Easter Weekend Recap.

I know this is a few days delayed but I hope you all had as good an Easter weekend as I did. I've shared before that since moving to Tampa holidays are just not the same. With no family within a 5 hour radius, I find that holidays are vastly different. Not bad different necessarily since I have a great church family as well as I great friend base that keeps me from feeling totally alone, but it's not the same as veggie around the house stuffing my face with family, you know?

Well this Easter I didn't get to be with my own family but thankfully Thomas's family drew me into theirs and I was able to spend the Easter weekend with them. Friday night T and I went to my church, Grace Family Church for our Easter weekend service (we did the same service Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and it was so much fun to introduce him to my pastors and friends.

Saturday morning I did make the red velvet pancakes I mentioned here. They were a big hit. They were easy to mix but hard to flip, so if you make them yourselves I recommend making them smaller than you think and cooking them longer before you try to flip them or you'll end up with a bunch of halves! But we topped them with whip cream and chocolate syrup or at T's suggestion - Nutella. The general consensus was that they were delicious AND they tasted great that night when we took them out of the fridge as well. So, we recommend them.

Thomas cleaning up my mess after I turned the whole kitchen red with my pancake mix.

Post pancake lounging.

After the pancake party we ladies let the boy unpack the Uhaul of furniture that Thomas's parents had brought with them from South Carolina to further furnish their place and we headed off for manicures and pedicures. There are few things I'd rather do on a Saturday morning that have my legs massaged, lets me real, but it was also nice to have pretty toes for the Easter weekend - pretty teal toes, that is.

After our pamper trip I headed back to my side of town, grabbed some Yogurtology with Marta and hit the pool for an hour. I flew through the remainder of my book, Baby Proof, took a little nap, and then cooked a dinner for Marta so we could enjoy a night in, in our sweatpants. I made the baked penne recipes I shared on Tuesday and we feasted on a random assortment of items including skittles.

Sunday I headed back up to the northside to do church at Lifepoint with Thomas and family. Both Friday and Sunday it was neat to be able to worship with T for the first (and second) time in our relationship. I enjoyed the worship and message at Lifepoint and meeting some of T's pastors and friends as well as a few of the students in the high school ministry he volunteers with.

We made sandwiches back at the boys place for lunch that day and I managed to eat 5, yes 5, homemade truffles Thomas's mom made that were delicious. I have such a weakness for chocolate it's disturbing. And as Marta pointed out after my consumption of the 5th, no wonder my stomach hurts so often. Fine, caught. I couldn't resist.

I caught up on sleep and started another book that afternoon and at home before getting ready and joining the whole family for dinner at Maggianos. I love Italian food almost as much as I love chocolate so this was basically an epic fail of a day as far as my diet was concerned but it was worth it. I had pesto linguine that changed my life.

It was a wonderful holiday weekend and though it was sad my whole family was spread out across the US (per our usual these days) I felt right at home spending Easter with the Barbians. I've been trying to work those truffles off in the gym ever since...Hmm. I hope each of you had a special Easter holiday as well and that you remembered the reason for the holiday. What an incredible sacrifice was made and better still, to know that our Savior has risen.

Love,

B