This Year's Easter

It was a great Easter weekend, that's for sure! The majority of it took place in Maryland. Well, except for Friday. On Friday, my dad and I went to visit my mom's grave and then went out for dinner at La Madeleine in Old Town. It was quite tasty and felt really nice to just take it easy after such a long week.

Saturday was spent in Annapolis! You see, while living out in Salt Lake, I fell in love with the store Buckle. It has my "type" of clothes (minus the rhinestoned tops and jeans - not my thing.) Well, the Buckle closest to my house now in Virginia is in Annapolis. So, it was time to make the trip out there. It was a much needed shopping trip to say the least. I scored big. 


Also, have you shopped at Lush before? Lush is described as a fresh, natural, handmade cosmetics store. I walked away with some goodies from there as well. Don't worry - I'll be sharing what I got soon :)

Sunday after church, I headed back to Maryland to my brother and sister-in-law's home for Easter! There were bunnies:

And a whole lot of hanging out with my niece, Aubrey! Here she is after changing out of her pretty Easter dress.

And now for some better quality pictures. After dinner, it was time for Aubrey's Easter egg hunt! This was her first one ever and boy, was she a champ! 

Aubrey is a pretty good little model, if you ask me! She loved having all the cameras around her :) She found all 12 of her eggs and wouldn't let anyone hold her Easter basket for her. Such a strong girl!

The weather was beautiful and we all enjoyed each other's company. There were just two of us missing: my nephew who has been sick and stayed in New Jersey at school and, of course, my Mom. I sat at the dinner table trying to think what type of conversations would be going on had Mom been there. She was always the life of the party. It made me sad because this was the first real holiday since she passed away. I started to realize that this was going to be the new "normal." We wouldn't hear her voice or her laugh or get stuck in an hour long conversation with her just gabbing away.

The new normal doesn't have any pictures with her in it. It doesn't have any of her "signature" dishes to eat. It doesn't have her calling me to ask me if the outfit she wants to wear for a special occasion looks okay. It doesn't have her laugh or her hugs or even her being chased around the yard by a bee (with her swatter in hand, of course!)

She is missed. Terribly. And family is just not family without her around.

Cute story: My brother took Aubrey to the cemetery this weekend to visit my Mom's grave. They told her, "Say 'hi' to Grammie!" She knelt down and kissed my Mom's name plate :) Not even two years old and she knew to do that. Amazing...

I hope you all had a lovely and safe weekend and enjoyed what ever it is you do to celebrate life's little joys :)