The Stave Family Review: Easter Festivities

The Stave Family on Easter Monday 2009

As you may imagine, it's often holiday times that give us reason to miss family and friends or American traditions the most. However, it's also holiday times that give us reason to look around at the community we have here & rejoice at the many ways God covers those desires for family (as our friends here make up the next best thing) and for missed traditions (as we've begun to create our own during our years here). Within that light, Easter 2009 gave us much reason to rejoice -- beyond our celebration of Christ's resurrection!

The Thursday before Easter Ieva & I played hooky from work & school and spent part of the day with other moms & kids at the country home of our friends Garrett & Sophi Gilliland painting Easter eggs. Garrett & Sophi have lots of land around their home, giving our kids a nice break from city life to run around outside with their dogs and cats and to search for frogs & other woodland creatures. Ieva jumped right back into the "farm girl" mode which she had developed after a month at her Grand Aunt Shelley's property last summer.

Painting Easter eggs with Hevenlee, Charlotte, Josiah & Levi

Hevenlee holding the frog Ieva & I found (neither of us wanted to touch it!) :)

Charlotte in the yard by the old (& covered) well with one of the kitties

Ieva's first time on a big-kid bike with training wheels!

On Friday evening we had Steve & Laura Hanson over for games (Steve is one of the Resident Directors on my staff & Laura works in Student Life with Orientation & our Leadership program). They brought peanut butter cookie dough for us & Ieva enjoyed helping roll the dough & putting the pans in the oven nearly as much as she enjoyed eating them! Little baker girl

Since our church (International Christian Fellowship) meets on Sunday evenings, we hosted an Easter brunch on Sunday morning for the same group of families who we went to Egypt with us for spring break. We all contributed fantastic food and the kids especially enjoyed a candy Easter egg hunt (indoors) and the Easter craft projects we had for them. This was the first really big gathering we hosted in our new apartment & it was so great to see how well everyone fit! We never could have done this at our old place! We spent the bulk of the afternoon playing games & then met again that evening to celebrate Christ's resurrection with our church community!

The Easter brunch group (from L-R): Andrew, Andrew Kaethler & Charlotte, Alene & Paige, Alene's mom Mary (here visiting!), Carrie & baby Charlotte, Jared, Chris & Lydia

Coloring bunnies, eggs & chicks - Levi, Josiah & Ieva

The big kids (Josiah & Levi, Ieva & Charlotte) beneath our Happy Easter sign (Ieva & I had fun decorating for the event!)

On Easter Monday our church leadership team had coordinated a day trip to a fabulous outdoor museum in central Lithuania called Rumšiškės. It spans over 430 acres of gorgeous nature and shows the historical agriculture & architecture of each region of the country. Easter Monday is it's opening day for the season & they bring in traditional dance & music groups, craft vendors, games for kids & deck the place out with loads of decorations just for the Easter holiday. It's a fantastic day to go! After a gorgeously sunny & warm afternoon wandering throughout the grounds, our group went to a large traditional Lithuanian restaurant for very satisfying dinner. All in all it was a great day and everyone seemed to really enjoy their experience there!