Catching Up: Nana and Grandpa Visit for Easter

Well, it's been about four months since I last posted! This blog has definitely hit a dry spell this year - it was a busy year with lots going on! But I would love to revamp my efforts to start posting a bit more regularly again, not because I have a large readership (wink wink at the grandparents, my trusty subscribers!) but because I like keeping this as a scrapbook of sorts for our lives. I have found myself checking blog posts to remember when we did what, or what age it was that Madeline started crawling, etc. Dates and details and timelines seem to get so muddled in my brain now.

So, here is my first attempt to catch up a bit on what we've been up to the last several months - starting with a Easter week visit from my parents.

Although late March/early April is still pretty cold in these parts, we decided to take a little day trip to the Indiana Dunes with my parents and Madeline. We stopped at a fun root beer stand that is owned by the uncle of one of our good friends called Carlson's. They have brewed all their own root beer on site for the past 65 years and it was delicious!

After we loaded up on root beer and hot dogs, we hit the Dunes! They were beautiful, and Madeline LOVED the beach. She was stuffing her pockets with rocks and digging in the sand!

Lesson learned - strollers don't stroll so well on sand. Thanks, grandparents, for dragging her out to the beach. :0)

We also hung out at some local parks while the grandparents were here - trying to get outside when the wind wasn't too blustery. Madeline was just learning how to engage all the fun park equipment, and it didn't take her long to be climbing and swinging and crawling through everything.

Easter day was lovely! We had great time at Easter Vigil and Easter morning service, and then Madeline got to experience her first Easter basket and egg hunt. 

She got pretty good at finding all the little eggs peppered around our back patio.

Love this pic of my silly girl!

And here she is, very concerned that she find every bit of chocolate in each egg. I think at this point the chocolate nibbles had run dry. :0)

On their last night here, my parents took us out for a delicious dinner at Flour and Wine, for yummy grilled romaine salads (incredible!) and brick oven pizzas. We were so glad they could come out for the visit - it always means so much to have family come spend time with us out here!