Yes, as Eric said it has been far too long since we have posted, and soooo much has gone on. I am going to break this up into separate posts so that I can get everything down. I don’t know if we’ve ever told you the real reason why we keep this website- yes, it is a good way to let everyone we love know what’s going on in our life, but more importantly it keeps us from having conversations in the future like, “Remember when we went to California for Easter and surprised everyone? When was that?” So for the Ellie and Eric of the future, here is a re-cap of the best Easter surprise ever (besides the resurrection and all that of course- haha) :

So it would have been our first official holiday on our own (reminder: my parents came down for Thanksgiving and then we went to St. Louis for x-mas) and on the Wednesday before, it really began to hit us. We had decided to try to make a big deal out of it, even though it was just going to be the two of us. As I pondered what to make for Easter dinner, memories of the past 5 Easters flew through my mind. Now you all know that Eric has a pretty big family, so you can imagine what holidays are like- lots of people and lots of food. Well, we didn’t have the people part, but I was determined to have the food part! I sent Maria an email to get the recipe for linguica and peas, and right after I hit the send button, I had a thought- what if we went to California and surprised everyone?! I sent Eric an instant message suggesting it, and totally expected him to say, “You’re crazy, we can’t do that!” but he didn’t! Instead he said “that would be pretty cool if we could pull it off.” And so the plan was hatched. Luckily the flights were really open, so we figured it was meant to be. We thought about surprising everyone, but I just couldn’t keep the secret from my sister- because it meant they wouldn’t be alone either!

The plan worked perfectly: we flew in Saturday morning, spent the day with Sarah and Jason and then went out with friends that night. On Sunday morning, we pulled up to Eric’s parent’s house at about 10:30 am and rang the doorbell like it was no big deal. Eric’s sister came to the door and screamed as we said “Happy Easter!” Eric’s parents were upstairs and came to see what Jessica was yelling about. It was so classic- when Eric’s mom saw us she screamed too and we hugged- and cried a little- on the stairs. It was so wonderful- they had absolutely no idea! After catching up for a minute or two we headed off to church, which is across the street from Eric’s grandparent’s house. Eric’s grandpa was standing in the front yard as we pulled into the driveway but didn’t even realize it was us until Eric got out of the car. When he did, he dropped what he was holding so that he could hug us and at the same time grabbed his chest. We were all worried for a second there that we had given him a heart attack, but luckily it was out of happiness. After more hugs and more crying, we went inside to see his grandma who said “oh shit” in english when she saw us! A little bit later we went to church and saw Eric’s aunt Gisela, uncle Daniel and cousin Justin. After church we ate lunch with the Alves side of the family and then went around to the Falcao side since they didn’t really have a typical Easter gathering like they usually do (a couple people were out of town- including Eric’s grandma Falcao, who we were very sad to have missed.) By then word had spread that we were in town so it wasn’t really much of a surprise, but still wonderful being with everyone again.

At around 6 we left Eric’s family and went back to Sarah and Jason’s house to have Easter with them and their friend, Pam. It was a really fun time and the food was very tasty! On Monday morning we went out to breakfast with some friends and then hung out with my sister before she took us to the airport. It was a whirlwind weekend but was exactly what we wanted- it felt like “old times” again.