Tirana Easter(s)

At church on Easter Sunday, I wished the Branch President Happy Easter. His response to me was "Is Easter this week, I thought it was in three weeks." Things can get confusing here since 30% of Albanians are Greek Orthodox and celebrate Easter three weeks after the rest of the Christian world. The rest of Albania is Muslim, and they don't really go for Easter at all.

In an effort to please everyone, we managed to celebrate Easter about three times this year. It started on Saturday with the Pagan Easter tradition of painting eggs.

Naturally our kids were brilliant at it. (Addie not so much...hence no picture.)

After painting eggs, everyone went on the "driveway hellride", which consists of eight kids simultaneously riding unsteer-able and semi-broken riding toys down our 60 degree slope of a driveway. Miraculously, everyone walked away undamaged.

On Easter Sunday morning the kids searched for their Easter baskets, which that wiley Easter Bunny managed to hide in the most confusing of places.

Ainsley got a "How to draw puppies" flip-book. A major hit.

Ollie got a snap-together model of a 1967 Impala....how did the Easter Bunny know?

The Easter festivities continued later in the day with an egg hunt at a friend's house. There was plenty of candy for everyone and with Jen's help, even Addie managed to find a few, which she didn't hesitate to eat post haste.

Both Ollie and Ainsley made out as well, although their candy seemed to mysteriously disappear when they went to bed that night. The Easter Bunny giveth and the Easter Bunny taketh away.

Finally, here's a behind the scenes photo of the real Easter Bunnies who made the Easter madness possible. Thank you Easter Bunny.