Happy Easter!!

March 23
(Also my mom's birthday!)
It was a chilly Easter morning!! The kids got up at the crack of dawn and came downstairs to rouse Tim and I from bed. They all enjoyed their Easter goodies from the bunny, Grannie, and Nanny & Papaw. They also read their cards from Aunt Dot.

After breakfast from Ohlin's bakery, we had our egg hunt. We had to bundle up to go out to search for the eggs! No PJs for this cold morning! David ended up with the most eggs because the bigger kids left the more obvious ones for him. But he did find one of the tougher ones that Jamie was searching for. Then we dressed and went to Payson Park for church. The church was the fullest I have seen it! There were over 200 people at the service. So crowded services at Easter is a common phenomenon here too. (I later saw in the Hartselle bulletin that there were over 1000 people in the 3 services on Easter morning. Wow!) The church was decked out with beautiful flowers - lilies, tulips, and hydrangeas in all colors. There was even a cross covered in daffodils! The colorful flowers were really pretty - especially since there is nothing blooming here yet! New England is still mostly brown with a little green - very bland. The service was nice, and concluded with a singing of the Hallelujah Chorus - which all were invited to join in singing. I went - of course. It was great!!

We had a delicious Easter lunch from Burger King. Then we set out for an outing to see a sugar shack - a place where Maple Syrup is made. March is sugaring season. We actually were there on the last day they were making syrup. The place we visited is a little "mom & pop" operation that gives educational tours of their sugar shack, complete with samples. We learned about how tree sap is turned into maple syrup - it is boiled down and greatly reduced. Sap starts out at 2-3% sugar and they boil it until it's about 67% sugar. The sugaring season has been a really good one this year. The owners said that there are usually 11 "flow days" in a good year - this year they've had 17!

Then we went for a quick walk in the woods - because it was a really beautiful day! After our walk, we came home for our ham dinner. Unfortunately David went to bed with a fever that night and we spent the whole next week home sick. He had a bad cold that developed into a touch of pneumonia. But we saw the doctor and got on an antibiotic before it got too severe.