Easter! (Christmas?)

Easter Sunday started like this, pupoli which we had found and brought home from our work at Jaunvitagas and a bowl full of colored eggs, ready for the egg war!
Every war must have a winner and a loser. I won the majority of the battles, but this year, KB takes the crown as the one with the last egg soldier standing.

And the proper tradition is that the first broken egg must be shared equally among all family members so that the next year would be a nice one. Self-taken photo, makes us look like egg heads.... :)
Now you may ask... Easter? Christmas? For as much as we haven't had a winter this year, yes, this photo was taken on Easter day. We celebrated this year with a folklore group. This involved singing, dances, storytelling and games.
The biggest tradition for Latvians on Easter is swinging. You are swinging in the sun on her journey higher into the sky. Also, if you don't swing, the mosquitoes will bite you all summer long. Since this is the first year I have actually been on a swing at Easter, I am looking forward to testing out this theory - hopefully it will be an itch-free summer!

So this is the swing we braved. This picture was taken later, so it is not actually us, but KB and I were the first to swing this year. With a clay pot of fire between us (representing the sun), we stood on either side, and got to swinging so high that we were literally standing parallel to the ground. It was like a roller coaster, you could feel your stomach dropping!
We also took a horse-drawn buggy ride through the park! :)
And the grand finale of our Easter was pirts (Latvian sauna) in Burtnieki with IG! We ate lots of good food, drank lots of good beer, laughed a lot, and it really felt like the most relaxing way to spend the evening (plus your skin just glows the next day)! I got a good whipping with birch branches and here I am in between, cooling off in the snow. My nickname for the night was Pocahontas, with the big snow boots.
So there you have it - Easter Latvian style. And we did get our hot water back the day before Easter - if you were counting along, that means we were without for 10 days. I know it's not Thanksgiving, but this Easter, I am thankful for running hot water in our apartment, I will never take it for granted again.