Easter

This is a few weeks late but I had to post about our fun Easter with the fam.  It was so much fun spending time with Nick's parents and brother's family up in Seattle.  Kevin and Nanci have such a cute family!  It makes me so excited to have our little one and more!

Easter was such a beautiful day to celebrate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  I am so grateful for his sacrifice so that I can be made clean through his atoning sacrifice.

After we got home from church on Easter we snapped a few cute pictures and then Nick and I hid the 200+ eggs all over the backyard.

After our delicious Easter dinner (lamb with mint jelly, potatoes, rolls, asparagus, salad) the kids began the hunt.  Kevin and Nanci's youngest was not interested in finding eggs at all.  He just wanted to play with all of grandma's toys!  Grandma had us hide 4 gold and silver eggs really hard and each had a dollar in them.  The kids tried really hard to find them and were so excited when they got one.  As you can see from the pictures Brooks was really proud of himself for getting a golden egg (he is holding it up, showing it off). 

After the egg hunt and some yummy dessert we all goofed off in the living room as Grandpa Dueck entertained us with his musical talent on the organ and accordion!  It reminded me of when I was a kid and my siblings and I would dance around in our living room to one of us playing the piano or just a CD.  Joseph was fascinated with Grandpa's instruments!  Probably because they both had a billion buttons.  (I messed around on the organ a little bit too and actually found it quite fascinating!  I could only press the foot peddles with my toes though #shortpeopleprobems.  After I have the baby and I'm not working anymore and dedicate more time to learning the hymns I might try picking up the organ!)

The boys love Nick and always want to talk to him about the video game "Final Fantasy". (Sometimes they even call him to ask him how to get past a certain part!)

Is this just so cute!

This is Nick's old accordion from when he learned to play (he doesn't play anymore, but I'm thinking he should start up again!  It is such a beautiful sounding instrument and you can play so many varieties of music).  James got pretty interested and is going to start taking lessons from Grandpa!

And here is Mae!  She has gotten really into gymnastics within the last month and taught herself from watching YouTube videos (she said a good search is "eight year old doing gymnastics").  She made this routine up all on her own!  She asked me for some cool new moves so I told her about one that I did when I took gymnastics back in the day.  It's a backward somersault to a handstand.  She can almost do it but she said she would "master it" and show it to me at our family reunion in July.  She is such a cute girl and I think it is awesome that she learned it all on her own!

Pike's Place Market

For Easter weekend we took a trip up to Washington to visit Nick's family.  It is always so much fun to be with family whether we are playing, discovering new places, eating, or just having great chats.  I am so grateful to have married into such a great family where I feel right at home!

Our first day there we first renewed Nick's license and the rest of the day we got to chill with Nick's dad.  We ran some errands and picked up some delicious beef jerky from a  local butcher.  Nick was really excited about that (he loves meat!).  We then took a drive through the country side.  Washington is truly beautiful with the green grass and trees, lush mountains, and sparkling blue water.  When we got back Nick's mom and I went to the outlet mall to shop for baby things!  We went for the purpose of getting a gift for Nick's friend since childhood (Austin) a baby gift but we found such a great deals that Cathy insisted we get a few things for my baby too.  She is so sweet!  We all then met up with Nick's brother and his wife (Kevin and Nanci) who live in town and we all went to dinner at Nick's favorite restaurant here Mez Cal and had a fun time chatting there.

On Saturday it was so beautiful out!  It was like 70 degrees without a cloud in the sky!  Every time I have come to Seattle the weather has always been beautiful (not rainy everyday like everyone thinks).  Kevin and his family came with Nick's parents and us to Pike's Place Market in downtown Seattle.  It was pretty crowded but still fun and we got to see some interesting things/people.  Right when we got down there and were trying to park a person came up to us trying to get us to pay him for parking when you really just put your money in a machine.  Nick's dad knew right away that he was a scammer and didn't even roll down his window.  The guy went up to Kevin's car and Nick's dad yelled across the lot "he's a scammer!"  The guy then backed away and even left the lot.  

Nick's family introduced me to piroshkys four years ago when I first came out to visit them.  The best ones are the smoked salmon piroshkys!  It is a pastry filled with ground up salmon, cream cheese, and spices and is so freakin good!  We had to wait in line for over 30 minutes to get some but it was worth it! I am going to try to replicate them.  They also make dessert ones and Nick and I got the apple cinnamon roll which was also pretty good.

Raw Salmon Piroshky 

All the various yummy pastires

Nick on his 2nd salmon piroshky

It was a great lunch!

Close up of the delciousness

It's in the shape of a fish!

Us in the crowded Pike's Place Market

Those lobster tails are huge!!!

Here is a fun video of fish throwing!

So many beautiful flowers!

It was a perfect day!

The water is sparkling!