Easter is not just about the candy, people

Maggie looked around in awe. She didn't think it would actually work, but it had. "Jon? Stephanie? Hannah?" she called out, trying to see through the crowd. No one answered, and that fact troubled her. She took a deep breath and took in her surroundings a bit more. She was on a busy road with people and animals all around her. The air smelled like a farm with too many people working on it mixed with a sweet smell she couldn't identify. Upon further inspection, she realized she was in an outdoor market of sorts.

"Out of the way, child!" a woman yelled, pushing Maggie towards a stand with some sort of pastry being sold on it. It was then that Maggie realized she was hardly dressed for the time and place she was at. She was wearing her t-shirt, shorts, and Crocs, while everyone here wore a long coat over what she thought to be a very boring dress. She knew where she was, she just hadn't expected to be there.

"Baklava, child?" a voice asked her from behind. Maggie turned around to look and realized the speaker was a rather round man with a beard and hair that shrouded his whole face. Maggie glanced down at the pastry he was holding out to her and shook her head.

"No, thank you," she said softly. She began moving down the street, keeping an eye out for her friends. Eventually, she walked far enough to come to a quieter part of the city. She stopped and sighed, thinking about how hot and thirsty she was here. There were trees here and there, but mostly the surroundings consisted of brick houses (and not the type of brick she was accustomed to) and sand.

"So, this is Israel, huh?" Maggie murmured to herself, looking around again. Suddenly, two women came running down the road towards her. Following them a little ways was a young girl...wearing a pink tank-top and shorts. "Hannah!" Maggie yelled, running past the two woman and up to Hannah.

"Maggie, I just saw the COOLEST thing EVER!!" Hannah exclaimed. She was easily excited, so Maggie didn't think whatever it was could possibly be that spectacular.

"Yeah, what was that?" Maggie asked as the two continued walking in the direction Hannah had been running.

"An angel! A real, live angel!" Hannah exclaimed and Maggie stopped right in the middle of the road.

"What?" she asked, unable to comprehend this piece of information.

"I was just at the tomb, and the stone was all rolled away, and there was an angel there that told the women to go and tell the disciples that He's risen, just like He said!" Hannah was practically bouncing with excitement, now. "We have to keep going, come on!" Maggie began running along side her friend, wishing she had been there to see such a thing.

"Hey, have you seen Jon or Stephanie?" Maggie asked, panting, as they turned a corner.

"Stephanie stayed behind with the other Mary, but I haven't seen Jon." Hannah replied quickly. They caught sight of the two women just as they entered one of the many stone buildings. They ran up to one of the windows and crouched outside of it.

"The stone was rolled away, and an angel was there, telling us that He's risen!" one of the women said.

"What?" the voice of a man asked in disbelief.

"I saw it too, I did!" the other woman exclaimed. There was the sound of people and things moving around before the door burst open again. A man ran out and down the street where the women had just come from, followed shortly by another man, who was followed by a boy in shorts and a t-shirt.

"Jon!" Maggie gasped. "Come on!" she said, chasing after them. She and Hannah followed the two men until they came to a stop in front of a cave with an enormous stone next to it. Jon stood behind the two men, staring up at the tomb. Maggie couldn't help but stare as well. Hannah bent down to the ground and picked up a small rock. She threw the rock at Jon's back, hitting him.

"Ow!" the two girls heard him say as he spun around. Jon saw Maggie and Hannah and ran over to them without the men noticing. They were going into the tomb, anyways.

"I wondered where you two were..." Jon said, frowning at them.

"I was thinking the same thing, big brother." Maggie said with a smile. "Now all we need to find is-"

"Psst!" the three kids turned to see another girl standing behind a tree a ways away. Their faces lit up as they dashed towards her.

"Stephanie!" Hannah said, hugging her older sister.

"Yeah, nice to see you too," Stephanie said, untangling herself from the hug. "You are not going to believe what I saw!"

"An angel?" Maggie asked.

"Who said Jesus had risen from the dead?" Jon finished. Stephanie's happy expression faded for a moment.

"Guess what else I saw..." she said, lowering her voice. The three other kids leaned in a little closer. "I saw Him! Jesus!" she whispered excitedly.

"No. Way." Hannah said, her eyes widening. Stephanie nodded so hard it looked like her head just might fall off of her shoulders.

"He is risen..." Jon breathed. Maggie's mind spun. She wanted to see the angel, the look on the disciple's faces when they heard the news, but most of all...she wanted to see Jesus. Instead, she had been saying no to baklava, whatever that was... She blinked her eyes a few times to hold back the tears she suddenly felt there.

"Are you okay, Maggie?" Hannah asked. Maggie nodded quickly, looking away. The two men were now exiting the tomb and running back to the city from where they had come.

"Should we go back with them?" Jon asked.

"I guess so," Stephanie said in reply. The group began following after the two men, but Maggie lagged behind. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed. Why did she always miss the exciting things?

"Worry not, child," Maggie heard a voice behind her for the second time today and wondered if she was about to be offered more baklava. "You are blessed, because even though you do not see me, you still believe I am here." Maggie's eyes widened and she spun around. No one was there. She glanced down and saw, on the ground, a square of baklava sitting on a small piece of paper. She picked up the two things and put the paper in her pocket, then proceeded to put the baklava in her mouth. As she began tracing the footsteps of her friends, she decided she liked baklava...

And she most certainly liked finding out that He had, indeed, risen from the grave.

More pictures!

These are my dolls! This was at a mother/daughter tea party we had at our church. Mom and I decorated, and this was part of the decorations! Aren't they cute? Having their own little tea party!

Here they are with the flowers and food on their little plates...

Mmmmmmm...this was the food for the actual people. These were the "cold" trays that we had. We also had trays with hot food on them. Man, that was good...

And THESE are the desserts. These were better than the real food. Mom made the little things with the strawberries on them. And the yellow lemon squares. *starts drooling* I wish we had brought more food home... Oh, and I helped plate the food. :D Looks purty purty, don't it?

Oh yeah, we had a LOT of food. There were a lot of people there. People from two churches! *sigh* good times...

NO, I DID NOT DRAW THIS. I merely colored it. :) Angel wanted someone to color it for her, so I used my colored pencils and did it. :D It was fun to do, but the camera kinda takes out some of the cool shading I did...

I don't know if she's Faith, Hope, or Peace...

Okay, here's the full story. The other day, me, Cody, and my baby brother (he will now be named Guy, just because I'm sick of writing "baby brother") went to our grandparents house. Cody and grandpa started cleaning up around the outside of the house while me, grandma, and Guy took a walk out to take the trash/composteystuff/whatever out to where it was supposed to go. When we got back to where the other boys were, we went over and started talking to them. We talked for a little then grandpa said, "[Cody's real name here] is a home wrecker!""Did you get a wasps nest?" Grandma asked."Nope." Grandpa said."Bees?" "Nope." "It wasn't hornets?" "Nope." "...was it a nest?" Grandma asked a little quieter. If it had been bees or hornets or wasps, I wouldn't have felt so bad...but a bird's nest...? "Yep. You know that piece of metal we found that had come off of the side of the house? Well, we found where it came from, and a bird had gone in there a built a nest. I went and pulled it out-it was a pretty good nest, in a really good spot, really warm in there-and there were three eggs in it." Grandpa explained. By this time, grandma and I were all ears, but Guy was still goofing off and just talking up a storm. We weren't paying much attention to what he was saying, though."I kept pulling brush out of there, and a forth egg rolled right out! I didn't realize it was there, and it hit the ground and broke." Grandpa continued, and I felt a little bit of a pain for the mama bird. I mean, it's just sad...isn't it?"Where are the other eggs?" Grandma asked."In the barn," Grandpa replied."Well, get out the incubator!" Grandma said this a couple times with much determination. Grandpa shook his head."Was it ours?" He asked rhetorically. Grandma sighed."No, it was the schools..." My spirits dropped again. What was gonna happen to those little eggs?"How far along were they?" Grandma asked to grandpa and Cody."Now sure...did you see anything in that egg that fell?" Grandpa asked Cody."I think a little bit..." Cody replied uncertainly. The conversation kept going with us trying to figure out what to do with the eggs."Can we go look at them?" I asked finally."Yep, they're right in on the counter in there." Grandpa said with a nod of his head. We all got up and went into the barn, which was a short walk away from where we had been sitting. Cody and I went in and walked right over to the eggs, which were a light turquoise and oblong in shape. There were three there. I picked them up and looked at them. They had cooled down a bit, it felt like... We looked at the eggs and noticed one had a small dent in it. When we showed it to grandma, she knew it wouldn't grow into a bird at all. I wrapped the eggs up in a light blue washcloth that grandpa handed to me and I put them in my hands. I tried to keep them as warm as I could, and me-the frozen handed girl- actually got those eggs pretty warm! When grandma did see the dented egg and told us it wouldn't survive at all because it's space had been invaded, she opened it up and looked inside. Sure enough, there was actually a little white dot in there. The beginning of a baby bird.When we came home, we had the eggs. There was a nest nearby where we do our schoolwork and where mom works. We compared the eggs to those that we knew were robin's eggs for a fact, and our eggs were bigger and a different shade of blue. But after doing some research, we found that they were still robin eggs. We kept the eggs at our house over night, wrapped in a washcloth and a towel and put under the small lamp in my room. Then, this morning, we took them to the other nest. Mama Robin hasn't seemed to mind them, but I just hope that the two little eggs will grow up to be little birds.

And then...about a week later...

UPDATE: Okay, guys. Here's the update: Today I went to check on the nest because I looked out the window and saw a little bit of blue and knew she wasn't on it, but when I went out and looked at it, there was only one egg in the nest! The others were on the ground! I saw four of the five that should have been on the ground, but I didn't look for the last one. I think the three original eggs that Mama Robin had were pretty far along, too. I don't know what happened, but the nest was tipped a bit, so we don't know if something tried to get the eggs or if they all fell over or what. Cody and Guy followed me out and Guy heard a bird and said "The bird is crying!" then imitated the noise. And it did sound like crying. It was sooo sad, and I think Mama Bird abandoned the nest...

Well, I hope you enjoyed these pictures from yours truly! :D If not, oh well! :P

Enjoy!! :D