Easter partyin'

We had a full house this Easter with Marty's brother's family here - with 7 out of their 8 kids able to make it. And, of course, it wouldn't be Easter without my sister, "Aunt Sharon". She has come every Easter for years and years. So that made 16 people crammed cozily into our little 1500 square foot house - but they are all so fun and easy and helpful, I almost wish they could move in full time!

I'm not sure how many Easter Egg Hunts are the standard requirement, but between the kid's school parties and all the rest, we had 4.

Is that a lot?

The town egg hunt was held at the Elementary this year and there was actually snow on the ground. And the hail held off just long enough for the last golden egg to be found (worth a kite). And then all hail broke loose. Bwah, hah, ha!

Here are a few highlights from Saturday's festivities:

(Luke hunting eggs in his snow boots!)

Krystel and Jaxon (with his "manly" basket - he refused to carry a froo-froo one.)


Kami demonstrating what a cake-walk this egg hunt was....


Aunt Sharon helping look for that elusive golden egg - Brynn eventually found one. Oh goodie, more kite string all over the house!

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* Rolling Eggs *

The first time I ever heard of rolling Easter eggs, I was like, "Huh?"

But now I think whomever thought up rolling eggs was some kind of genius! They should be sainted - or knighted - or something. Rolling eggs is so blasted dang freakin' much fun!

And we have a perfect spot to do it, it's called "white sands" - (whoever thought up that name was probably from Orderville.) But it's such a cool place and I often take visitors there. The kids can play there for hours, and the dogs get a right kick out of it too.

It looks like this:


So the idea is to take shovels, hoes, teaspoons - what have you - and dig trails, jumps and tunnels for your intrepid little eggs to negotiate. Only it's harder than it sounds. If the trail's not steep enough, the egg won't keep rolling, and if the trail's too steep, the egg will get up too much momentum and leap the track. It's actually quite handy to have an engineer in the family if you plan to roll eggs.

But if you get it right, it looks something like this:

And boy howdy, is it exciting! You think I'm being facetious, but I'm totally serious! When it finally works and your cute little egg is able to negotiate all the hairpin turns, death-defying jumps and long dark tunnels, everyone cheers and does the happy-happy-joy-joy dance.

And then we quickly get bored and start burying children.


And then things quickly deteriorate into egg-THROWING!

Pretty good throwing form, huh. I think he sent that poor egg into the cliffs at about 98mph. And he threw out his shoulder. Poor baby. Ever heard of egg-karma?

And then we went home and hunted eggs in the wash behind our property.


Sorry this post is so long, but we did A LOT of stuff, and it's essential that I record it all for posterity. Who knows, future anthropologists could spend years studying the culture of Southern Utah and their strange egg rolling habits.

Also, during this one day, we:

• made and cleaned up after three large meals
• dyed about 6 dozen Easter eggs
  
• played ultimate frisbee
• went to Fredonia for K'lyn's family's celbration
• (I) went to work for a couple hours to give a lecture for a seminar
• had 3 Easter egg hunts
  
• swept up about 14 pounds of sand from the floor
• bathed 12 people
• played basketball
• made a desk calendar for my mom's Mother's Day present to send back with Sharon
  
• prepared Easter baskets
  
• and more.........
  

One last thing:

Bantam eggs! I know you can't tell from the picture, but these eggs are tiny! And as everyone knows, when a thing is smaller than usual, it's cute factor is automatically increased by 79%.

Our friend, Bruce, has banty (miniature) chickens and I talked him into saving me some teeny-tiny little eggs to dye for Easter. And they were so cute - pwecious iddy biddy widdle eggies! Needless to say, we didn't subject them to the rolling hoopla.

So happy Easter, one and all. And, despite all the festivities, we really love and appreciate the reason for the season.