Chocolate eggs, caviar, and the bird man returns

Hi friends! I hope you’re having a happy Monday and I hope that my friends who were celebrating Easter and Passover this weekend had a beautiful holiday.

Our weekend was a whirlwind of family fun and amazing food. Saturday morning, P had a soccer game and I taught a Zoom barre class (thank you to those of you who could join! I’ll do it again soon), and the rest of the day was spent under an avalanche of clothes. I typically go through the girls’ closets twice a year. I’ll empty out the clothes that are no longer seasonally appropriate and store or donate the clothes that are too small. I haven’t done this in an entire year. I kept putting it off until “Rona was over” because we weren’t going anywhere and lived in the same 5 outfits anyway, but it needed to happen. All of their clothes were too small and spring and summer stuff needed to be unearthed from storage bags, so here we are! Liv’s closet is finished and P’s is halfway done. It’s going to feel like a dream when it’s over.

Dinner was super simple: barramundi with lemon garlic sauce (the girls love this! To make the sauce I just heat up about 2 tablespoons of butter and 4 garlic cloves, add a splash of avocado oil, the juice of 1/2 a lemon, and season with salt. I pour over the fish after it’s done cooking), rice, and a chopped salad (spinach, leftover roasted veggies, artichokes, and beets).

Sunday was Easter! The Easter bunny made a stop at our house and the girls were pumped when they woke up.

We had Peeps before 8am and an egg hunt in the yard before heading to brunch at my nana’s house.

This is my favorite brunch of the entire year and it was everything I’d been missing!!! It felt SO nice to sit on the patio and chat with everyone while enjoying Nana’s famous egg casserole, hash browns, fruit, and all the desserts.

After brunch, we came home and got things ready for dinner and the basketball game at our house. Madre brought over a ton of food (turkey, ham, stuffing, scalloped potatoes, pies) and I contributed artichoke dip with chips, deviled eggs, more desserts, and roasted veggies to go with the feast. It was also Nani’s first time trying caviar!

She was a bit nervous but I think she was pleasantly surprised? But when I asked her if she wanted more, she was like, “Oh no, I’m good.” lol

The kiddos all jumped on the jumping castle and played fetch with Nova (Trevor’s husky! The sweetest girl), Trevor did another egg hunt for the kiddos, we feasted, watched the bball game (we lost but I was so proud of our Cats for making it this far!), and hung out on the patio drinking wine. It was perfect.

Before I go, I wanted to tell you about the Bird Man and his recent endeavors. Some of you might remember the bird condo that the Pilot build many years ago. He basically built it out of frustration because a bird was trying to make a nest on our pillar and kept dropping twigs and random things all over the patio. He built the condo to help it out, and since then, we’ve singlehandedly helped to boost the Tuscon turtle dove population. All spring and summer, new birds will arrive in the condo, have their babies, and move out. Within a day or two, a new mama bird will be in the same spot with her nest. It’s pretty adorable.

Anyway, we had a tree removed in our yard and a nest with baby finches was inside the tree. He relocated it to the bird condo, and we crossed our fingers that their parents would be able to find them. Thankfully, the mama bird found her babies and was feeding them the next morning. I guess they weren’t into the condo life, because they moved their nest into one of our other trees. The Pilot has been very invested in this whole situation and is keeping an eye on the baby birds.

Check out this lil cutie:

This morning, I have back-to-back podcast episodes and Liv is on Easter break, so we’ll head out on a little adventure together.
I hope you have a happy Monday!

xo

Gina

Tell me, friends: what’s your #1 favorite holiday candy? Reese’s eggs will always be in my top spot.