Easter Sunday!

Easter was great!

We had planned to attend a sunrise service at the post chapel but the last week I ran in to someone that gave us a recommendation for a different church (more on this fabulous recommender in a post to follow) and so we gave that a try.

The service was pretty 'seeker' based which wasn't a surprise on Easter. All in all I missed the fabulous sounds of the WHBC choir, but it was fun to go somewhere new and be surrounded by fellow worshipers. We felt very encouraged to find a place we enjoyed as several of our other experiences in the area had been... awkward. Anyway, it was a nice beginning to the celebration of Resurrection Day!

After church we headed back home and started cooking! Wes enjoyed a childhood full of Easter egg hunts and the like so he came over early to hide some eggs out in the playground.

The hunt begins:

The race to find eggs:

I was behind the camera so I didn't find any until Wes pointed the last one out to me- hooray!

The winnings.

Here is latecomer Lee looking for the Easter "basket" (or Walmart bag) that Wes hid for each of us. Lee, as you may guess, is a true Southern boy.

Warmer.... warmer....hot! Hot!

He found it!

So our oven is a trickster. There is no indication of when it is preheated. Also, if the oven is on, most likely the stove burners won't work, so there has to be some good planning ahead. Also there is only one rack in this oven which is strange, and quick tricky! Everything we made had to fit into a small dish or foil casserole item since we're lacking other options. See our crowded oven at stage one- it got worse from here:

That big lump is the ham. mmmm! We are still enjoying the leftovers.

Thankfully I got this guy baked up before everything else had to go in. This was my first attempt at a homemade pecan pie, and it turned out surprisingly well! The Country Boy taste buds kicked in on this meal and they all voted it very good, so I'll take that as a sign of pie-success!

We had one Utahan (me), two Kansans (Z and Matthew, technically :), one Alabaman (Wes), and one Mississippian (Lee) so the Easter of my childhood rang true to these palates. This is truly a meal of casseroles, even without the sweet potato casserole (substituted for the more simple and space-saving baked yams).

Potato Casserole:

Green Bean Casserole:

Sister Shubert's Rolls. MMMMMM.

Deviled eggs. You either love them or hate them (except me- I'll eat 'em, but I don't love them). Fortunately Wes and Z are both avid deviled eggs fans so these got eaten up.

And here we have the spoils from our baskets and hunt :)

We got our favorite red wine to go with dinner and it was great.

The day was a great day of renewal. We had a wonderful time at church. The weather was beautiful and it was a great accompaniment to the feeling of renewal that Easter and the reality of sins atoned bring. We had a great dinner (it is a bit addicting to feed people food and have them go back for more and enjoy it!) and enjoyed watching some March madness, even if poor Mississippi got trampled there at the end.

Hope you all enjoyed your Easter like we did ours.