The Bunny Hath Risen!

Happy Easter, Christianity !!!

Whoomp there it is.

So here we are again at one of my least-favorite holidays.  I know every year I go into the absolute lameness of this annual gauntlet - the hours and hours or prep work that goes in to the night before Easter, only to have kids barrel through all of your hard work in a matter of minutes, devour a crap-load of candy, and then become bored with the entire day once they've thoroughly pillaged their baskets.

Then, on top of everything, you have to go to church.  And it's, like, standing room only.

God, I hate Easter.

Anyway, Kris came up with a pretty cool idea this year.  Instead of personally having to hide all the Easter Eggs around our backyard for our kids (like I was forced to do last year in pitch black after our kids went to bed), Kris suggested we invite all of the families in our social circle over for an afternoon luncheon and egg hunt.  This would cut down on the amount of junk food our own kids would eat Easter morning, while, at the same time, giving everyone less prep work the night before and allow everyone some extra socializing time.

Win win win.

Our St. Patrick's Day card table, put to use in the kitchen.  Kris wanted to make cheeseburger sliders and more 'finger food' sides and dips, seeing how we had people over earlier in the day.  I had no qualms with any of this.

Probably the coolest Easter-themed beer ever made.

So yesterday afternoon, folks started showing up bringing dishes, drinks and children.  Kris - who enjoys Easter a great deal - also came up with the idea of numbering each egg (a number delegated to each of the twelve kids in attendance), so that that way everyone got the same number of eggs.  The lower numbers were given to the younger kids, and were therefore easier to find.  Higher numbered eggs - like for Alayna and the older kids - were extremely difficult to find.  It made the scavenger hunt last almost a half an hour, which was pretty impressive.

Our yard was perfectly suited for this activity, and despite the occasional wind gust, the weather was perfect (though me and the dads tended to hang out inside in the kitchen, drinking beer and standing vigilant guard over the snack table.)

So yeah.  Here's yesterday and today, encompassing all of the Hough Family's 2019 Easter.

Enjoy. . .

The mad scamperin' begins. . .

Fischer kids

Jackson and Abby

On to the trampoline, while Watson absolutely loses his shit. . .

You can always spot the dads.  Monitoring with beers.

Alayna invited her friend, Christina, over for the day.  With so many littler kids in this group of friends of ours (Abby's age group down to about three years of age, thereabouts), Alayna frequently gets bored.  We've been allowing her to bring friends along more and more.  She's at that age.

Women, clucking.

Here's Kris, taking the videos I just posted above.

Note the empty bird feeders.  We seriously hung those up a couple weeks ago.  Our birds are apparently fat asses.

Sophie.

The assembled egg gatherers.

. . . . and one with Watson.

While the adults worked on finishing up the leftover food inside and had a few drinks, the kids were either out back on the trampoline or else downstairs playing the Wii U in the kids' play area.  Segregation at its finest.

After everyone else took off with their offspring, it was down to just us and the Johnsons.  They were on their way out their door when Ella (shown here) and Abby started begging to decorate eggs yet (it was 7pm the night before Easter and neither of our families had gotten around to it yet.)  So, we relented and let them get started, which allowed Erik and I to have a whiskey and end the night on the right note.

The Cannonball

Abby apparently cannot believe what she is seeing.  As if we don't do this shit every year.

Courtney facilitates Paas nonsense.

Yes, she's bored.  She's ten going on fourteen, we're all already sick of it.

Focus.

Still bored.

Finished tie-dyed Easter Eggs.  Bam.

The next morning, the girls awoke waaay too early and rushed out into the Kitchen, where they had left a note behind for the Easter Bunny (along with a decorated Easter Egg as a snack for him, evidently.)  So we took a page from the ol' 'Santa came' playbook and left 'evidence' of the Easter Bunny stopping by.

The Easter Bunny was born in 1500?  Is it, like, the Highlander?  Or a Vampire?

Let the 2019 Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt begin. . .

I always love hiding clues outside.  Watching little kids run out into the cold, dark morning air in their pajamas is hilarious.  This year we hid a clue on the trampoline.

. . .  and it's always Abby that volunteers to go running out to retrieve clues.  No surprise there.

Here's where everything got screwed up.  The girls were supposed to find a clue in the crawl space (literally, a HIDDEN ROOM in our house, one not even our realtor knew about when he showed us the place, and we didn't discover until after moving in.)  Instead, the girls took it as the Captains Quarters (I guess 'hidden' and 'forbidden' mean the same thing in Elementary school.)  This threw everything off.

This clue led to the remote cubby in the console of the sectional couch in the living room, which, from there, led to the drum set, and then up to Abby's Our Generation Doll RV camper set.  Instead, things veered off course. . .

This clue was supposed to be found about half-way through the scavenger hunt, and so the girls by-passed other clues entirely and missed out on locations that would've put them to their baskets a hell of a lot faster.

I had to sit down upstairs and have a few sips of coffee at this point.  It was maddening to watch them, especially on so little sleep.

This one was supposed to lead them to Alayna's Our Generation Doll Vet Clinic (you have to balance clues out like this in order to keep it 'fair,' folks.  It's called parenting.)  I didn't take a pic of that clue because Alayna was sleeping in her room when I placed it.

The girls automatically read 'Vet Clinic' and thought 'it has to be in the medicine cabinet.'  I hate kids.

We decided not to give them any hints this year, which, in hindsight, might have been stupid on our part.  They decided to run back downstairs and just look everywhere for clues, no longer following the scavenger hunt's WELL-THOUGHT-OUT SYSTEM.

Now we're all sorts of screwed up. . .

Abby has no idea what's happening at this point.

They finally found it after Kris relented and gave them a hint.

Back (sort of) on the trail. . .

This bunny has a dark side.

Again, Abby is sent out into the cold, morning air.  Note how light it's gotten outside - they took FOREVER this year.

Anyway, long story short. . .

The baskets were hidden in Kris' new van.

The girls' Easter Baskets.  We neglected to buy them Easter dresses this year because they only wear them once or twice before never wearing them again.  We opted this year instead to buy them nice flip flops, summer outfits (for Florida, etc.) and some high-end, aluminum water bottles.

Of course Watson got one.  The girls would revolt if he didn't.

We had the girls take the baskets into the living room so they could be warm while they began to plunder their baskets (but moreso that I could get better pictures with my SLR.)

Watson loses his mind during Easter morning.  Everyone running around like crazy and not settling down, he doesn't know what to do with himself.

Bliss.

And that was Easter 2019, America.  364 days and counting. . .

- Brian