Cherise's Creative Energy: Easter Weekend 2012

Easter weekend 2012 was so wonderful! We headed up Hwy 77 to I-35 for the 5 hour drive to Boyd...it sometimes amazes me how often we actually make this drive, but its always worth it. We arrived Thursday night in time to go to bed and slept in on Friday. Most of the day Friday we just hung out with Derrick's brother, Austin playing video games and basketball and 4 wheeling and playing with the new border collie pup, Hondo. Mostly just a day of relaxing.

On Saturday, we got up at a decent hour and headed to Bowie which is about 45 minutes away for Bowie Trade Days which is basically a mini-Canton. Several acres of booths with livestock, poultry, crafts, junk, furniture, food, etc etc. After coming off of Warrenton/Round Top weekend, we just expected to wander and not buy. The Ratliffs were trying to find some semi-grown ducks to use to help train Hondo. Well we stumbled across a trailer FULL of dog beds, some of which I recognized as Kong brand from Petsmart even though the tags had been removed. We asked the guy how much and he said "$20." Heck yes! We bought two...a dark red and chocolate brown one for our dogs. We then wandered on and came across a really cute cap for me. Then, we found this guy who was making furniture out of barnwood. They only wanted $15 for a beautiful bedside table. We bought 2! Then we found a guy with fruit trees and plants and he sold us 4 thornless blackberry plants for $4 each....we scored!! All of that for < $100! Then Derrick's parents treated us to a hamburger (for me), corn dog (for Derrick), and fresh squeezed lemonade. I definitely got my first farmer's tan of the summer, darn it! But it was a totally fun and relaxing day.

Saturday evening, Logan and Kelly came in from Houston and Linda cooked homemade pizza and lasagna and garlic bread for everyone which was delish. We then settled in to watch "We Bought a Zoo" which was really good and heartwarming!

Sunday morning, the alarm went off dark and early. 6am we were up and running preparing for the sunrise service hosted on the Ratliff property. Linda had been up since 3 baking biscuits and making sausage and gravy and setting up tables and chairs etc etc so I can't complain about 6! We lit the bonfire on the hill about 6:30 and waited for everyone to arrive. The service was short but sweet and then the eating continued....the service is also understood as a breakfast potluck and oh my goodness were there cinnamon rolls and sausage rolls and biscuits and gravy and fruit and juice and hot chocolate and so much more! Logan & Austin played biscuit football after everyone left and we got some great pics of some of my favorite people in the whole wide world.

Pre-Service

This pic is kinda scary lookin, but for some reason I really like it :)

Biscuit football!

Post-Service. Love these guys!

We then went home and napped til it was time to get up and get cleaned up for Nanny's Easter. And the food continued........ugh! It was all so awesome! For lunch we had, BBQ brisket, chicken, ham, mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, corn, baked potatoes, biscuits, and then like 6 different dessert options...and of course candy. Wow! I got full typing all of that again. All of the grandkiddos were there and the kids got to hunt Easter eggs...well kind of. Somehow a boiled egg had gotten dumped into the plastic egg bag last year and it ruined all of the eggs! So they ended up hunting candy and one prize egg each :)