Easter Vigil

Two highlights from today:

Susan made jasmine rice pudding for dessert with supper (we ate tacos-in-a-bag--yum!). Wow, was that ever delicious: jasmine rice, milk, cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick, honey, cream, egg yolks, and vanilla. We ran out of time to eat it right after supper because we had to get to church, but it was a super post-church, pre-bedtime treat.

The other highlight was church itself. We went to the Easter vigil that our church holds. It starts with a mini-bonfire in the parking lot, after which we process with lit candles into the darkened church. We hear traditional Bible stories (e.g., creation, Noah, God's rescuing his people from slavery) told in unusual ways, and the girls were in the "Noah play" performed this evening. They did this last year, too. A narrator retells the story of the flood while actors play it out in front of the church. A man in robes is God, and a boy and girl in Biblical garb are Noah and his wife. Our girls and a couple other children were in (very over-sized) robes and head scarves, too, and had their duties: carry baskets of food and pictures of animals and plastic finger-puppets of insects aboard the ark (er, set them behind the plywood cut-out of an ark propped up at the front of the church). Cute!