Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a great Easter! I had a really fun weekend. I started the weekend with a 1/2 day Holiday on Friday. I got a bunch of errands run and took a long walk through the park. That evening, I went to the Good Friday service at church. After church, I went with 4 friends to dinner at Back Forty. This is a restaurant I'd heard was good and had been wanting to go to. Unfortunately, we were disappointed. The atmosphere was good and the drinks and sides were good, but we all thought our entrees were pretty terrible. I won't be going back there!

A few weeks ago, I found out my pastor had been referring to me as an events "wizard" (ha! not quite.) and I was asked to help organize the Easter Egg Hunt for our church kiddos. I had less than 3 weeks to plan, so it was definitely smaller-scale than I would have liked. The first snag I ran into was that it was already too late to get a permit for use of the park, which is required in any city park for any event over 20 people. But, I was told that if it's just an impromptu gathering of families, no permit is necessary. So, I basically had to pull-off planning an event that would look un-planned to an outsider! Not an easy task! It was going to be a simple affair - the families would bring their own picnic lunches and 12 candy-filled eggs for each child. I would have an activity to do with the kids while their dads hid the eggs. A girl in our church has started her own baking business so we hired her to make cute cookies for all the kids and parents. That was pretty much it.

So, I spent much of last week putting together treats for the Hunt. I provided some extra candy-filled eggs in case any unexpected children showed up or kids at the park just happened to participate.I also made a set of Resurrection Eggs....Twelve Eggs, each filled with an object representing part of the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. Each egg also had a scripture verse to go along with the object. I planned to use these to play a guessing game with the kiddos.

Some examples of the objects I used were a sword and a cross.

I made 20 more sets of the objects with verses so the kids could take them home and fill the 12 eggs they would find in the hunt and have their very own set of Resurrection Eggs.Unfortunately, we ran into a second snag when Saturday turned out to be a rainy day in NYC. A decision was made to post-pone the Hunt until Sunday afternoon. This put a bit of a snag in my Easter plans and I was left with a tough decision. I didn't end up going to the Hunt, but provided them with all the stuff I had and let the staff and parent's take over. I felt bad, but also didn't want to cancel my plans and knew that many of the families couldn't be there on Sunday anyway, so it was even less of a big deal than the already small-scale event originally planned. I was sad to not participate, but I heard it went really well!

Easter Sunday started with church. It was a good service and one of the girls in my community group, Robyn, was baptized along with 3 other people. Robyn has been going to Apostles since DAY 1, when JR first moved up here and church consisted of a very small group of people meeting in his apartment. She had been sprinkled as a baby and confirmed as a teenager, but had never been baptized. She had been wanting to do this for a while and I was excited to hear she'd finally decided to take the leap! We meet in a public school, so there is a no baptistry so instead, the baptizee's have water poured over them 3 times, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.After church, I went with the Community Group girls to brunch. We had some time to spare, so we stopped by the Hat Parade on 5th Avenue! I've been wanting to see this forever!! There were all kinds of hats. There were some fancy hats, that are probably more like what everyone wore when the Hat Parade first started many years ago when it was more of an elite social gathering.

Not only did this lady make her hat out of Peeps,

her skirt was also made from Peeps!!

Hats made from real flowers

There were even dogs dressed for the occasion

This person was entirely dressed as a cake

and waddling down the street

There were men in hats, too!

Once we got back in the subway, we saw these Alice in Wonderland characters. We felt pretty certain that the bunny is Austin Scarlett (from Project Runway). Partly because it looked like him, but also because the girl's dress was made from paper and was incredible! Totally Project Runway-esque.

From the Hat Parade, it was on to the Meatpacking District for lunch at Paradou. They had an unlimited Champagne Cocktail Brunch. It was great! We had so much fun, yummy drinks, great brunch and after sitting a while longer taking advantage of the unlimited drinks, delicious dessert!

Kim, Erin, Robyn, me, Sarah Jen (clockwise)

After over 2 hours at our table, they asked us to leave so someone else could have it. We went to a bar next door that had a cute garden in the back. Then, later we made our way up to the Upper East Side for more fun and Mexican food. It was a loooonggg day, but so fun!