Holy Week

Morning Star had a lot of celebrations going on this year for Holy Week.  I love participating in these.  The first event was the Seder Service.  Kids, if you ever get a chance to go to one of these, do it!  It was such a cool experience.  Seder is the Jewish celebration of Passover....weird that I'd go, since we're Christian, right?  It was SO NEAT!  The man who led the service grew up in a Jewish home, but was Christian.  Basically, he went through the entire Seder meal with us, as we were able to taste a little bit of each item.  He explained the symbolism behind each food or drink.  Next, he related it back to how Jesus fulfilled each Jewish prophesy and  was the symbol.  After the presentation, it seemed so obvious that Jesus was fulfillment of each prophesy.  I was thinking, "How does everyone not get it?"  I feel like I am not doing this justice in my explanation.  All I can describe is just how awesome it was, truly, in every sense of the word.  I was able to serve as a greeter at this service too, which is stepping outside of my comfort zone, but made me happy to do it.

Good Friday service was PACKED.  So much that it was hard to find a seat.  I think that says it all.  I hope that as the kids grow up, we are able to really instill the importance of Holy Week to them.  I want them to know that it's important to not rush through the season and focus on the Easter bunny and candy, but to stop and look at the events that really took place before Easter.

Easter fell on April 8 this year.  We celebrated as a family by going to church on the 7th.

Side note: I love our church.  I love 1.) that we have services on Saturdays and 2.) that members are encouraged to go on Saturdays for the holiday weekend to make room on Sunday for people who don't normally come to church.  It makes me feel like I'm being a good servant by doing simple good deeds.  I greeted at this service too....maybe I should start serving on a more regular basis....It felt good.

After church, we went back to Memaw and Papaw Revenaugh's house.  We had dinner and an egg hunt.  I'll leave you with pictures of that day.

There was not a single good picture of the girls in their pretty dresses.  It's almost as if they coordinate when one looks and smiles, the other looks away....this was the best one.

Since it was SUCH a busy day, Ella did not get a nap....a decent part of the day went this way. 

Here comes Brady!  LET THE EGG HUNT BEGIN!

Eli found one!

Nashville (cont.)

After blogging yesterday about Nashville, I went home and felt like I hadn't quite done the trip justice.  Here's a more detailed break-down of what we did on our trip.

Thursday: We left St. Peters in the early afternoon and made it to Nashville by the late evening.  We went out to dinner at a place I'll not go back to, but we had a nice time together.

Friday:  We went shopping at the Opry Mills Mall and ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  We toured the Aquarium restaurant (SO COOL! sharks, eels, sting rays, all kinds of fish!)

Since Amanda & Uncle Craig had come to Nashville several times before, they were sort of our tour guides around town and helped us find all kinds of cool stuff to do.

Who knows/cares what she's pointing at?  The whole place was cool, but the point of that picture is to show how excited the kids are to see all of it.

It was the Grand Reopening of the mall since the big flood had hit about 2 years ago, so it was really busy.  There was live music at the mall.  Nick & I got into an argument for most of the day about something dumb (who really remembers that a month later?).  We took pictures at the Opry (see the post from yesterday) and bought our tickets for that night.  The CMT awards were in LA on Sunday, so no big names were in town.  Still we went to the Opry and saw Patty Loveless and a bunch of other performers.  It was neat to say that we'd been there.

Saturday: We went back to the mall and the Opry to pick up the souvenirs that we hadn't bought the day before.  Amanda got some super cute boots that she's going to wear in the wedding.  After that, we went to downtown Nashville for more shopping.  We ate lunch at Margaritaville (more pictures in yesterday's post).
                                                     
We shopped all day.  After naps (for everyone) at the hotel, I took the kids swimming.  Then we went downtown to the Wild Horse Saloon.  It was a blast, maybe my favorite part of the trip.  Ella's favorite dance is the Cupid Shuffle, so of course we did that.  She & I also learned a new line dance called Boots.  It was a lot of fun.  I've never been to such a family friendly bar/night club.  This was also the night of the terrifying flat tire incident.  The awful screeching....I thought for sure we would be murdered on this deserted stretch of road.  It was scary, but we tried to make the best of it (again see the picture in the other post).

Sunday: We went to breakfast at Shoney's and then to the American Pickers store.  The trip home was full of detours (thanks a lot state of Illinois--you ALWAYS have construction that causes me at least an hour delay!)  Here's a video at the pinnacle of frustration in our car.  You can't see anything....just listen.

The entire time, driving was the running joke on our vacation.  There were just so many wrong turns, and yelling (in the other car of course....we were just following every wrong turn....), that at a certain point it became hysterical.  Even though it was stressful then, I think I'll always look back on that part of vacation as a joke.  Funny how time can do that to memories.

Anyway, I just wanted to be sure that I did justice to our mini-vacation.  It was a great time with the Johnson family.

Nashville March 29-April 1

Whoa, what's that?  Two blog posts in one day?  Yes....I'm trying to get caught up.  Over spring break, in addition to taking the kids to the zoo, we also went on a family vacation to Nashville.

Chase the Cheetah, Ella's class pet got to go with us.  That was VERY SPECIAL to Ella.  

At Margaritaville, there was a GIANT pirate on stilts making balloon hats for everyone.  Of course, this terrified Ella.....

...until he bribed her with a balloon hat of her own.  

Terrifying moments for Mommy & Ella:  Flat tire @ 1 AM, the road is deserted and there is some bird screeching in a very eerie (or "spooky" as Ella said) way.  Here is us trying to make the best of the situation with Chase the Cheetah.  (He's sitting on our now useless tire.)

The TV show, American Pickers has a store, Antique Archaeology in Nashville.  This is us visiting the store  and the perfect photo op.  It was nerve-wracking in there though with two kids and super expensive, old, sometimes rusted, always fragile memorabilia!

We went to an aquarium restaurant at Nashville Mills Mall.  We did not eat there, but just toured around it.  Both kids loved it!

 

We actually ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  Here, Chase the Cheetah is seated with the gorilla, who we sat by.

The pool at the hotel was a BIG HIT with both Ella and Eli.  The water was cold, so we didn't stay long, but they had so much fun splashing Mommy!

Ella the Cowgirl all decked out in her new hat and boots, courtesy  Memaw Johnson.

Wild Horse Saloon--possibly one of my favorite places in Nashville .  It was a family friendly bar (how is that possible?) that had line-dancing.  It was the best!  

Cupid Shuffle--one of Ella's favorite dances to begin with, but also fun to be dancing for a crowd with Mommy.  We got so many ooos and aaahhhs over her dancing with me.  The crowd loved her!  

A Trip to the Zoo & Forest Park

I'll admit something....I'm a terrible mother....Over spring break, I took the kids to the zoo.  What?  How does that make you a terrible mom?  Well, because it was my children's first time there....yes, that's correct, plural, CHILDREN.  Ella has never been before this.  So on  Tues, March 27, I took them to the zoo with DeAnne, Lindsay, Beckett, & Piper.  They had a blast of course.  It was a little chilly and we checked out the double stroller so Ella wouldn't get tired walking everywhere.  After the zoo, we had a picnic in Forest Park where we played and took lots of pictures.  

When we went over to see the chimps, one walked right up to us! 

The zoo had so many baby elephants this year!  There were probably 3-4 little ones. :)

Eli-entranced at an aquarium view

It was such a fun day with friends.  I am so looking forward to this summer and all kinds of daytrips with the kids, and cousins, and friends.  Don't worry--it'll be summer, so I'll have NO EXCUSE for being behind in my blogging.