There’s nothing like waking up the day after a snow day to find… that it’s 67 degrees and sunny? Yeah, Al Gore, we hear you loud and clear over here.

• Who: Everyone from Saturday plus Sarah G and Jeff, Matt and Gina (congrats!), Greg and Jess
• Where: Red Ridge Lane—North Conway, NH
• What: Easter eggs, James’ blueberry and banana pancakes, Steve’s latkas, mexican egg scramble, fruit, cottage cheese, coffee, bloodies

There are some holidays and rituals that we all secretly  miss from childhood. Certain activities that we used to look forward to every year and that sadly now, as adults, are totally off limits. Dressing up for Halloween, getting money from the tooth fairy, TP’ing your teacher’s house… and waking up first thing on Easter morning, NOT to go to church with Grandma, but to tear through a basket filled with enormous chocolate bunnies, slightly smaller chocolate bunnies and tropical flavored jelly beans, only to then tear through your neighborhood in search of hardboiled eggs, painstakingly colored with crayon and food-safe dye, with the promise of more cavity-causing goodness at the end if you’re able to knock your brother over and find the most.

Well this Sunday, it wasn’t just Big J who had risen, but the glory days of our youth! Let the egg hunt begin!

It’s awesome seeing people over four feet tall scramble barefoot through leaves, bushes, mud and brambles trying to find small bright colored objects haphazardly scattered around an absurdly large space. Out of nowhere, a competitive spirit spews forth from your typically mild-mannered, even keeled friends that you never saw coming. Elbows are raised, curse words are dropped, and the 4th grader who used to kick everyone’s ass in their inter-mural basketball team is suddenly back and ready for their second coming. And let’s just say that in the end, it was a true Darwinian test of strength, power and will, where only the strongest and most cunning prevailed. If this is Christianity, then sign me up!  

In our little world, however, Easter Sunday was about more than Jesus, or even eggs, but about combining faiths into a delicious multicultural brunch experience—Eastover: the celebration of resurrection, wandering in the desert, and pancakes (not K for P). Three kinds of pancakes to be exact. Thanks to Steve and James (and the help of a giant BBQ spatula—the only spatula we found in the house), we were able to bring to a close the season of ashes and matza (and our cabin up in North Conway). Shalom, and may God be with you.