretty fast and there were a few sharp jolty corners which gave Tyler a bit of a fright. Ethan was completely fine, but Tyler started to get upset after the 4th time around. He managed to last the distance though. I was proud of them for looking after each other and being so independent. Of course we were all standing right there, but I was impressed that they wanted to do it alone.

The Giant Slide is hugely popular and not to be missed, so they each had 3 turns on that (with Grandad and Daddy):

After lunch, it was time for the “Out of Africa” Circus! What a great show that was! Just amazing! The boys were extremely impressed with the African dancers/acrobats, the fire juggler, and the tightrope artists. Ethan kept asking how they could do it. I said they did a LOT of practice. “I don’t believe you!” was his reply each time!

We spent a bit more time wandering around the Market Place, and Ethan did another “Sand Wizard” picture. By that stage it was 2pm, and we’d been there for 5 hours. I was feeling weary! So we all decided to call it a day.
It was definitely another fun year at the Easter Show!!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Easter as well!