Easter and Mommy's First Night Away

Easter is a rather busy time for our family. That whole pastor's family thing makes things a little crazy. About three weeks before Easter, Zoe started walking. This makes church a bit of a challenge. She wants to walk everywhere. She's not too ornery and she doesn't get into things at church, but she must walk around.  I wanted to let her just walk around in church on Easter Sunday, but she would surely knock over all the Easter Lilies and then wipe her dirty hands all over Daddy's white stole. Needless to say, we walk around outside of the church. She loves walking. She's getting more stable every day.

After church, I took Zoe home for a nap. She had been up for a while and needed a good snooze. I may or may not have caught a few winks myself. In the afternoon, we went over to Pastor and Stephanie Lorenz's home for a meal. We had a great time there with our friends. We even had an Easter egg hunt!

Here is a video of her walking on Good Friday.

Easter family picture.

With her Easter Basket

Happy to see a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD

Done with the basket. Is that a camera you have, Daddy?

Lemme see, please!

Really?

Whaaaat?

My girl.

Walking around...

Looking for eggs!

Thanks for holding my eggs, Daddy!

Titus found most of them.

Plastic. Yum.

This past weekend and the first part of this week I was invited to a lovely women's retreat by one of our members. We went to Margie's family's ranch. It was huge! I had no idea how big Texas family ranches are. It was so beautiful outside. That is the understatement of the year. The sky was a clear blue and there were huge white clouds. There is a huge porch on the ranch with big rocking chairs. One of my goals in life is to have a house with a porch so I can rock, sip wine and watch thunder storms. I met some fantastic women and got better acquainted with the women I already knew. It was a great time of Bible Study, fellowship, laughing, silliness, relaxation and cooking. It was possibly the best retreat I have ever been on. 

One of the things that I loved about this retreat was that the ages of women ranged from 28-84. I find it so refreshing to learn from women with far more life experience. Also, more often then not, they are hilarious people. The women with the most life experience were up until 1AM giggling because they were trying to take selfies. These women were simply fantastic. I want to be them. I am so thankful that I was invited to participate in this experience.

Goats!

Love these so much!

Gorgeous Sunset

This was also the first time I had spent a night away from Zoe. I was nervous in the days leading up to my departure. I made all kinds of lists for Nate and the others who watched her. Every time she was scheduled to leave home, there was a packing list. I was ridiculous. Being out of control is just not my style. I knew she would be fine. She had a great time with the Ruiz family who helped watch her while I was gone. She also had a fun time with Daddy. I did get a chance to do a Google Hangout (Skype) with them while I was gone. It looked like they were having a great time. Technology is a wonderful thing for a mom away from her baby. My wonderful husband also washed his clothes and cleaned the floors. He is fantastic. They did well and I didn't go crazy. 

Reunited.

That's all for now. God is good.