Easter and Springtime

We had the best Easter! And now that it’s past, everything has settled back in, with spring still thrilling my soul every minute as we dread/look forward to the long, hot summer days.

Learning when I woke up Easter Monday that Pope Francis had died…I thought at least it was fitting for such a figure to die as we celebrate the Risen Christ. There is hope in death at least for believers.

We started our day Sunday at sunrise service. We, in this case being Hannah and I, along with friends from Covington, and we saw many neighbors at the service on the lawn at Monticello First United Methodist Church.

Sunrise service used to be held on the Square, but with the traffic noise, some felt it would be better to move it, so it happened. It’s now held on the hill just in front of the Methodist Church.

A friend of mine who was there said it is backwards, and now I agree with her and am going to make a suggestion that they move the speakers to the driveway and have the public between the church and the driveway so the spectators are facing the rising sun. Either way…it’s always a special service as several individuals work hard to put together a service featuring speakers from different churches and a variety of music. Everyone is welcome, and many take advantage of the opportunity.

This year I saw quite a few townspeople who walked to the church for the celebration. Of course, Sunday’s service was preceded by five days of Holy Week services which the Methodist Church in town hosts. A different person speaks each day, and special music is provided daily with the speakers and singers coming from different churches.

After a 30 minute church service, everyone is invited to eat lunch at the church. It is designed where attendees can use their lunch hour to get a service and meal and be back at work in an hour if need be. All in all, it’s a great way to spend the week…or whatever days it works out if you can’t make it to all.

Then it culminates with sunrise service Sunday morning and the church’s regular worship service at 11 a.m. I didn’t make it to that…but I sure enjoyed the weekday services and the early Sunday morning service.

Later in the day, Hannah and her family, along with Emily and Brystol and Jim joined Jimmy and I for a light lunch and Easter egg hunt for the little girls. I had stuffed the eggs ahead of time, of course, and planned to keep the ones stuffed with chocolate separate, but not being that organized, it didn’t happen.

Emily and Brystol arrived first…you know the one who lives the farthest away gets here first. Then Jim got here. When Hannah said she was on the way, I corralled Brystol inside, and Jim and Emily hid the eggs so that when Hannah pulled up they could start hunting.

Grandma got a little carried away, I think, because I think they got tired of hunting (it was hot), before they finished finding all of them. But that’s okay!

Once they determined that was all…or all they were going to find at the moment, they went inside to empty the eggs and collect the candy inside. Several zipper bags later, the unwrapped jelly beans and robin’s eggs went in bags and chocolate made it into another bag. Then, the chocolate went in the fridge as it was too melted to eat.

Then, those of us who cared to made a plate enjoyed a meal, then visited a while, and everyone went back home. It was a great day. Because of the food choices, clean-up was easy, and I think everyone had a good time. I know this Grandma did, and I believe Pawpaw and grandkids did too.