This time last year we were hunting eggs on the beach on Cape Cod, celebrating with Grammy and Gramps, packing for the big push to Asia… and, oh yes, I broke the axle on the van. This year we celebrated with the Kirk family, folks we found by serendipity in Malaysia and who became good friends when we were living in Thailand.

Friday was a beautiful day to hunt eggs in the wind sheltered corners of Wellington’s Botanical Gardens.

Saturday we spent making cream cheese mints, boiling and dying eggs and the children painted up some boxes we picked up as recycling at Pak-N-Save for their Easter baskets.

Sunday morning found us frying up apples and crepes, munching chocolate eggs and I cooked all morning while Tony read aloud and the children snuggled.

Easter dinner was with the Kirks, we ate all afternoon, washed it down with wine and a view of Wellington Harbour, and talked about big ideas, big dreams, an the little things that make life worth living. We really like the Kirks. They are some of the most interesting and intelligent people we know. He’s an entrepreneur and a big thinker, she’s part of the powerhouse at Google. How often does artificial intelligence, the next generation of power generation, language translation, robotics, the ratio of reading-to-look up that maximized enjoyment when working through a Japanese text, and the artistic use of the gerund in Indian English converge in one bottle of wine? Yeah, they’re fun people.

I haven’t written much this week

I suppose because it doesn’t feel as if that much is happening.

We’ve settled into a bit of a routine in our camper life. We’re balancing work and school with adventures in a way that feels like less of a roller coaster. We’re hanging out with friends, visiting the Te Papa museum (hands down the best in NZ thus far!) Walking the compact capital of the country. Enjoying fall in the gardens while the kids swing and chase around a playground. Creating festive holidays to make memories for the children. These are all very “normal” things. Things that feel like home, even though we’re far from it, in a geographical sense.

There are good things happening behind the scenes.

Hannah’s got two new classes beginning this week. Gabe is managing to get a few things published online. Elisha is recovering from having killed a laptop last week (did I mention that? Yeah, somehow he poured water into the keyboard of a macbook air… grrr) and is catching up on his math. Ezra is working daily on growing in patience and diligence, for which we are all profoundly thankful, and he’s been declared “ready to play in public” by Hannah, who’s teaching him a little mandolin. Tony’s got work coming out his ears. I picked up a new weekly column that will start soon on Boots-N-All. We bagged a rather big press deal that will result in my favouritest Uncle Dick joining us on the South Island in a few weeks. We’re happy, we’re busy. We’re movin’ forward. But, none of it feels that interesting! What would you like me to write about?

What’s going on in your corner of the world?