Backyard Egg Hunt

My posts seem to be getting further away from the date the action occurred, and also more sparse in general.  The ol' blog may be winding down. 

We had 5 hunters this year.  Josiah and Brianna decided they were too old.

And they're off!

Actually, I recently saw an idea on Facebook of hiding craft beers instead of eggs for one's adult children.  I may give that a try next year.

Each child's bucket color and egg color matched.

Brianna filled 35 eggs of each color.

We tried to make the yellow and pink ones slightly easier to find, for the younger kids.

The back yard needed to be mowed, but I asked Paul to put it off until after our hunt.

 The problem with that was... it was slightly unfair to Jack, whose color was GREEN.

Zach helped Brayden by playing hot and cold for the last few of his.

Sometimes they're right under our noses, and still so hard to see.

Brianna counts Katie's eggs to see if she's done.

I hope to see more of this guy during the summer.

Is it me, or are the kids leaving faster than I'm ready for?  I'm barely over Sam being gone, and Brianna leaves in 2 months.  I'm painfully aware that I only have a little over a year left with Eli.

Don't even want to think about Jack flying the nest.  Fortunately, we have all of high school to get through with him, first, and I know that parts of the high school years seem to drag on forever, so I think I'm good there. 

Happy Brayden! 

In the end, everyone but Jack found all their eggs (some had help for the last few).  Paul came across at least 3 more of Jack's green eggs when he mowed the weeds. 

Chocolate Easter egg cake by Josiah.  The "grass" is coconut with green food coloring, and the eggs are peanut M&Ms. 

My people.  Verklempt that my group shots seem to be shrinking. 

The "grown up-ish" ones of us played Apples to Apples while the youngsters simply played.  We did have one crisis, when Hannah and Brayden went over the edge off the trampoline, but no more than minor injuries were sustained.  Paul decided that it's time to take the trampoline down, since the net is no longer functional.  We've gone through 3 trampolines, and I think we may be done with them now. 



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Easter Activities

Brianna tagged along to the girls' egg hunt at school. 

We went last year, too, so this time around we knew what to expect. 

Katie is ready to dash onto the field. 

And in just a few minutes, the field was picked clean. 

Katie got more eggs than Hannah. 

Even though Bri went on the field with Hannah as her helper. 

But that's okay. 

The kids turn in their empty plastic eggs...

And receive the same number of tickets, to be spent at the tables of loot. 

Hannah and Katie each came home with a new backpack, some candy, and other trinkets. 

And Miss Katie painted a fake egg. 

Meanwhile, back at home, Josiah made bird nest cupcakes. 

Later Brianna helped by filling 35 eggs for each of this year's hunters at our house. 

We dyed eggs together. 

Side note... anyone know why the majority of my eggs cracked in the instant pot?  About half of them developed anything from small cracks to major explosions. 

I ended up making 2 batches so we'd have enough intact ones to color. 

This was one of Eli's.

Unfortunately, most of the kids don't even like hard boiled eggs.  Which is a bummer, because they're a great lunch box food. 

I was going to add our home egg hunt pictures, but I think this post is long enough.  More next time! 


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Pearl Harbor - The Arizona Memorial

Pearl Harbor was a moving experience.  More so than I expected. 

Tour companies will try to sell you tickets to the Arizona Memorial, but if you simply show up there in the morning, the tickets are actually free--they just run out every day.  We got free tickets for the 10 o'clock showing.  First, you go into a theater and watch a brief movie, then you board the shuttle boat to the Arizona. 

The view from the windows of the memorial.  

Personnel who were assigned to the Arizona at the time of the attack, who were not on board when she went down, can be buried with the ship when they die. 

In fact, we saw a dive team preparing to go down while we were there. 

The back wall is names of those who died aboard the ship.

The smaller lists at the sides of the monument list additional crew members who have since been buried there. 

Because the monument is built directly over the ship, you can look straight down onto it.  We could see tropical fish swimming, but they don't show up in the picture because of the glare. 

Even all these decades later, there is still oil leaking from the ship.  You can watch it on the water, and the lapping waves carry it away. 

One of the massive anchors of the ship, which was recovered after it sank. 

This was a somber field trip, but I'm so glad I went.  As the mother of service members, I was touched deeply. 

Fortunately, there is more to see at Pearl Harbor, and I will share pictures from the Bowfin and the Museum soon. 


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