19 & 20 April 2014 –
While I LOVE being an expat and learning more about the Chinese culture, traditions and holidays I also miss celebrating our "normal" holidays….like Easter. Sadly the big holidays just don't feel the same without all the anticipation and…surprisingly enough…some of the uber commericialization (yes, those holidays seem to be just huge marketing events in the USA but here they really don't exist). Plus, the employees don't get any time off for these special days…making them feel like any other day.
This year for Easter we colored Easter eggs and ate Easter dinner with friends. Dinner was actually a Rib-Off Contest (or a rib taste testing contest) between Mark and Andy. The end result of the contest? We were all winners as the ribs were OUTSTANDING and YUMMY! What a fantastic treat!!!
On Saturday we colored 15 eggs…some of them we used our tried-and-true "tie-dying" technique and the others we tried a few different techniques to create uniquely colored eggs.
I tried making a sticker stencil using blue masking tape. This is my LOVE egg:
Here are a few of our tie-dyed eggs:
The LOVE egg..the final product:
Our colorful 2014 eggs:
I also did a heart stencil using the blue masking tape. We also tried rubber banding or coloring eggs with crayons before dying them for different effects.
Wisteria! Blooming at a near-by house:
I love wisteria! So gorgeous!
Time for Easter dinner! Mark has been smoking his set of ribs all. day. long. MMMMMmmmmm!!!!
Ready to eat? Frances & her family, Jen & her family and our family all shared a wonderful Easter meal at Jen and Andy's house. And of course there's Andy's homebrew (beer). How perfect is that???