While we tried our best to keep some of our family traditions in place for Easter this year, it was extremely difficult in a non-Christian country. I think Mr. Ren asked 3 or 4 different times when our "US church celebration" took place. He thinks all holidays are celebrated with family gatherings, laughing, talking, singing and dancing. We always laugh when he says this and reassure him that his view is incorrect, but with 3 little kids we almost always find ourselves doing all of those things!! :) Haha. Cathy and Brett (our friends from Des Moines in Beijing with John Deere) had an egg coloring kit, so we joined the Esmonds and headed to their house. All 7 kids (Truman did not partake this year) had a blast and created 65 egg masterpieces! After the kids were done with the egg adventure and the parents were done with their second bottle of wine, we headed out for dinner...all 14 of us. Gotta love having drivers! :) We had a great time and really enjoyed spending time with our "China family"!

Easter Sunday was filled with as much from "home" as was possible. We started the morning with an egg and basket hunt in the house. I would like to say that the baskets were creatively hidden in the garbage can and under a coat on the coat rack this year. We only had one mishap when Mitchell forgot Adeline's basket was in the garbage can and he threw the coffee grounds away. Oops!! After that we had a delicious egg casserole breakfast, headed to church and rounded the day off with a movie and a bike ride. The weather was great, the air was clean and the sky was blue!! A great way to celebrate Jesus! :)