Easter weekend

My long Easter weekend away from the office is coming to an end. It's been a lovely five days, marked most notably with the subsiding of the all-day nausea I was experiencing for weeks prior.  That made the time at home even more enjoyable!  I still benefit greatly from a daily nap, which happened occasionally...it's hard to fit one in when there are so many exciting things happening! We packed a lot into those days and so I'll let pictures do most of the telling, with some short captions to hopefully fill in the gaps!

I'm not sure the girls stopped smiling between the time they left home and two days later when they returned.  The two-night sleepover was a huge hit for all involved!

I enjoyed getting reacquainted with some plants - had our first nettle, garlic chive, perennial leek and winter cress sauteed with eggs.  Delicious!  I also have been making alfalfa, nettle, mint tea daily (maybe that is why I'm feeling better?) and have cleavers, chickweed, violets and dandelion infusing in apple cider vinegar.  The latter two items are supposed to be particularly good for me and Spark!

Easter morning hike to Hensley's Pond with the Tangly Woods crew!

Relaxing by the pond...

We were all ready for a hearty brunch upon our return!!

The afternoon festivities with aunts and grandparents began with Alida receiving a very silly book that had to be ready first by Grandpa.  Lots of giggles followed...

Then there were Easter eggs to find...

...and some (like the one with Alida's allowance in it) have still not been found...

(the spacing here is not intentional - I'm done fighting the the format of this blog to make it look pretty...)

The other major event of the evening was Kali and I both donating 10-12 inches of our hair in honor of Grandma's/Mom's 12th transplant birthday.  Here's the blow-by-blow!

With all the other happenings we didn't get around to dyeing eggs until the day after Easter!

None of us were ready to see Grandma and Grandpa leave - we were all a little spoiled after having them both around for a good part of a week!

Just showing off a little of Spark's progress...  He/she gets a lot of hugs, kisses and pounces (the latter doesn't feel great for the one housing this little one) from Alida!

One of today's tasks - a biochar burn for our new compost pit...

Thinning our glorious overwintered spinach; part of our daily diet currently!