He is risen, just as he said.

I wish I lived every day with the joy that Easter weekend brings. With the joy of remembering Christ's Great Exchange on the cross, everything that happens on Easter weekend seems perfect. This Easter weekend was especially wonderful.

I took Friday off and spent the morning baking Hot Cross Buns, a traditional Good Friday dessert. We went to church at 2:00 and from there, to my in-laws' house for dinner and family time. The meal was great and CatchPhrase and Family Feud after dinner were a blast.

On Saturday, Husband and I took it easy. We went for a drive, stopped for some Rita's, and then I spent some time outside near the cemetery reading.

Sunday morning, I had Nursery Duty at church both services, but I managed to sneak to the lobby and listen to the sermon. After church, we headed to Aunt Ruth's house. OK, so we're too old for an Easter Egg Hunt, but we were intrigued when Aunt Ruth said she had been walking in the woods behind her house and found some old bottles. She offered some alternate footwear if we wanted to go bottle hunting.

The woods aren't quite green yet. They're pink. The redbuds cast this pink glow over everything, a filter of rosiness through which even the bare tree branches look cheerful.

And our hunt? Successful! I vote to make Easter Bottle Hunt a tradition!

But that wasn't even the best part of the day. Later, during dinner, a lone fly was pestering us at the table. Dad was trying to clap it between his hands over the cream pitcher. Husband was trying a method of licking his fingers, then holding them out and waiting for the fly to alight. No one had been successful. The fly landed on a napkin in front of Grammy, my 80-some year old grandmother. With a stoic expression and great aplomb, Grammy brought her arthritis-gnarled hand slowly down on the fly. Then her stoicism melted away and she looked up at everyone with a look of dread and panic. I've seen old people do a lot of funny things; I work with people over 80 every day. But this was possibly the funniest. Husband and I tried to get our laughter under control while Mom got the fly-bearing napkin out from under Grammy's hand.

I love Easter and the spiritual significance it holds for us as Christians. I'm also thankful for the earthly joys God chose to give us this Easter weekend. God is so great in how He cares about providing big eternal joys and little temporal ones.

Happy Easter.