A Very Long Overdue Easter Post

So... I have this thing where I think up awesome posts/events and take pictures on my swell nikon d40 to show you guys just how awesome everything was... and then 2 days later the idea of pulling out my camera-to-computer cord and like, plugging it in... let alone actually editing the 372480 million pictures seems like the most daunting and strenuous task ever. And so, when I finally do get all those pictures on my computer I find that half of them are random pictures of food or trips to the froyo shop from a month ago which are entirely irrelevant now. ah, well. I do have one collection of photos from my most recent upload extravaganza that can be lumped into a coherent post- easter pics!

So here ya go, a month late:

My parents came to visit me down in Tucson for easter weekend. It was so, so lovely to have them down there. On Friday evening we went to one of my favorite little italian places in tucson- vero amore. afterwards we got gelato at the most amazing gelato place in the universe which stewie and i were introduced to by our friend nicole and her boyfriend sam... I'm pretty sure we are forever in debt to them for it ;)

 mmm... I got rose and saffron and marsala wine and stew got chocolate mint and almond biscotti. soooooo gooood.

the next day we went out to tanque verde falls to have a little picnic and go swimming. It was a fun hike down and up into the canyon, although at first we couldn't really find any deep pools. we had lunch around here:

while we were hiking back through the canyon we decided to go past where you hike up to the road. we came across a group of semi intoxicated college boys and a totally awesome super deep swimming hole! the boys were jumping off a cliff into the water, and their faces when my dad climbed up to the cliff and jumped off were hilarious. they totally wrote him off as an old geezer and he totally showed them up ;)

after a bit the boys left, so i decided to swim a bit. the water was freeeezing but it was a warm day and it felt really nice.

that evening we had dinner at my grandpa's house and then stew and I headed home and then to the grocery store to get some things for brunch the next day. I had convinced my parents to let me take care of the whole easter meal, aside from them bringing some bagels. it was so, so fun.. even though i got like no sleep because i was cooking all night haha.

First and most impressively I made and absolutley beautiful and delicious braided bread stuffed with sweet cheese and fresh lemon curd. holy crap it was so good. and surprisingly easy!

i also made some really good and simple mustard roasted potatoes made with both red and yellow skinned taters.

I put together a little melon ball salad for something fresh...

and i also made a realllly yummy mushroom and spinach baked egg dish but for some reason I don't have a picture of it. stew and I had about 7 eggs to spare after we used them in the different dishes so we bought a little egg coloring kit and colored them (at like 3 in the morning) to use for decorations/place markers. I think they came out really cute!

hmm, what else... I brewed a pot of coffee bean and tea leaf jasmine pearl tea... it's so amazing and also so expensive.... love and thanks to our wonderful friend marby for giving it to us for christmas!!! we've been trying to ration it, it's so good. The beautiful tea pot I got from my dad for christmas and I use it like, every day. me love tea.

For decorations I bought a simple, plastic purple table cloth, some tulips, and some cadbury's mini eggs. You can see the extra colored eggs hiding in the tulips :)

Everything was so beautiful and so delicious and i was exceptionally proud of myself for pulling off such a pretty and homemade easter brunch. I definitely hope to host a ton more brunches in the future :)

my helped me clean up and then left shortly after. stew and i spent the rest of the day doing a whole lot of nothing, although there was quite a bit of playing with the bubbles my parents had brought us in a cute little easter basket full of treats.

and that was our easter weekend! it was so great and relaxing and full of great company and great food. so, um... happy easter? lol.

<3
Em