Preparing for Easter

What do you do at your house for Easter? Good Friday?  Holy Week?  Semana Santa?  Passover?

It’s a special time of year, and I had all sorts of plans to decorate, do crafts, bake goodies, etc.  You know, that stuff I like to do.  🙂  But this year it’s going to be all about family, and spending time visiting!  And not about food and decorations.  So I thought I would just post this with a link to my Pinterest board (see below)  where I have been saving up ideas for this time of year, then if you feel like checking it out, you might get some crafty urges 😉  While I spend my time talking and visiting!

Here are some ideas:

birds’ nest treatsand  Crown of Thorns cookies:You can find that post here.

For more ideas, super cute crafts and lovely bakedy baking, click here for my Easter Ideas pin board.

I’m sure we’ll make a few special treats and of course we’ll have a lovely time, but I’ll be so busy doing it all that I won’t be posting about it till much later!!

I hope that you have a very special Easter.  🙂

Spring is here?

So we’ve passed the first day of spring….and guess what we are doing…..here are some photos of what it looks like outside my front window.Can you see what this is?  It’s my son, making a snow angel….in our front yard.  Right beside him on the left side is the walk to the front steps and right above him is the sidewalk.Someone wasn’t too happy about shoveling the walkway….what walkway?There’s one under there somewhere….it’s no wonder we didn’t get any mail delivered that day….Still snowing….This is a photo of an elderly gentleman walking down the sidewalk to pick up his newspaper from the machine by the bus stop.

And so that is what our first days of spring look like here in Alberta, Canada.  How are yours??  Hope they are a bit brighter!!  🙂

Easter Traditions in Antigua, Guatemala

Could this be the most colorful Easter Tradition ever?  During Lent and Easter Week in Antigua, Guatemala there is some amazing color fabulousness going on!  Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is the time when Guatemalan Catholics take to the streets in Antigua and create gorgeous carpets made of colored sawdust, flowers and even fruit,  to show their devotion and faith.  Later on, processions of people carrying huge floats and led by priests will walk over the carpets.  You can find some history and interesting facts about these traditions here on Revue Magazine.

I don’t have any personal photos of these carpets, but have found a few links for you to check out.  Rudy Girón over at AntiguaDailyPhoto.com has some cool articles and photos of this season, and check out the Home page for up-to-date articles and photos about the Lent processions.

Here are some of the fabulous carpets (found on AroundAntigua.com):

To see some more, really awesome photos, check out this set of photos:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/brswanson/sets/72157603296294473/

Now that I am more into photography than I was as a teenager, I’d love to go back for Semana Santa and photograph EVERYTHING about these amazing works of art!!  Someday……. 🙂