My favorite part about Easter as a kid was the Easter egg hunt. Waking up to find our Easter baskets, eating tons of bunny shaped candy, and checking to see if the Easter bunny nibbled on the carrots we left out for him were all fun. But nothing was better than snatching up as many eggs as I could fit in my basket, and smashing them on my family's heads. No, these weren't hard boiled eggs- they were "cascarones," hallowed out egg shells filled with confetti. The word "cascarones" comes from the Spanish word "cascara," which means shell. Our family would save the shells from the eggs we ate for the month leading up to Easter, dye them and fill them with confetti. Since Stephanie and I were spending our first Easter together in DC we decided we had to bring the cascarones, and all of our family's Easter traditions to us, and all our new friends.

Easter Tradition 1: Cascarones

So on Saturday we dyed our carefully opened and emptied egg shells,

then filled them with confetti,

and covered the tops using home-made paste.

Easter Tradition 2: Mass

Sunday morning we went to Easter Mass at St. Augustine. It's always hard to be away from family on holidays and Easter Mass was a poignant reminder of how much I miss them (they still all go to church together in Arizona). But having Stephanie with me, St Augustine's welcoming community, and their amazing Gospel choir made me remember how blessed I am for everyone both home in Arizona and here in DC. (me too, says Stephanie ;)

Easter Tradition #3: Brunch + Party

Easter with our family always includes a big family meal. It's typically Easter dinner, but Stephanie and I like brunch, so we invited all our friends to join us for a picnic Easter brunch in the park. After mass, we finished decorating cupcakes, then gathered all our food and headed to Malcolm X park for our picnic brunch. Stephanie put a few cascarones in a tree right away, but of course, other picnickers got jealous and tried to take them! So the rest stayed hidden till egg hunt time.

Our Brunch Menu included sausage & hash brown egg casserole, mushroom quiche, chocolate banana bread, feta & broccoli egg muffins, chips & salsa, Hummus, brie & crackers, giant strawberries, slightly burnt crescent rolls, and vanilla-coconut cupcakes! NOMM

The party started with a birthday girl, an Easter bunny and a guitar player.

P.S. did you submit a caption for betbet_'s view of this scene on Popville?!

Next, an adorable corgi puppy named Charlie came to say hi (but really, he just wanted our food).

Stephanie snapped this great shot of the picnic set up. Everyone's smiling! Success!

Stephanie "hid" the eggs in the grass around our picnic spot. Almost everyone was hesitant about participating in the egg smashing.

But once the hunt and smashing started...

everyone realized it was a whole lot of fun.

It was a great day, with good food, good friends, and great people watching in Malcolm X park.

Thank you to everyone who came out and helped make it a great day! We sure are lucky to have such great people that we can share our traditions with and who will join us in making new memories! Can't wait till the next picnic.

And watch the rest of our afternoon on our flickr set: Easter 2014