Traditions

The words holiday and tradition go hand in hand much like the words peanut butter and jelly or Sonny and Cher. Whenever the holidays come around - no matter which one - a sense of nostalgia starts swirling through the air evoking memories that we both treasure and sometimes fear (enter 1980's photos complete with flowery dresses and full-on mullets). While many of the Easter Sunday's of my past are a bit blurry, I do have the very vivid memory of Sue and I at church checking out all the horrid snazzy white shoes that were dusted off in honor of this Spring holiday. I promise we paid attention to the important parts. :)

Traditions get tricky when you get married. Not only are you joining your lives, you are also joining your traditions and sometimes those traditions don't always mesh. Take Christmas for example. Ed came from a star tree topper family while I came from an angel tree topper family. The compromise? A Santa hat that has now become our new tradition.

Easter has been a bit tricky in the ways of tradition for us. When we were living in NY, we spent the holiday with Ed's family out in Staten Island. Even after moving to VA, we traveled up to be with the Mangiaracina's for the holiday. Then came James. We stayed in VA for his first Easter since he was so little, but went up for his second.

This Easter Sunday was spent here in VA and for the first time in a very long time, we found ourselves alone. Ed's new job and my wanting to save some PTO prevented us from traveling to NY this year and the Quartuccio's were down in Florida visiting friends and family. So, we decided that it was time to create some new traditions.

The holiday began on Saturday morning with some old fashioned Easter Egg dying. James was a first timer so we decided to cover all our bases which meant a big, thick, plastic table cloth and removal of the fancy chairs. He had a BLAST! It was a messy blast, but worth every bit of dye on the floor and his hands.  

Easter morning started early - what morning doesn't - with an excited little man who got some treats from the Easter Bunny. This kid had a basket full of toys and guess what he loved the most? The freakin' balloon! He did dive into the basket after the excitement of the balloon faded and found some awesome goodies including a chocolate marshmallow bunny, a Jake and the Neverland Pirate ball, bunny cookies, a Cookie Monster and a new dinosaur. Lucky guy.

After a yummy breakfast (thank you very much), we all got dressed and headed to the Easter Egg Hunt at Ticonderoga Farms.  We visited this farm in October during their Fall Festival and had a blast so we decided to give it a try.  We were not disappointed!  We arrived just in time for the egg hunt and James dove right in grabbing egg after egg.  He is a pro, after all, since he recently partook in the Little Rocky Run Spring Fling Egg Hunt.  He even got close enough to the oversized chick to grab a photo!

After the egg hunt, we spent time roaming around the farm enjoying all the attractions.  Some of James' favs included the log cabins, the many, many chickens and roosters, the jumping pillow, and the huge slides.  This time, we went on the hay ride and got an insiders view of the farm.  James' favorite part was when it went into the water.  He kept screaming "Water! Water! Water!".  

We also encountered the giant bamboo wind chimes for the first time.  O. M. G.  He loved them!  I think Ed may need to figure out how to build these for our backyard because the kid couldn't get enough.

Fun on the farm was had by all and was followed by a quiet afternoon and yummy dinner at a local Italian eatery. We missed our families, but were able to create some new traditions that James and a future sibling (some day!) will look back on with a smile.  I can't vouch that their fashion will hold up twenty years from now, but I can say that the time we spent together was filled with love.  Happy Easter!