Not too long ago I wrote an entire blog about how excited I was for Easter. We had the BEST Easter Sunday with our friends, and I honestly didn’t even feel the least bit home sick.
Easter is a holiday that has always excited me (probably more than Christmas). Growing up in the Wurth household, we usually collectively gave up sweets/desserts, so to wake up on Easter morning and know that there was a whole basket of various chocolates waiting to be eaten was the BEST! As an added bonus after going without sugar for so long, I always thought that things TASTED better on Easter. Sweet tea=liquid sugar. Chocolate Easter bunny=rich and creamy goodness. Sweet potato casserole=diabetes in a bowl. Plus after the drab season of Lent, Easter was a day to wear cute springtime dresses, pick flowers, and enjoy the sunshine and warmer weather (and of course run off some of that sugar high).
Ian and I spent the night at Margo’s house since she wanted to go to church with us and lives closer to Hitoyoshi than us. I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed before my alarm even went off……much to Ian’s chagrin. I put on my favorite summer dress, slapped on a little makeup, put my bunny ear head band on, and proceeded to hop around Ian until he finally woke up. Even before consuming any sugar, I was hyper that day!
The plan was to go to Mass at 9AM, hit up Mr. Donut after church, and then head back to Margo’s to prepare the Easter feast. We rolled into the church parking lot at 8:55 only to see……an empty parking lot. Confused, we waited in the car for a moment before deciding to check it out. I walked to the entrance of church. Normally there are posters, flyers, bulletins, etc hanging on the glass doors, but it was completely clean. I poked my head inside, but not ONE person was in the building. As I walked back to the car, I noticed a lady in the parking lot, so I asked her if she knew what time Mass was. She wasn’t sure and went inside to check. I waited in the car, and she came back and told us 10AM. That slightly changed plans for us, but we decided to eat breakfast at Mr. Donut in the mean time and then return to church. However, our plan was foiled! Mr. Donut didn’t open until 10AM, so we had to settle for walking across the street to McDonald’s. We arrived back at church at 10AM. We realized we were MAYBE a minute late because as we settled onto our wooden benches in the choir loft, a baptism was taking place. Since it was Easter, we thought nothing of it. However, as soon as the baptism was finished, the gifts were brought up, and the whole Liturgy of the Word section of Mass was COMPLETELY skipped over. We looked back and forth at each other confused but then realized that Mass must have started at 9:30 instead of 9. That is the only explanation! As we were leaving Mass, some of the church helpers handed out dyed eggs and packages of tissues. Easter treats!
After Mass we went back to Margo’s. Before we changed out of our clothes, I requested that we take a few Easter pictures. (I’m not sure if you could call it a tradition, but it’s something that we usually did at home every Easter….go to church and then come home and take pictures outside while the flowers are blooming and everyone is still dressed up.)
After our photo session, we got to work on the Easter feast. Ian had to cook the ham, and Margo helped me decorate my bunny cake. I boiled eggs for dyeing and then hunting while she rounded up plates, cups, and utensils. Everyone began to arrive at Margo’s around 12:45, bringing hordes of food. We had ham, pasta salad, fruit salad, sweet potato casserole, rolls, chicken salad, brownies, cakes, and so much more! Everything was phenomenal!! Once everyone had enjoyed dinner and the plates were cleared, I said that the Easter bunny must have known where we were going to celebrate Easter this year because he had brought us Easter baskets and passed those out.
The afternoon moved on along, and we decided to dye our eggs…..except the only vinegar that Margo had was rice vinegar. The tiny dye tablets took forever to break down in it, and the result wasn’t so hot. No matter how long we left the eggs soaking for, the result was varying shades of pale pastels. On the flipside, no matter how long we dried the eggs for, they never quite lost that wet, sticky feeling and left dye marks on our hand. Lesson learned: use regular vinegar for egg dyeing. Regardless, it was still a lot of fun, and we got to show Yusuke a traditional American Easter custom.
Once the eggs were dry-ish and we had deemed the time appropriate, we hunted the eggs. Although I am twenty-six years old, I revert back to a child anytime the words “Easter egg hunt” are said. Growing up, we’d have a hunt every year, and my sister, Amanda, and I were always the competitors. Neither one of us really cared that much about the actual activity but rather the COMPETITION. I never really cared who won the hunt as long as it wasn’t Amanda, and I know she felt the same way about me. There were years (and not that long ago might I add) where one of us would steal the other person’s eggs or “accidentally” push the other person down at the beginning in order to have a head start. We were grown adults when we did these things, and Mommy said that we should “…be ashamed of yourselves….” but we knew it was all in good fun!
The Easter egg hunt this year quite reminded me of those Easter egg hunts. Margo hid the eggs while Melissa, Brian, Devin, Mollee, and I waited patiently inside. Ian didn’t care about hunting eggs and said that he’d document the whole process with his camera. Thank goodness for him because I crack up every time I look at those pictures! Melissa B. totally took the place of my sister this year. She didn’t even care (and even admitted to that!) about the hunt but just didn’t want me to win. As soon as the doors were open, we flew outside, jumping from hiding spot to hiding spot looking for colored eggs. I’m sad to say that I didn’t win. I actually lost by only finding a dismal two eggs. *sigh*
We spent the rest of the night sitting around talking and eating leftovers. We covered just about every subject from Nazism in Germany to fart jokes. I honestly didn’t want the night to end, but all good things must! The party broke up around 9PM, and we all went our separate ways. As Ian and I drove back to Yunomae, the most depressing feelings overwhelmed me. After such a wonderful and fun day, it was absolutely somber to think that we’re leaving these friends in a few short months, and as much as we say that we’ll stay connected or see each other in the future, the sad truth is that a lot of them I’ll probably never see again.
Wow…..that got deep and depressing there for a moment. Despite that thought, the entire day was one of the best times I’ve had with our Kuma goonies.
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