Happy (Snowy) Easter!

Happy Easter to all of our family and friends!

Our front gate

This is our second Easter in Germany, we were here last year looking for a house. It snowed last year too. So based on our experience, Easter is a winter, snowy holiday
in Germany.

We decided to go to our German church for
mass instead of into Munich for the English mass and I am so glad we did. Our local church had a full orchestra accompanying mass. It was lovely. Also, I had been disappointed that there wasn't a blessing of the food held on Holy Saturday. I had thought since many German traditions are similar to Slovak and Polish traditions that blessing of the food would be standard. I found out on Sunday that they bless baskets of food at the end of Easter mass, at least here at our little church in Bavaria. Although we didn't get our food blessed, now I know for next year!

St Ulrich

After church we did the traditional hunt for Easter eggs and Easter baskets with our visiting cousins. The kids were thrilled to find their treats and while some of the eggs proved to be challenging to find, I'm happy to report all 24 were located.









While the kids relaxed and hung out at home we took Tina and Dominic to Andechs Monastery and a little market on Ammersee, the next lake over

from our little town. The market was open but didn't have many visitors due to the snow and cold. We have now been to this market in rain, snow and on a beautiful fall day. Guess which I prefer? The Monastery however was quite busy. The ratio of church visitors to brewery visitors was very little to very many. The snow didn't keep anyone away!

We managed to prepare a traditional Easter dinner. The ham like at Christmas proved to be a little challenging. I was excited when I saw what looked like a typical ham in a grocery store flyer, what I didn't pay attention to was the size. None of the hams were bigger than 1.5lbs. So, I bought five. I'm sure the clerk thought I was nutty. They were delicious.

The kids have have been having a great visit with their cousins too.
While they were here I found this picture of the six of them from right after Rachel was born. AJ was four, Laura was 5.5, Rachel was five weeks old, Dominic was 5, Stefanie was 2.5 and Adam was 2.5. So very small! Now 12 years later they look a bit different and can all focus on the camera and smile!

AJ (16), Laura (17.5), Dominic (17), Rachel (12), Stefanie (14.5), Adam (14.5)