The Golden Egg! (week 277)

On Easter morning we awoke to find that the Easter Bunny had visited the Carfax neighborhood. There were white bunny tracks, marshmallow bunny droppings, and Easter baskets full of candy, toys, and books on our fireplace hearth. Before we went to bed, Christopher and I put out a cup full of carrots that were clearly chewed-up in the morning. He also left about 30 eggs with candy hidden around the living room.

After having Easter breakfast, we all went to church. Even though the service started an hour later than normal, we still found a way to arrive late. They had a lot of good music, and Christopher expressed his appreciation for the message of the resurrection by talking, laughing, and yelling throughout the service. The main thing that was on my mind, however, was the location of the Golden Egg at Uncle Ron and Aunt Karen's house in the hills of Monrovia.

There were about 15-20 kids in this year's egg hunt ranging in age from about 18 months to about 12 years old. Even though Christopher got a head start with the two other mini-egg-hunters, he ate it on the staircase right outside the field where the eggs were waiting for us. Last year, he only got one egg because he stopped, opened the egg, removed the contents, and ate the candy from inside. This year he did a little better than about twelve eggs and waited until the end before he stopped to eat his candy.

The big news every year at Uncle Ron's, however, is what everyone comes for: finding the Golden Egg. This year, Uncle Ron bested himself by hiding the egg inside the pump box for the waterfall. To give everyone hints, he set Christopher off running in circles around the yard and yelled 'hotter' or 'colder' when Christopher would run near the location of the egg. Christopher was in heaven because 15 or so kids were chasing him around the yard for about five minutes...the best game of chase he was ever a part of. In the end, though, I couldn't capitalize because the mother of one of the bigger girls reached into the pump box and pulled out the egg--containing ten lottery tickets! I was a bit disappointed, so I buried my sorrows in Starburst jelly beans, and M&Ms.