The best Easter... ever?

I think it just may have been.
I have written in past years about the challenges this holiday usually brings for our household-- Greek Orthodox vs. Catholic traditions, not having any close family near by to celebrate with, our failure (?) to be part of a strong church community.  Unless we are in Athens for Easter, the holiday usually brings more frustration and disappointment than it's worth.  Last year I took the kids to a friend's place for Catholic Easter while C worked, and then on Greek Easter we skipped church all together and hit up a local festival during the day, just to get out of the house.  We had fun, but something was lacking.  Easter is a family holiday, a time to spend together and appreciate all that being a family means.  This year, finally, I think we got it right.

We spent the week doing Easter crafts, dying eggs, and decorating the house.

We took the kids to church on Friday for Epitafios and Saturday for Anastasi.

And today, through some serendipitous circumstances, we ended up hosting an Easter party with our very close friends from Virgina.  You know, the kind of friends who you call cousins, even though you're not really related?  It was awesome.

Costas has lived in the States for a long time, but he still gets very homesick at Easter.  This year he got to grill lamb, so he was happy (but he wished it was a whole lamb on the spit).

We did an egg hunt.  The kids got to be kids for a while.

And finally got a picture of the 4 of us-- who cares if the kids aren't looking at the camera? 

We were together and enjoying the day.  They went to bed happy.  Maybe this was the best.