27 March 2016 - Happy Easter

The week was one of fun and worship. I spent most of the beginning of the week preparing for PURIM. The Jewish celebration of the story of Esther. Sister LeDosquet made the special 3 sided cookies that go with the celebration and I made rolls and brought Orange Juice. I had created props for the participants and brought "clackers" for the kids to Boo and Hiss when the name Haman was mentioned. I got the play off the internet and it was a Jewish narration that the people would recognize today ( they gave names to some of Haman's sons including Assar and Hussein). It was pretty fun. The kids seemed to have a great time.

Caden Wilkes was Haman and he did a great job in his 3 cornered hat. Amy
Mitchell was Haman's wife. Parker Welch wanted the servant's part. Everyone
else was a narrator or audience member.

Isaac Parks played the Wise man and Kjellden was
a audience member with a clacker.

Cody Hayward played Mordeicai and Nathan Lee was the King.
Brianna Stroud was Esther and Ashley played Queen Vashti

Friday morning after  Seminary, Stephen and I went to the temple to do some endowments for the names that they found in the family history files. We actually did the initiatory work for all those we had done the baptism work for first and then did the endowment for one person each. It was such an exhilarating experience to do the work for a family member. Stephen then took me down to the grounds keeper area. We talked with the 3 people over the grounds including Sean _____. That was fun. They said I could come anytime to help out. It was fun to see the plants that they used to make the grounds look so very lovely. It was fun to see edible plants in the landscape. Something I'm trying to learn how to do. I actually put in some chard and kale in with my flowers this year...

Edible Rainbow chard amid the bluebonnets and tulips.

Chard in the tulip patch.

The trees are budding out at the temple.

Saturday morning Stephen, Kappy and I went out to the location in Issaquah where we could salvage any plants that we wanted. It was very cool to go with Stephen and Kappy (even though her arm was in a cast). We saw a herd of deer and Stephen was able to get very close. We brought home ferns, more vine maples, mahonia, salal and we found some trillium. That was a fun find. It all had to be planted right away so we planted and watered everything we got for us and then went to Kappy's home to plant that stuff she picked out. We met her dad who had moved in the week before. He seemed very nice.

   Saturday night was Women's conference at the stake center. It was a lovely meeting with some refreshments after. I asked the Spanish speaking sister missionaries if they had a dinner invitation for Easter and they didn't so I invited them for dinner. They seemed pleased at the invitation. Since they are Spanish speaking they can go to almost any ward in the stake. Brian and Ruth were going to her mother's home in Canada for Easter so there wasn't a whole lot of us for the meal. We even tried Matt Belo but he already had an invitation.

   Sunday was Easter and Stephen was able to go to church with us. Samuel and I sang in the choir and  Rebekah played the piano. We sang "He is Risen" in a choir arrangement that was really different. I enjoyed it very much. 

   Vinay was able to get off of work for a few hours so he went to church with the Young Single Adults. He seemed to really enjoy that. He also enjoyed dinner.  ;-)

   We had dinner at 5:00 that evening. I cooked up a turkey breast and a ham (since Vinay doesn't eat ham), sour cream potatoes, green beans and asparagus, berry jello and both plain dinner rolls and hot cross buns for Easter. I also made banana cream pie and a sugar free chocolate coconut cream pie that Rebekah and I could eat without feeling guilty. It was actually very good. I was surprised.

The centerpiece was a purple oxalis and 2 orchids.

Rebekah added the "nuggets".