the bunnies and eggs are on their way...

Sitting on the tram this morning, I suddenly had a horrible realization about yesterday's post: I forgot someone!! Here I am worrying about having no friends and apparently I have so many that one can simply slip my mind?! OR writing past my bedtime is a mistake-prone endeavor. Or both. Anyway. Yesterday Christopher had a playdate with a friend we actually met long ago at the English-speaking playgroup when he was just a toddler. This friend's mom is my integration heroine - she came here as a young adult and married a Swiss guy and worked her way through the system to a normal (by which I mean in this case not-with-expats) job. She speaks the language fluently, they have two kids and live in a sweet apartment and go camping on vacation and...it's late again and I'm having trouble expressing this but essentially, when I grow up I would like to be as organized and together and competent and down-to-earth and just plain nice as this woman. She's got a lot going on, so we don't see each other all that often, but we did yesterday and thinking about our conversation gave me a nice warm feeling this morning, at least until I realized that I'd left a whole sort of important chunk out of my description of yesterday!

And while I'm listing friends, the psychiatrist (the reason I was on the tram this morning) is also in my lifeboat. He's kind of an awkward addition because basically I pay him to be my friend, but there it is anyway, he's my friend. We talked this morning, among other things, about hair. Caroline's hair, my hair, his hair, the parenting of hair, hair as a societal phenomenon...I never would have guessed that there was so much to talk about.

After therapy I took Caroline to buy shampoo and a fancy brush (a result of the hair discussion) and we went on a little tour of the chocolate shops of Zurich to look at all the bunnies. So many bunnies! I said we were only going to look, and not buy any chocolate, because we already have our treats for Easter. And I stuck to that, but boy it was hard. I wish I could post the smell of these places for you. Mmmmmmm chocolate.

The bunnies tend to be wrapped in shiny plastic and hard to photograph, but here is one of my favorites, a bunny in a cabbage. Isn't he adorable??

Teuscher had these amazing vintage-style egg tins. If by some miracle I am on top of things next year, certain people will be getting these in the mail for Easter. 

My daughter and the hair that started a long conversation. And another bunny. He's plastic but still cool.

After that it was time for lunch and Caroline had to go off to a religious education (like Sunday school or CCD...do they even still call it that??) thing and then to rehearsals for being an altar server tonight, so Christopher and I hung out and experimented with scratching dyed eggs as a decoration technique.

This is pretty much the pinnacle of my artistic talents.

Then we went to church to help dye eggs - more than 2,000 of them!! it's quite an event but they come out looking amazing.

Some of the many, many, many eggs. These get distributed after the Easter services.

This was my very favorite single batch, all peach and pink and purple.

Then it was time for dinner and the Holy Thursday service. Christopher and I got our feet washed. After the service we put the kids to bed and I went back to church and sat with Jesus for a while. I am completely falling asleep here, can you tell? Better call it a night. I'll do better tomorrow! I hope!