Hoppy Easter

We had a busy weekend since Easter fell on my sister's birthday, making it a double whammy. On Friday we went out as a family to celebrate. We saw "Race to Witch Mountain" which was pretty entertaining on several levels (where does The Rock get a Haz-Mat suit that fits??). What was funny was that we didn't even realize that it was Hannah Montannah's opening weekend til we got to the theatre and it was overrun with little girls! They were everywhere! Too funny.


Afterwards, we ate at Steak n' Shake, Laura's been wanting to go for quite awhile now. For those not familiar, it has a '50s theme to it. They had these funny statues, I had to take a pic with them! I mean, Elvis rocks out with The Blues Brothers all the time, right?


On Saturday we dyed eggs as a family. Something that makes us a little unique is that we dye eggs using onion skins (no, they don't taste onion-y) in addition to dying eggs with food coloring. The tradition is traced back to my grandpa's mother and my mom did them as a child and we enjoy it too. Few people have heard of such a thing, but it creates a neat marbled pattern. I taught Sister Heaton how to do this when we were missionaries together back in the day.

First, you wrap your unboiled egg in dry onion skins (our friend in the restaurant biz saved us a bunch of skins):

and then you wrap it in a piece of paper towel or napkin, rubberbanding it securely.

Place bundles in large pot, fill with water and boil as you normally would for hardboiled eggs. You can add extra onion skins in the pot if you like. If you place unbundled eggs in the pot, they'll turn a pretty, solid brown.

When done, drain and unwrap your bundles.

and you get a pretty marbled egg!

Some turn out reddish, others more yellow. The bundling/rubber bands create the marbling. You can also use leaves and flowers as "masks" to create a non-dyed area in the shape of your leaf or whatever.

We also have fun dying colored eggs. It's fun to color with a crayon on them beforehand, but this year I just did plain colors. I did create a nice aqua egg by using both green and blue dyes.


My dad is such a ham:



and he likes to make funny eggs like this one- "Do Not Open Til Christmas":

And we fast-forward to Sunday morning. The Easter bunny was good to us, I got some ladybug stickers and a good haul of chocolate.

I spoke in Sacrament Mtg about Easter, also gave a lesson in YW about the Priesthood. Busy, but good time at church. Afterwards, we came home and hunted for eggs. Now, when you're in a family like mine where there are no little kids, it can be a little awkward when it comes to holidays and such. This year Mom and Dad hid the real eggs in the house for us "kids" and Laura and I hid plastic eggs outside for them to find.

I upped the ammo by hiding some plastic camo eggs! They blended in quite well!

Laura and I tied at the indoor hunt- 12 apiece:

and I think Mom won the hunt outside:

Dad had fun, too, though he was cold:

Another Chaney tradition is to play "Points and Butts" where you compete to see who has the toughest egg:

And oh yeah, it was Laura's birthday. Later on we had brownies and presents and what not, but while it was still light outside, Laura had to follow the string wrapped all over the yard to find her present:

which lead her to our storage container....
and a new bike was inside!

Laura is notorious for getting presents that I want...I didn't mind her getting a new bike but aqua is my color! And I appreciate retro styling way more than she does!! Hey!!!

All part of being a sister, huh? ;)

I'll leave with a quote from my talk:

"Jesus Christ is the very personification of truth and light, of life and love, of beauty and goodness. Ultimately, he is beyond human description; yet if there is one word that perhaps best describes him and his life, works, and death, it would be love. All that he did, including his death on the cross, was done out of love. He suffered and died for us because he loves us. He calls us to come unto him, knowing that in doing so we will learn of the Father who sent him. In Nephi’s words, “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him” (2 Ne. 26:24). The gift of his life extends to all, for he “inviteth … all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; … and all are alike unto God” (2 Ne. 26:33).


~Elder Alexander B. Morrison


The resurrection gives one a lot of hope in this life, I'm very thankful for Christ's sacrifice for me and my knowledge of the gospel. We had a really nice weekend as a family.