For the third year now Jarek and I have been spending Easter in Coloma, Michigan at our friends Teddy and Bonnie’s family house. Nestled in the woods, overlooking a little valley it has been the perfect get-away and back drop for oh! so many times and seasons. Easter up here though is the most magical.

This year we did exactly what we did last year:  we ate, we dyed and we hunted.

Under Sarah Steedman (Scrappy Nation) watchful eyes this time we we also made terrariums. Those and Sarah’s latest creations, very beautiful paper mache birds, were the center pieces of our Easter meal: 3 fantastic pork loins, following a recipe of ( who else?) Jamie Oliver…( Slow Roasted Spiced Pork Loin, on page 245 in his book “Jamie’s Dinners”)

By far the oldest and wisest kid in tow, Jarek joined us this year in stuffing almost 100 of those bright and shiny, not very beautiful but very very practical, plastic eggs with Easter candy on Saturday evening. He was no help when we tried to get him up at 6am on Sunday morning to start hiding those things in the woodlands…

Sunday morning went like this: after handing them there baskets we released the gang of young ones, Sophia and Charlotte, Estelle, Ruby, Sam and Ben into the wild. ( OK, we did not just “hand” them baskets. What I am talking about are Easter baskets lovingly stuffed with the goodest goodies, coolest little trinkets and anything Easter that ain’t candy we can get our hands on. We display these baskets on the mantel, where they find them early Sunday morning…oh the wonder! This keeps them busy for a while and then, just then we release them into the wild…to go and find those plastic candy filled delights that Ted without Jarek hid so expertly.

I also must mention that this year we dyed 78 ( !)  eggs, using rubber bands…a messy technique that did not turn out as Martha promised-but hey, it was still fun.