You know those days where things work out so unbelievably perfect that you know your choices for what you did that day were guided by a source far greater than your own? I wish we had more of them. I wish I had the inner stillness requisite to feel those inner promptings all day, every day. I'm not there yet, but I am working on it. When we were trying to plan our Easter weekend, I was pretty stumped when following through on our tradition of heading to the Keukenhof gardens in Holland did not feel right. I wanted to push forward, but I didn't and I am so glad that I listened to that feeling of needing to stay here. The result was a wonderfully harmonious, pleasant, memorable, friend-filled Easter weekend that I know the kids enjoyed every minute of, and so did we.
Easter Monday was the perfect way to wrap up the weekend. It could not have gone better. The sun was shining, the kids were enthusiastic and excited about the surprise outing and we were all well-rested (which feels like a rarity some days around here..).
Since we weren't going to be in the Keukenhof gardens in Holland we still wanted to keep with the tradition of being in a garden so we headed to the Rhododendron park here in Bremen.
Of course, the flowers weren't quite in full bloom there, which was fine with us since we had figured that would be the case and planned to visit the Botanika indoor gardens that are nestled within the Rhododendron park.
The kids (and us) were pleasantly surprised when they learned that there were chocolate eggs hidden throughout the garden that they could find. So with baskets in hand, we set out to explore the lovely flowers.
They even had some animals that we could visit! Bunnies, hens, roosters and even tiny, freshly born baby chicks. What a great chance to talk to the kids about new life!
The kids loved visiting the animals. And we loved the amazement on their little faces.
Though, that said, neither of the children were particularly keen on petting the bunny.
Jason did though :).
Atticus was more concerned with celebrating his success of finding the first chocolate egg. Yep, he's pretty excited.
The flowers inside were stunning. Atticus asked about the types of flowers and Milayla loved finding out the different colours of each flower.
They had the place set up in a nice, adventure sort of way like we were exploring the lands that these flowers come from. Anyone up for heading to Burma?
What about Mt. Kinabalu?
Pretty sure that we explored every nook and cranny of that place.
And just when we thought we were done it turns out that there was a wonderful little science centre/museum building to finish it all off. It was perfect, with lots of interactive learning centres. And when it was all said and done, Atticus could not resist asking for a rolled coin with flowers on it. He is starting quite the little collection of coins from places we have visited.
Milayla was pretty content to keep exploring while Atticus rolled his coin. I love watching Milayla run around, it is so cute.
Before we headed off we sat down with the kids for a few minutes and talked about why being in a garden on Easter weekend can remind us of the Saviour. It was a nice, little chat.
And with that we were headed back to the bikes (snacks in hand) for a sunny ride home.
I really cannot emphasize enough how much we enjoyed this outing or the rest of our Easter weekend. It was special for us, yet nothing over the top or too complicated. The kids really enjoyed it and were able to grasp more about the spiritual aspect of Easter as they learned about Jesus and we were even able to share it all with friends. I'm so grateful we listened to that gentle prompting to change our plans from the usual outings this year, because what resulted was an Easter experience perfect for our family and has us all feeling a little bit closer to our Saviour and looking forward to next year. I love Easter. And, most importantly, I love my Saviour.
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