Easter Week & Assisi

We were pretty excited to be able to spend Easter in Italy. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that we saw a procession during Easter week where the kids marched through the streets carrying a cross and chanting the words to Ave Maria...

There were also some areas where beautiful flowers lined the narrow streets on Easter morning...

During holy week, I tried to write down important events from Christ's last week on separate pieces of paper for each day and hang them on the wall. But we sort of lost steam by Friday. I felt like every time I tried to have a moment with the boys to explain something holy and important to me, there was instantly something happening to distract them. On the Thursday evening, which would have been when Christ went to the Garden of Gethsemane, I took them to the olive tree orchard in our backyard and thought it would be the PERFECT backdrop to teach them simply about the Atonement.

I don't even know if olive tree groves exist anywhere close to where we live in America. So I brought them there and had some flat bread and water to teach them about the passover meal. I read some scriptures and started to talk about the Garden of Gethsemane when suddenly a cute little girl came running through the olive grove excited to play. Her parents had just arrived at the bed and breakfast and she was anxiously looking for friends to play tag with. My boys could hardly contain their excitement. I was able to keep them at bay while I finished one more scripture and then they ran off. Luke came back for a quick second to say, "Sorry Mom". Obviously he felt a little bad that he couldn't sit and listen to me any longer. Whatever, I tried.

But it was nice to walk around that olive grove and think about what happened in a different olive grove so many years ago. And the boys did have a great time with their new friend.

On Easter morning (Buona Pasqua) we had our traditional "hunt for the Easter baskets". We got both the boys giant kinder eggs that are a traditional gift for the kids to receive on Easter morning. I misread the price and ended up buying what had to have been the most expensive eggs in the store. But whatever, it was fun and the boys loved them.

Then we went to church. It is a very small branch. But I think they had some more people that day because it was Easter. I went to primary with the boys which was in a small room with 4 other kids. It was a little crazy because the teacher spoke English but 2 Italian speaking kids unexpectedly came. So another member came in to translate for the Italian kids. I think normally there are just two kids in Primary and they are brother and sister so to triple that number and have a lot of translating going on made it a little bit crazy. But we made it through.

After church, Andrew's boss at the hospital invited us over for a traditional Italian meal at her house in the country. But I decided to make that a separate blog post because this one is going to be huge as it is.

After the dinner, we decided to drive straight to Assisi (our poor kids...this was a long day). Assisi is home to St. Francis of Assisi who is a very famous Catholic Friar who wrote "All Creatures of Our God and King" and did many great things while he was alive. I really liked Assisi. It was beautiful. There were lots of people there for Easter and they were all very nice and doted on our kids. However, it was kind of missing the spirit of Easter for me. I don't know what I was expecting, but it just felt like a normal day (with more crowds than usual).

Assisi in the background. The church on the left juts out of the hillside. It is quite majestic in real life.

The walkway up to Assisi was lined with these bricks. I'm guessing these are people who gave donations. There were people from all over the world.

I didn't realize until I looked through my pictures afterward that I took LOTS of pictures of this church. It was just SO beautiful and the light around it was gorgeous. I think it might be my favorite church exterior in all of Italy.

a very real family photo

There was a hiking trail close to the church which led to a monastery where St. Francis gave some famous sermons. We were too late to walk all the way down but the trail was very pretty.

I have to admit, little Esme stole the show. Strangers showered her with complements. One woman came up and gave me some flowers and told me they were for my sweet baby. 

I wouldn't mind eating at this restaurant. Quite the view.

Panorama view

Lots of fun stores