Easter Weekend

 

Good morning!  This morning I got to give Mom an Easter basket, and I rather like the way this one came out!  It's a "White House in Bloom" themed one, with cherry blossoms all in there, and various official White House items from the historical society.  There are two ornaments in there, one for Easter 2026 and the other a really nice one with cherry blossoms sweeping in front of the White House there, very nice.  To go with the cherry blossom theme, I added a few bottles of Mom's favorite shower gel, a Japanese cherry blossom scent from Bath and Body Works.  

The rabbit is wearing a little bandana that is from the White House 2026 Easter celebration, also another purchase from the historical society.  And then there's the eggs:

These are the eggs that will be used in the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn this year.  Obviously, these particular eggs won't make it, but these are the colors and designs of the eggs that will be there with the White House logo on the front, dated 2026, and with the signatures on the back of the President and First Lady.  They're made of wood, and actually pretty nice.

Beneath all that, there are some of Mom's favorite Crunchy bars that I picked up recently, and also a few Cadbury eggs from the British import shop.  I'll probably be eating those eggs!  But overall the basket turned out really nice - as did this entire day.  It's Good Friday, the start of Easter Weekend.  We'll have updates in a bit!

Today is Good Friday, and Mom had me pick up a traditional item that you're supposed to eat on Good Friday, and that is a hot cross bun.  One of the side effects of hot cross buns is singing that incessant song inside your head over and over each time you mention hot cross buns.  You may be doing it now.  Nevertheless, the three of us had a nice quick breakfast this morning, one featuring... wait for it... hot cross buns.  And they were actually pretty good!  I haven't had one of these in a long, long time, but you know how it is!

At noon, we attended the Good Friday service at Free Chapel, and it was really nice.  It was good to stop all of everything and remember what this weekend is really all about.  Of course, we're reading that in Matthew right now, and we'll be having service on Sunday morning too.  But Good Friday is an important day, and we were glad there was a service to attend.

Oh, and look!  Ansley really liked her duck-themed basket!  We saw her this afternoon and she got by the desk to see the gift we put there for her.

Afterwards, Mom and I went over to Cracker Barrel and picked up... the ham!  Yes, this is the ham we'll be having for Easter dinner tomorrow.  We've had catering from Cracker Barrel now for the three big holidays:  Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now Easter.  And it's worked out for us really well!

We got back home and didn't have much time then - Maddie was off to taekwondo, of course, and that was fun for the whole gang as always.

And after that, we got home for one more important thing.  It's Passover this week, and Mom had the table all set up for our Passover meal.

We got the guide together and went through each of the prayers and recitals, trying the bitter herbs, the charoset, the matzoh, the grape juice, and instead of a lamb we used chicken.  It was nice.  I hid the matzoh somewhere in the house at one point, and Maddie found it.  Instead of a money prize... she got dill pickle popcorn!

I told her it was to symbolize the "dill that Pharaoh made with Moses."  Yes, lame joke.  Anyway, it was a good occasion, and we cemented the whole thing with a viewing of "The Chosen" on television - there was a condensed version of season six that shows only the Last Supper scenes, so we actually watched another Passover celebration on the television too.  

Afterwards... go Braves.  Couldn't see this one, but listened to it for a while.  Braves pulled out another victory with some late inning home runs.  They're doing better this year!  Afterwards, we read from "Thud!"  And we said our prayers and got to sleep.  Tomorrow is a big dill.  I mean, a big deal.