9th Anniversary Surprise!

My hubby is the greatest!!! I've been wanting a new washer and dryer for a while now. 

6 people in the family + a dryer that takes 3 hours to dry one load of clothes = one busy mamma (well, one busy dryer anyway)

So my plan was that I would save up money, from Easter, Mother's Day, our Anniversary, Christmas....until whenever.  I asked Peter if I could just have the money he would spent on presents for me and I would save it to buy a new washer/dryer. He thought this was a bad idea because he likes getting me presents and it made me sound "like a Jr. Higher", but he agreed. 

However, my wonderful hubby ruined my money saving plan. On our 9th Anniversary (May 13th), which happened to be a Bible study night, he surprised me! As soon as our whole HFG sat down, Peter was explaining the Great GPS Race, we were picking teams, figuring out the GPS's and then we were off. Peter's race led us on a lovely, rainy tour of Lakewood from Solo Point to the first schoolhouse in Lakewood. Our team won!! And when we got back Peter had Martinelli's and champagne and an ice cream cake!  Then he asked me to get the hors d'oeuvres off of the dryer and I screamed when I saw them - My brand new GE, energy efficient,  high capacity washer and dryer. AAAaaaaa! My Pop and he had been installing them while we were off "racing". 

It was a great Anniversary! I love my hubby. 

 Our team at Solo Point: Me, Crystal, Kim, Joe, Travis

Peter explaining how to use the GPS's

Me and the greatest hubby in the world.

Me being surprised

Our team at the last stop - yah, we knew we won.

Passover

Passover was techniquely April 8-15. I wanted to have Passover, but it wasn't coming together. (Actually, I was banned from having it so I didn't become a crazy person.) My parents came up to fix up one of their rentals and stay with us May 11-15 and my mom found a great Jewish law about how if someone in your family comes in contact with a dead body their family is allowed to have Passover a month later. This was perfect! We would actually be following real Passover rules. I tried to be Kosher, but I mainly just wanted our family to be able to experience a Passover meal like Jesus did. 

We had so much fun! It took us all day to set the table on the floor, cook the Kosher Salt Encrusted Prime Rib, and make the Kosher Gateau au Chocolat Cake. The kids loved making the Charoset for the Sedar plates, scroll name tags and Matzoh Buttercrunch. Their favorite things about the actual Passover was eating on the floor, all the grape juice they could drink, washing your hands over and over with the wash basin and the Baytzah (the egg). They did not care for the Karpas (parsley dipped in salt water).

I'm sure our Passover was very different from a real Jewish family's. For one, we kept relating everything to Jesus. Also we used a book about Passover which was written for little kids to understand and led us step by step through the Passover rituals. I hope we are able to do this every year. But Peter is going to have to keep in contact with the DOA's in April, because May was a way less stressful month for Passover.