lovely Easter

I have so much to catch up on, so I'll just start at Easter. Maybe I'll rewind, maybe I'll fast forward. Hold on for Charlotte's blogging ride. Man, school has been eating me alive. But I'm still alive. Pretty much. Last day of class was today--ShamWow.

And my Easter . . .

was stellar.

Emily and I exchanged Easter baskets on Saturday night (followed by a Brooke date to dinner at Red Robin and "Bedtime Stories" at the dollar theater)

My basket was awesome, complete with Coke Zero, dish towels, Burt's Bees, a Borders gift card, and more.

Oh yeah, and the creepy clip art.

I gave Emily a couple cute Target plates and glasses, and among other things a super creepy miniature lawn gnome found in the dollar (which has recently been more like the $2.50) section.


Anneli asked me to play my violin in Relief Society, and I had a pretty arrangement of "Beautiful Savior" prepared. I took out my violin to practice the piece a couple more times until I had to go to church, and much to my dismay, my D-string snapped. (Please, please, don't read that wrong. Ha.) So, no musical number in RS. I'm scheduled to play next week.

The best part of the day was going over to Michelle's. We ate dinner, talked, and played Cities and Knights of Catan with Max and Lucas. Lucas is quite the competitor--he completely betrayed Emily at one point in the game. He's ruthless.

The most important part of the day, however, was the opportunities I had to reflect on the Atonement and the Savior. What I love about Easter is that we have the chance to simply rejoice; it's important--essential even--to understand how we can and need to use the Atonement, how to take advantage of its all-compensating power; however, sometimes we need to take a moment and simply offer gratitude and praise for that miraculous power. That's what Easter is--a celebration.

It was a good Easter :)