Black and White Wednesday - "The Thrill of The Hunt"

We arrived home on Monday from our Easter Holiday on Cape Cod and I am now finally ready to get back into a normal routine......

Our holiday was wonderful! It was great to see and spend some quality time with our family. The weather was absolutely perfect......I cannot remember a more beautiful Easter weekend:)

Saturday we spent a good part of the day walking the beaches. It was warm enough to walk along the water's edge barefoot...... Sarah played in the sand with her beloved sand toys that have been hiding in Grammy's basement since we left them there in August!!

The only downside to our holiday was that Nick was not with us. If you remember, he went up with us last year, so this year he spent it with his Dad here in Pennsylvania. In addition to spending Easter together, they have a family tradition of going fishing on opening day, which happened to be Saturday, the day before Easter. So even though I was wishing Nick could have been with us, he was enjoying some male bonding with his Dad!! From what I understand, they caught a few fish:)

My computer is backing up from all the photos I have been stockpiling the last three weeks. So I am kind of working backwards......I figured I would share our Easter pictures first then work through some of the other photos from the beach and Arizona.



Here is a little group shot of the kids all lined up before the Easter Egg Hunt!! My Sister In Law goes all out when putting this together. There are lots of plastic eggs hidden all over her yard. She even hand wrote the kids names on these shovel and pail sets, so they could use those instead of a traditional Easter Basket to collect the goods. I thought it was a brilliant idea..... After all, we are on Cape Cod surrounded by beautiful beaches...it seemed so fitting!! The kids get very excited at the very thought of the big hunt....they all start talking about it weeks before Easter....and they all are dreaming about finding the golden egg that has a payout of $5 thanks to Grammy:)



They are supposedly listening to the "rules of the game". I think they were getting anxious to get out there and start searching and were already scanning the yard to map out their personal plan of attack!! Sarah is sitting between her two cousins, Kathleen and Tim. The two twin boys in the back are part of our extended family.....Som and Sean.....they are five years old and so adorable. I am just sorry that I didn't get Sean's face in either shot. He was hiding behind Tim and it was quite chaotic...... no time for posed shots when there are 100 eggs to be found!



Oh man.... my heart melts when I see these two together!! Unfortunately, because of the distance, the kids don't get to see each other often enough, but when they do get to see each other.......it is non stop fun for all of the cousins!

These pictures are so special to me......Tim and Sarah share a bond......the bond of adoption. Tim was adopted from Russia when he was just about a year old. Pat and I had just gotten engaged when Pat's Brother and his wife arrived back in the US with this cute little guy. It has been such a pleasure to see him grow up. He is a smart little boy......and what an entertainer....he is quite a character!! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a shot or two of them together. I love both the colored photo above and the black and white below. Leave it to Sarah to make a silly face....... she was giving her famous eye roll!!



Well, thank goodness for Black and White Wednesday's....they have been keeping me to at least one post a week, even while traveling, but I am back for good. I made my way to a few blogs yesterday for the first time in almost three weeks. I will be visiting everyone today.....FOR SURE....I PROMISE!!

Thank you all for the continued support by way of comments and participation in Black and White Wednesday's. The last couple of weeks have been somewhat rough......between family life, work, travel, photography, and adoption stuff......... I am juggling a lot of balls right now. I just had to walk away for a little bit to concentrate on what was most important. We have hit a few "bumps in the road" but hopefully with a little luck, a lot of hard work, and many prayers......everything will work itself out and this "long road" we have traveled will have the happy ending we have been dreaming about.