We woke up early this morning to an excited Benjamin ready to start his search for whatever might have been left by the Easter Bunny. As in years past, we let him get up and survey the scene before waking Liam. After getting the general idea that yes, the Easter Bunny had come, and yes, there were, again, things to search for around the living room, he was a little hard to rein in. He kept “finding” stuff as we attempted to drag him back to the bedroom to wake Liam. Liam, for his part, was surprisingly hard to get out of bed. But once we’d sufficiently given him the idea of what was going on (which included the very cute line by Benjamin, “Liam, der Osterhasen has come! Wait . . . maybe he doesn’t know what an Osterhase is. Liam, ‘Osterhase’ means Easter Bunny!”) he was awake and ready to go.
The boys tore through most of the hidden items (Legos! Plastic Eggs! Chocolate bunnies!) in the living room pretty quickly. (I think the Easter Bunny has to up his game on the hiding somewhat. Note to the Easter Bunny for next year.) B dominated the finding, but Liam found several hidden eggs, too. The sharing was pretty successful (the Easter Bunny always leaves a note explaining that what is found must be shared) and Liam showed his relative lack of possessiveness by placing everything he found into Benjamin’s basket. After everything was found, we settled in to play with some new toys and enjoy our morning, punctuated at times by the fantastic sound of Vienna’s many church bells celebrating Easter.
It was also snowing (again). Since today was not only Easter, but also Jo’s departure day, this was a little concerning. Her flight ended up delayed by an hour, which was a little stressful, but meant we were all able to have a peaceful breakfast before her departure. (It also was probably the most peaceful part of Jo’s day. When she and Dan arrived at the airport, there was a flurry of rebooking and running for the gate — all with the intent of helping her make her final connection in New York. We actually haven’t heard from her since she sprinted off to catch a London-bound flight this morning. We assume she’s in transit. I suspect I’ll have more to report on all of this stuff tomorrow.)
We got to Skype today with some of our family from home this afternoon and this evening, which helped with the enhanced holiday homesickness that always strikes. It’s hard to be away from home. We’ve gotten pretty good at making joyous, festive holidays on our own here, but none of it diminishes our desire to be with our families. But although we’re missing home today, and saying goodbye to Jo makes that even harder, we had a great Easter. The boys enjoyed their Easter treats, and we all enjoyed a great day together. Frohe Ostern!
