Easter Egg Hunt

We held our family Easter Egg hunt last Sunday. This year, we had about twenty guests, nine of them children ages 2 to 17. All were experienced egg hunters. We followed our annual ritual:

1. All hunters line up in order of age in the living room for the briefing.  Rule #1 is always “There are no eggs in the flower beds.”  Other rules address the sharpness of cactuses, the muddiness and egg-free condition of the riverbank, and indeed the general lack of eggs in any location except the back yard.
2. Starting with the youngest child, each hunter in turn gets to pick a basket and an “advisor”.  Advisors are toy bunnies or birds who go on the hunt with the child instead of their parents.  Advisors serve to restrain parents from getting competitive and helping too much.
3. We proceed to the kitchen door from which the children get to go into the yard, starting with the youngest then followed at one minute intervals by the rest of the kids.
4. The hint poems for the gold and silver eggs are available for all kids and adults to consider.

This was my son Paul’s first year as Associate Bunny but even the Associate Bunny did not know where the gold and silver eggs were hidden.  The hint poems were:

Silver Egg

I see flowers purple and white
Though I am shaded from the light.
Please don’t eat me by mistake
When breakfast you come to take.

Gold Egg

I was here to show the way
Until Redda came to stay.
Chewed and broken, piled away
One last use I have today.

The two prize eggs were eventually found by adults: Susan found the gold egg (in a broken light fixture chewed up by our puppy, Redda), and David found the silver egg (tied in the branches of a blossoming orange tree). All of the regular eggs were plastic with candies inside. The kids particularly enjoyed finding eggs on and around WP 668, our backyard caboose.

After the hunt, the kids watched a video and played with computers and ate candy while the adults talked. When our guests left, John and I held our annual melting of the Peeps when we dispose of any of the vibrantly colored marshmallow candies which are left over from the party. (If you want to see a very odd website, check out The Lord of the Peeps.)

Pictures from our big day:

Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher