Easter Weekend

We had a four-day weekend over Easter -- Good Friday is a public holiday in most of Europe, and our teacher gave us Monday off as well. Here's how we celebrated this year:

On Friday evening, we hosted our first ever Messianic Passover Seder in our home. A friend introduced us to this lovely Easter tradition in Japan many years ago, and we have talked since then of making it one of our own family traditions. But for one reason or another, we never attempted it until this year. Nathan, Jordan, and a friend from church, "Ze," who lives nearby came to celebrate with us. On the menu for the evening -- roast lamb with rosemary and baby potatoes, strawberry spinach salad, and lemon pepper zucchini. And of course, the obligatory matzah and charoset (an apple, nut, and honey mixture). And for dessert -- chocolate macaroons.

In this picture, you can see the table before we began. In the center is the Seder Plate with the symbolic elements, central to the retelling of the story of the first Passover.

Friday evening also included my birthday celebration. Jordan made me this amazing "Portuguese Yogurt Cake." Such a simple recipe, but so good. Isn't it pretty?

Alex gave me this bulldozer for my birthday! It's the first gift he's ever picked out for me all by himself. Thanks to Aunt Jordan for taking him shopping!

On Saturday evening, Alex and I decorated Easter eggs together. If you look closely, you can see that we are using a Disney Princess egg decorating kit. This is what happens when you have girl cousins and Nyanya mixes up the Easter packages. That's okay -- Alex is man enough to handle it!

Sunday was church of course, and included a performance by all the children.

Then, each child received a chocolate bunny and another gift. This is Alex with his friend Daniel, who is also 4.

On Monday, we went down to the Parque de Nações, the site of the 1998 World's Fair. There is a bunch of stuff to do down there, like an Oceanarium and a Knowledge Museum. We couldn't do it all in one day, but we bought combination tickets, good for one month, that will give us entrance into everything. On this day, we decided to ride the cable car, which Alex thought was great fun.

View from the cable car

Flags of all countries who participated in Expo '98

Stephen and me in the cable car

We went to a park that had a bunch of large musical instruments for the kids to play. Alex especially liked the gong!