It was our first Easter in San Diego, and we took extra care to try making it one of the best, despite all the shutdowns and restrictions with Covid-19. It was challenging, and we experienced a few more setbacks, but we were successful in making it a joyful time for our family. Alleluia!
During the weeks leading up to Easter, we spent time decorating the house, reading all our Easter stories and singing Easter songs.
On Palm Sunday we were uplifted by the General Conference broadcast for our church. I wore this dress with palm leaves on it and one of Grandma Robertson’s necklaces that resembled a palm branch. The boys played legos and conference bingo while listening to the speakers. It was really strange to see the speakers in a small room addressing the whole church instead of being in the giant conference center with 20,000+ attendees and the Tabernacle Choir. In reality, it wasn’t that different from our typical conference experience, because most of the time, everyone just watches the speaker. Some things that made it special were that we did a Hosannah shout as an entire church (the boys participated and thought it was cool) and we celebrated 200 years since Joseph Smith’s vision of seeing God and Jesus Christ.
We used starburst jellybeans for conference bingo. Yum!
In between sessions of conference, we took a nature hike on one of the trails next to our house. The spring wildlife was beautiful! I didn’t go the full trail with everyone, but sure enjoyed what I saw!
At some point during Palm Sunday, we also did a craft by making palm leaves out of construction paper, foam and popsicle sticks. Dallin also worked hard at making a donkey. We retold the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and talked about the symbolism of him being on the donkey, and of the palm branches and the meaning of Hosanna.
For dinner, Dallin was being extra clingy to me. I had Jeremy take a picture so we could remember that this was happening a lot during the weeks after all the shutdowns. Both boys were extra clingy, using baby talk, needing help with everything, having trouble falling asleep at night, etc. The life changes of quarantine were clearly taking a toll on them (and it continues to today as I write and post this!)
Jeremy got us a security camera thing for our front porch and had fun playing around with it.
Jeremy took a trip to the grocery store with the bike. He started to become the main grocery shopper in the family because shopping was too stressful for me with all the Covid shortages and new store rules and people freaking out about kids in the stores.
Here are pictures of us waiting in line for free school lunch on Monday right after Palm Sunday. About 70 cars stretched a couple of blocks, even in one of the most affluent areas of SD.
This particular stop was exciting because we received an unexpected Easter bag with eggs, Easter toys, and treats. I was really touched and overwhelmed by this kind gesture because I still wasn’t sure how we were going to do Easter bags and goodies this year. The stores were very unpredictable with what was available. Even Amazon was taking weeks and weeks to deliver simple products. Getting the goodies helped relieve these worries and assured us that we would have at least something to put in the boys Easter baskets even if there was nothing available at the stores. And yes, I cried about it.
After getting our lunch, we went to the beach. This time no one was on the sand. From where we entered, there weren’t any signs saying the beach was closed. We walked out to take a look at what was going on. Within a few minutes, the life-gaurd truck was pulled up next to us and they spoke through their loudspeaker to tell us to get off the beach. So we went and climbed on the rocks. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this really shocked Tanner because he felt like we got in super trouble and that I was about to be arrested. It has become a debilitating trigger of anxiety for him when we are at the beach or other public places.
We enjoyed our stash of school food. Each boy got their own shelf in the fridge to store their food, which lasted them a week at a time.
We had a delicious meal made by Jeremy.
This was our reality with keeping up in the kitchen.
The boys found comfort playing with their stuffed animals for a week or two.
Mid-day cuddle with Dallin.
We made lists to compare the symbol of the Easter egg to Jesus and His Resurrection. The boys remembered a lot about Easter that they had learned in previous years. It was fun to do activities like this to review and deepen their understanding.
Writing sentences based on our lists.
Dallin’s writing: I’m gonna tell you how Easter eggs are like Jesus. They are both [dressed in] white. An egg holds a snake. A tomb held Jesus. When Jesus came out of the tomb he had new life. When a chick comes out of its egg it has new life. Now you know why Easter eggs are like Jesus.
We made Easter mosaics out of fruit loops that I found in a trash can (in an unopened bag) at the school before Covid happened. We used cardboard from cereal boxes as our canvas and hot glue as our binding material. Super fun!!
Sister Soto made masks for our boys. These are the first masks they ever had! She used fabric for the ties around the head because elastics of all kinds were on back-order in every store.
Dallin enjoyed a bath one evening. It was very therapeutic for him.
On Weds or Thursday of holy week, we died Easter eggs as a family. This year we tried our hand at the power of rubber bands to help create lines and designs on the eggs.
Dallin was curious how Grandma Nana made pisanki eggs without cracking them to get the yoke out. So I tried to show him how the egg can be drained. After a few minutes of trying to drain my egg, it collapsed.
Such a cute kid, with a Xmas shirt, doing an Easter craft! 😂
I was 3or 4 weeks in to doing lessons online. There was still quite a big learning curve going on!
Good Friday!! A sweet friend from church made these hot cross buns for us!! They were DELICIOUS. Tanner and Dallin figured out how to play Hot Cross Buns on the piano. I also taught the song to a few of my students.
Later that day, we did our famous tradition of making Rice Krispy Easter Sculptures. Every year, we have made this a big deal and invite lots of friends. This year because of everyone being under strict quarantine, it was just us, and it felt wierd. Jeremy took pictures while Tanner, Dallin and I made sculptures.
Dallin made a cross, and use a graham cracker for the sign that was placed above Jesus.
The Empty Tomb by Tanner. The Last Supper Bread and Goblet of Wine by SarahLynn.
Somehow, I overstrained my back and couldn’t walk or stand very well. I can’t remember exactly how, but it was something lame, like standing up too fast. I had to chill out in bed with heating pad and ice as often as possible. It was pretty frustrating because there were so many things I wanted/needed to do with the kids for Easter, and a lot of it got dumped on Jeremy. He was also really frustrated about it, but he managed to get me a delicious meal from the fancy Italian place near our home on Friday night, which was lamb.
On Saturday, we did a little egg hunt in the private park on our street that the boys call Funderland. The plan before Covid was that I would help host a church Easter activity here. Instead, we invited our neighbor friend and his little sister to join us. I was so happy we could include others in this fun time. Being in week 4 of being in Quarantine, it felt SO good to have others with us to share some joy.
I filled most of the eggs. Jeremy and Ben hid them.
This is probably the most scenic egg hunt our kids have ever done!
The kids sat in the shade to open their treasures.
I sat on a big rock most of the time because my back/hip was in a lot of pain. The only reason I got out of bed was to see my kids finding their eggs.
That night we had our Feast of the Passover, aka the Last Supper.
(Yes, we know it is supposed to be on Holy Thursday, but it doesn’t always work out for us to do it on the correct date and we are okay with that).
The dinner turned out amazing!! I made the lamb in the crockpot and the haroset in the blender. So yummy! For the roasted egg, we just used one of our hard boiled eggs that we decorated earlier that week. Jeremy made the salad with bitter herb and lettuce and for the flatbread he put some slices of normal bread in between two reading books and squished them!😆
I tried to lay out the food on the table in the same way that it would be seen on a seder plate, with flatbread in the middle and the other foods in a specific order surrounding it. (Maybe we can get real seder plates for the future?)
The boys were really excited about the feast. Tanner remembered how we sit on pillows like people did in Jerusalem and how we don’t use silverware since they didn’t do that during Christ’s time. He helped get everything set up. Both boys were great about trying the foods.
As we ate, I showed the lesson/presentation that I made last year for our Passover Feast with friends. We all had only remembered some of it, so it was time well spent. And the boys stayed engaged longer than I thought they would!
I was so glad we could all have this meal together. This is literally one of my favorite meals of the year. We get to eat in a different way, try new foods and learn a ton of history and gospel symbolism represented in each dish. This is always a big highlight of Easter for our family!
That night, Jeremy and I filled the Easter baskets. I remember this feeling hasty. Usually, I have all their Easter items picked out well in advance, but all the uncertainties with Covid made that tricky. I think Jeremy ended up running to Target that night to get them a little random item. I also saved a few candy items that some of our friends at church dropped by, plus the items from the school gift bag, so that had us covered well enough! I threw in some toilet paper rolls that we found shopping a few days earlier because I knew they would be genuinely excited for toilet paper (we had a good week without any, so we used baby wipes), and I wanted them to remember this was the Easter when Covid-19 happened.
Jeremy had fun hiding the baskets while the boys were asleep. We didn’t do grown-up baskets this year.
The boys had fun trying to find their baskets that were hidden by the “easter bunny.” And they laughed at the toilet paper. Dallin loved the “NO” button that Jeremy bought him. Tanner really liked his bike bell.
The boys went on a nature hike to enjoy the peaceful morning.
Somehow we had Resurrection rolls with our breakfast! Dallin is showing the hollow inside, to represent the empty tomb.
We had a nice little church service at home. Dallin conducted the meeting for us. This was one of the few times during all of Covid that Dallin was really involved in our church service. Very sweet to see him excited to participate. For our lesson, we did the Resurrection Egg activity. The rest of the day was spent doing other fun Easter things. We watched videos of the Resurrection, we had a beautiful Salmon dinner to remember how Christ ate fish and honeycomb after he was risen, and we had a fun video call with Nana and Papa where we did the Jelly Bean Easter Hymn activity that I created last year.
Here is our Family Easter photo session after “church.” Amazing to think about all that had happened between this Easter and our previous Easter. And funny to think of how long ago this feels from today. My favorite part is their teeth!
During this Easter, we started to learn how important social interaction and church and just being with a village really is. We, especially me, were definitely mad at the circumstances and the decisions being made that were out of our control. Easter was a chance to get some respite from that and to draw on our Savior’s love and grace for strength. I know Jesus Christ lives and that He has overcome all. He will make all wrong things right. And that is why I rejoice!
