He is risen!
(I started this post up in Albany and have been slack uploading pics which is why this is getting posted now!)
At the moment we are up in Albany and really celebrating Easter!
We got up here yesterday afternoon and I went on a quick shopping trip with sister in law, Pauline straight to the Country Trunk and Cross Eyed Owl.
Before Mass, we had dinner at one of my favourite restaurants… The Cracker Barrel! The best thing about the Cracker Barrel is they have the best gift shops – I could spend ages in there! They also sell gorgeous rocking chairs!
It was then time to get ready for the Easter vigil mass – back at Holy Spirit where we got married. I loved being back there and the service was really beautiful. Here is only part of the altar decorations… beautiful!
Easter Sunday was so much fun with us all getting together for a long Sunday lunch . It was great to catch up – I hadn’t been up to visit since Christmas!
Our contribution was –
A stack of sausage rolls that I made.
Mars Bar Slice – interesting Mars Bars here are called Milky Way. So it was really Milky Way slice… but it is Mars Bars as I know them!
Stacks of ANZAC Biscuits.
Ice Cream for the Ice Cream Challenge.
We had a turkey, ham, stuffing, broccoli, carrots, potatoes and cauliflower. Mmmmm!
So all twelve of us squished around the table and enjoyed the feast all afternoon!
Here are some scenes from around the table –
Sausage rolls –
Pauline, Rebecca and I –
Rebecca, Rob and Emily trying to match in with Pauline’s cardigan –
Then it was time for dessert.
Just as an aside, Bill’s family have a full family lunch every Sunday. We thought of an idea to have a food challenge last year. The first one was Eileen and Bill had a brussel sprout challenge. They both did a brussel sprout dish and we all voted on who won. Since then there has been a chili challenge, a chowder challenge, enchilada challenge and an eggplant parmigiana challenge. This has been going on for the past year or so! Today it was an ice-cream challenge. Bill, Eileen and Robert were the competitors and the jibes and crazy text messages have been going back and forth for weeks. After much umming and ahhing Bill decided to do… licorice ice cream. That is right – the Aussie classic. Our little bodega around the corner sells Darrel Lea licorice so I got a stack of it and Bill started making his ice cream. The end result? DELICIOUS!
Unfortunately, as taste testers, our excitement about an ice cream challenge hit an all time low when we tasted what ended up being an underwhelming lot of ice-cream flavours. Bill’s licorice ice-cream garnished horrific reactions and grimacing, Robert was asked “Did you make this with mayonnaise??!?!” and Eileen’s Charleston Chews had ended up resembling hard bits of rock in coffee ice-cream. The challenge was a failure – no-one liked any of them! We still all voted. I voted for Bill’s because I could’ve eaten the whole container it was so good… Bill totalled two votes. He voted for his own. After the vote count, Eileen was declared the winner and we were left with eating cookies instead of ice-cream for dessert!
Here are some of the dessert photos –
Mars Bar Slice –
Rebecca’s amazing sugar cookies –
Brownies, Mars Bar Slice and Anzac bikkies while we wait for the amazing ice-cream challenge –
The ice-cream challenge ‘disaster’ –
Afterwards, we decided to walk off our feast by hitting… Wal-Mart!
It happened to be one of the only that was open. So we stocked up on things like Ziploc bags, Clorox wipes and tissues while marvelling at the prices.
It was such a wonderful Easter. To experience the Triduum with Bill and with Lent being such a wonderful experience this year, I am so happy I was able to fully embrace so many aspects of this time of year. Happy Easter!