Easter Sunday

Easter in Texas
This year for Easter, since I would be half-way around the world, I left strict instructions for Stephen. They went a little something like this...
"Although Andrew has no understanding of what Easter is, nor would he know any different, but for his mother's sake. PLEASE  remember to help the Easter Bunny fill Andrew's basket and take a few pictures."

 The Easter bunny did a great job and decided to hide Andrew's Easter basket....

 But Andrew really didn't catch on to the concept....

 So the Easter bunny tried hiding it again in a more obviously place.

 Again, Andrew still wasn't sure what was going on...

 Eventually with much coaching he found the goods and pulled everything out of the basket. A favorite pastime of his.

It sure didn't take him long to figure out what the chocolate reeses eggs were. 

Good Job Easter Bunny!!!

Easter in Austria

I don't think I'll spend another Easter without remembering my time in Austria with my parents on their mission. It was such a fun time to visit and see all their traditions.  One of my favorite things was their Easter Eggs. You can buy them in the store already dyed and they were the brightest colors I've ever seen. After much debating, we think that they had to have spray painted them or something. Oh and they sell everything in 10's not dozens...so you get 10 eggs and 10 in a bunch of flowers etc...

While we were in Salzburg we found the most amazing store. The Egg Store. They had thousands and thousands of beautiful eggs. It's a tradition in Austria to blow out real eggs and hand paint them, then hang them from trees, flower boxes or especially pussy willow branches with bright colorful ribbons. This store was incredible and we could have spent hours just looking at them all. They were nice enough to stay open for us girls to fill our carton of  these beautiful eggs. They said they have over 100 people painting eggs year round for this store. It was amazing!

The Easter Markets in Salzburg were beautiful and so fun to walk through. Fresh flowers, spring arrangements with colorful ribbons, anything and everything related to Easter. I loved it!

 With a bakery on every corner, some had the cutest little Easter treats....also hand painted. 

I fell in love with the pussy willow trees. You sure don't find those here in Texas!

 At our cute little B&B in Salzburg, the sweet lady who ran it had this darling Easter display. It had the easter eggs her grandkids had blown out and decorated.

From Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday, they had draped purple or yellow cloth over all the crosses or statues of Christ. This was everywhere inside churches or around the all the different cities. Not sure if there is some symbolic reason for the purple and yellow colors, but I found it to be an interesting tradition. 

Easter Sunday we made our way back to Graz, where my parents live, so we could attend their ward. It was really wonderful to see their ward and meet all those they have talked about the last year. Most of all, it was so great to see them in "action" as missionaries. It was neat to sit through the entire three hours of church all in German. I understood a few words, Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon, and Moses....Oh and Frohe Ostern (Happy Easter...one of the few German phrases I picked up) My mom on the other hand can understand quite a bit more than she'd let you to believe. She'd kept leaning over to me and telling me what they were talking about, which helped a ton.

I was amazed at how people still wear the traditional Austrian clothing and many wore them to church for Easter Sunday. The cutest were the little primary kids who sang in sacrament meeting and the little boys in their lederhosen.  The ward they serve in is a big ward and they have many dear friends. People travel very long distances to come to church. So before and after the meeting block is a huge social hour. Everyone was so nice to us and loved to practice their English on us.

We learned a traditional game of cracking the eggs. At the Easter meal "Ostereierditschen" is a game played by the family. The goal of the game is to try and break your opponent's hard-boiled egg. In turn, the players tap each other's egg with the tip of the egg. The person whose egg outlast all the other eggs, wins!

After church, Mom made us some traditional Austrian food; Speztle, apricot pork, along with with salad and pumpkin seed oil dressing. All so yummy!!! Then we had the traditional Oster  Lamm (Easter Lamb) for dessert. These were everywhere in the grocery stores/Easter markets and represent the Lamb of God.  

Us girls with mom just before our Easter dinner. 

We had a wonderful Easter and I even got to facetime with my two boys before we went to bed.

Frohe Ostern!