New Blog Address

For technical reasons we have moved our blog to :

http://thetruckas.blogspot.com/

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Easter, Thanks to the Grandparents!

Celebrating holidays over here has been interesting.  One of my main complaints about New Zealand is that they don’t celebrate Halloween here.  Easter is celebrated, but it’s different.  For example, there are no Easter baskets, so we used big metal bowls.  Not so pretty, but the kids were only interested in what was inside them, so it was ok.  They also don’t color Easter eggs.  I couldn’t believe it.  Instead they buy chocolate eggs with lollies (candies) inside and have the kids search for them.  Like most other things kiwi, Easter is very low key compared to what we are used to.  No public Easter egg hunts, no Easter parades and it goes without saying that there aren’t Easter-themed decorations, toys or books.  Maybe there are in the bigger cities, but not here.  So, thank goodness for grandparents!  Everyone sent  treats for the kids.  Paul and Martha sent gifts for their baskets like bubble bath and Peeps.  It would have been a travesty to have Easter without Peeps.  My dad and Molly sent a package that contained an Easter egg coloring kit.  If they hadn’t, we would have had to boil beets  to make our own dyes, I guess!   And my mom brought Easter-related gifts like bunny coloring books and stickers.  She also brought the Easter dress I wore when I was 3  for Liska and we even found a 35-year old jelly bean in the pocket.  I felt a little sad that we didn’t have pretty Easter baskets.  It was strange to celebrate Easter in autumn.  And it made me miss the ridiculous Easter egg “hunt” we had gone to with Guillermo, Maya, Natalie and Will the previous two years in Chapel Hill. Each year the city covers a local baseball field with thousands of plastic eggs filled with the kinds of candies that no one really  likes, lines the  kids up, blows a whistle and lets them loose to trample each other while grabbing as many eggs as they can.  At the same time, it was nice not to have so much hype around Easter this year.  Instead, we had the perfect amount of Easter treats, thanks to all of the wonderful grandparents, and  a relaxing, quiet day together. Well, quiet except for the constant sound of candy munching.

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