We got home from Paris on Thursday night last week to find our new play set had been installed! This was quite exciting, and everyone played on it for a while (including the big kids) on what turned out to be a fairly nice night.
Easter weekend was pretty full — I guess a good thing since I didn’t have time to get tired! On Friday my choir performed a fascinating piece by Allan Bevan for the Good Friday service called Nou Goth Sonne Under Wode. (That links to a recording of singers at the University of North Texas performing the work.) It features orchestra and a soprano soloist and 8-part choir. It was written in 2005 or so but feels more traditional in parts. Not easy by any means but a good challenge to become familiar with this work! I have had chunks of it swimming in my head for weeks.
On Saturday our family adventure was to visit Holland Ridge Farms in New Jersey. We cut tulips and visited the Cousins Maine Lobster truck. Yum! Some members of the family went to see the new Harry Potter movie that night.
Then Sunday I was up early to make sure the Easter Bunny had come. This year, our first year in this house, we are creating various new traditions, and so the Easter Bunny decided to hide the eggs outside all around the new play set! Everyone was either up or rousted for a 7:50 a.m. egg hunt, because I had to leave for church at 8:15. I sang in two services, and so sang the Hallelujah Chorus twice, plus Randall Thompson’s Alleluia, and a brand new commissioned piece called Easter Hymn by David Conte. (That links to the recording of the service; the piece is at 57 minutes).
We were supposed to premiere the piece two years ago for Easter but that did not happen since church services had ceased happening a month prior. So the composer had been waiting diligently for us to perform it so it could be published and put out into the world! This was a very singable piece with four-part brass playing an old Easter hymn atop a rolling organ melody and the choir singing a poem from Christina Rossetti. Good stuff.
After that my whole extended family (well, minus one nephew) came over for Easter dinner. We had ham and deviled eggs and a bunny cake among other things. They all toured the house and the yard. And then when they left we just sort of crashed. I don’t think I ever got entirely reset to Paris time last week, but I’ve been pretty tired right around 4-5 p.m. every day.
This week has been pretty low key after all that — I should be getting first pass pages of Tranquility by Tuesday to look through, plus digging out from the vacation backlog. I went to an actual happy hour last night (a gathering of fellow alums in my area) and I think it was the first such event I have been to in a long time…
Very happy to know that you were able to sing the composed piece from two years ago this Easter. These things make me feel very happy. When I see certain flowers flowering exactly during certain times of the year, I am filled with hope that good things might take time, but they will always come.
@Kamala – yes it was a long wait but the piece did have its premiere!
I watched the choir pieces from your church service. It made me smile to see you participating – and kudos to you for getting everything pulled together for Easter after Paris!
Easter is mostly about faith services in our family, and I didn’t even decorate or plan a chocolate egg hunt. On Sunday morning I woke up to discover the kids had decorated AND hidden candy inside plastic eggs around the house for my husband and I. It was shockingly fun to do the egg hunt, and then I repurposed some eggs they had received from other sources (I don’t feel guilty about not getting them candy or baskets at Easter because other people seem to always bring them more than enough) and hid those for a small egg hunt. All-in-all, it was a success; albeit a bit surreal to have kids tackle the activities. To their credit, they weren’t expecting me to hide anything.
Now Christmas, I go all out…lest you think my kids are utterly deprived of holiday festivities 🙂
@Elisabeth – aw, thanks for watching! And how cool that your KIDS organized the hunt!