Happy Easter! - Part 1

Happy Easter everyone!

I know I can still greet you since it's still Easter, technically speaking it ends when Jesus Christ ascends to heaven :)

How was your Easter? I hope that you had a blast, just like we did. :)

As you very well know, my family flew to the Gold Coast over the Easter long weekend.

It was a first for me and my family since we usually spend our Holy Week doing and attending church services. Sadly, I wasn't able to do my online retreat as when we got to the GC we were on our way to our first stop, Seaworld. Well, being away from home didn't hinder us from attending to our Christian duties. In fact, it was an extra effort on our part to really sacrifice theme park time for church services.

On Good Friday, we had to cut short our trip to the Seaworld resort. After lunch,we just watched the Dora show (which Sam really enjoyed), checked out some kiddie rides for Liam, rode the monorail, and watched the Spongebob Parade. After that, we had to leave, even if we haven't explored the entire park. We promised that we will still go to church on that day and a promise is a promise. I bet most people will not do what we did, thinking it is absurd. With the very limited time that we have there, we might have opted to grab the opportunity and could have decided to stay. But we know our priorities :) After all, we have Easter because of what Jesus did for us.

Here are some photos:





















After the Good Friday service, we had the chance to explore Mermaid Beach and Surfers Paradise.

It was a lovely evening to take a stroll along the beach. The weather was great and the moon was full :) Too bad I wasn't able to capture the beauty of that night :) Not to mention that we were able to see and check out some of the outlet shops in Surfers Paradise :)

After our FASTing turned into FEASTing (thanks to the dinner we had with our other CFC bros and sis), we called it a day.

Another beautiful day was in store for us :)

Easter Celebration

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go...no, correction, our suitcase is packed. Literally, it's a suitcase! I thought my sister was joking that for our 3-day long drive holiday to Port Macquarie, I will be needing a suitcase, well apparently, she was not joking!

It was a bit stressful preparing for this trip. Well, aside from the clothes, I had to prepare the other so many stuff that we need in the trip, which includes the toys, First Aid Kits, etc. I'm glad it's all over!

Before we head off up north, we spent our Holy Week attending various Church activities. Thursday we attended the Lord's Last Supper celebration at our Parish, Mary Immaculate. It was a bit hard to consentrate as I had Sam with althroughout the mass. Today, we had Stations at the Cross at Mt. Schoenstatt at Mulgoa. After the Stations of the Cross, we headed to Tench Reserve and had a luncheon picnic with our CFC bros and sisses. The kids enjoyed the beautiful weather while playing at the playground. By 3 pm we attended the Veneration of the Cross ceremony at our Parish. Funny, but althroughout these activties, I kept on explaining to Liam what and why are we doing these things, because he kept on asking, "why?" -- the hardest of all possible questions! It's also a bit challenging for me as I need to explain these things to him within his level. Like when he asked, "Where is Jesus now?"..when I told him that Jesus was nailed on the cross. Well, I hope I was able to satisfy his curiosity.

Now, in a few minutes we'll be hitting the bed to re-charge ourselves for our long drive tomorrow. I pray that Sam will be able to endure the 5 hour drive (short break at Mackas/Mcdo so she can have a breather from her car seat and I can feed her as well). I pray for a safe and enjoyable holidays for our family. I think I really need this one.

But more than these things, I think I had a good holy week, especially after overcoming another trial -- finally letting go and realizing a lot of things...and getting the answers to things that have been bugging me and making me emotional the past days. Forgiving and forgetting :)

Have a blessed Easter!