Eggs everywhere!
A little late I know but we wanted to mention the great time we had last weekend, that being Easter weekend of course! It was our first weekend after the UK trip so we were real tired and had huge plans (3 social engagements - I wasnt sure I'd cope!). Of course this wasnt helped by the lovely US of A's mass addiction to work work work, meaning that we had neither Good Friday or Easter Monday as vacation (boo hiss America - stop working so much, have a little fun! ;) ) but we had a brilliant weekend despite this!First, on Saturday at 10AM, we attended the local Terra Linda (our neighbourhood) kids Easter Parade with our new friends Vilija and Darren and their kids Ilona and Dovas. This is a long standing tradition here as it was started about 30-40 years ago by some parents who organised it for their children and the neighbours have kept it going, expanding it and making it a celebration for the whole area. Basically everyone meets in one of the streets and the local fire brigade comes with the engines and all the kids, some in costume and everyone with masses of balloons and easter-related product (ie sweets!) take a parade around the streets following the fire engine. At the end, the street has a bunch of houses which are categorised by child age (0-2, 3-4 etc). All the kids go to the garden and they have an Easter Egg Hunt with eggs containing prizes for the relevant age group. A really great tradition, we all had a blast, even though our kids took a while to realise you could take more than one egg (they're plastic eggs with sweets and small toys inside) so they didnt get too much.
After the parade we went to a house on the street where Susan (a friend of Natalies) lives as it was the birthday of her daughter and we were invited to the party. The sun was hot and everyone played in the garden, there was beer (Yeeeeah! Me and Darren were most happy!) and loads of great food for everyone and the kids sang Happy Birthday and shared the cake. The best part was that we met so many of the neighbours - lots of really nice couples all about our age with kids of roughly the same age group as Karina and Ilona. Everyone was so cool - hopefully its the start of us making a broader circle of local friends. I even met my first fellow sports addict which was excellent - being able to talk to an American who likes American sport is, surprisingly, a unique experience for me here! Go figure...
Finally, the following day, we went along to Vilija and Darrens for a proper Easter Dinner and another HUGE egg hunt for the kids. They brought along another couple, friends of theirs from the last place they lived, and we all sat out in the garden in the blazing sun and had the most amazing meal, drank champange and beers, chatted and had fun with the kids. We stayed there until way past 
the kids bedtime and had the most enjoyable day we have had since arriving here. Thanks guys - we really owe you for that, it was brilliant!!!Apologies for the quality of the last 2 pictures but they're captured from a video camera :(
The only downside to this whole weekend was myself and Darren being a little miserable about "No Bank Holiday Monday" - so we braved work with Easter hangovers. Worth it though!
posted by Shaun S @ 6:17 PM
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