The Houghs: The Bunny Riseth Once Again...

Happy Easter/April's Fool's Day/My Brother Chris' Birthday, America !!!

So like I've told you all before, Easter doesn't rank very high on my Favorite Holidays list. It's a shit-load of prep work for a very small pay-off: hours of stuffing and hiding Easter eggs around the house (and a gigantic backyard as well), creating an intricate scavenger hunt for the girls' (and Watson's) Easter baskets (designing and illustrating each egg-shaped 'clue' and arranging locations so that the girls don't finish in 5 minutes), buying a bunch of bullshit and arranging appealing Easter baskets for the girls (and Watson), and, after everything's all said and done, topping it all off with a lengthy bout of Church.

You can't tear this kid away from the piano. . .

I f***ing hate Easter.

Alas, the girls love it. What's not to like for a kid? A surprise basket full of toys, candy, and new clothing/ fashion accessories? Scavenger hunts, egg hunts, special meals? Church?

Well, maybe not Church - the girls and I have something in common, there.

Easter, for the girls, ranks immediately after Christmas and Halloween as their third favorite holiday (it doesn't crack the top ten for me - I'm more of a Secretary's Day kind of a guy), and as such we, as dutiful parents, have to oblige them by putting a ridiculous amount of effort into it. Hours or prep, all for a measly 20-minute pay-off in the morning, tops.

Then, church.

. . .blegh.

So yeah. Here's how Easter played out at the Hough residence - enjoy. . .

Preparing to decorate Easter Eggs. You can tell she's enthused.

Kris bought this 'galaxy' Easter Egg-decorating set from the only company on Earth that makes this kinda bullshit, Paas. At this point in the grand scheme of things, would another company even dare to challenge their monopoly on the egg-decorating business? Would anyone even want to? What kind of business model does Paas adhere to? They sell a ridiculous amount of crap at Easter, then take the rest of the year off? Actually, that sounds pretty cool - I'm a big fan of paid time-off - I might have to look into a career switch one of these days. . .

Kris' mom, Marcy, drove up to celebrate Easter Sunday with us, and came a day early so she could decorate eggs with her grandkids and be around in the morning for our annual egg and scavenger hunt.

Ever the attention whore. . .

Abby finishes her first galactic egg.

So while the womenfolk were all decorating their eggs - and I was taking pictures of them doing so - I began to notice a smell, like something was burning. Kris had been making something in her Instant Pot that she got for Christmas, and had it sitting on the stove. Well, when she was moving it about, she must have accidentally hit one of the stove's burner knobs, and the burning smell I noticed was the plastic underside of the Instant Pot melting all over the stove (you can imagine how much fun that was cleaning up.) So, although I'm sure it could still work, Kris doesn't want to attempt it, since the wiring underneath is all exposed now. Which means now we get to spend a crap-load of money on a new one. Hooray.

Step one of galactic Easter eggs: done.

Once dry, the girls got to put cosmic-themed stickers (stars, comets, shit like that) all over their eggs.

Once the kids went to bed - and we were sure they were out - Kris and her mom got to stuffing the Easter Eggs with candy and arranging the girls' (and Watson's) Easter Baskets. . .

While they did this, I placed the clues for the scavenger hunt around the house (and yard), and began hiding the eggs everywhere. Divide and conquer.

So far we've never had to tell the girls whose basket is whose (Abby's tends to have more pink shit in it, while Alayna's is more purple. . . and the dog's is pretty self-explanatory.)

I hid them behind the chair in the Captain's Quarters so that at a casual glance, you wouldn't be able to see them. . .

(I'm pretty slick.)

About 6am the next morning, much to everyone's chagrin, the girls awoke and began stumbling about the living room, picking up random eggs. Then, they stumbled upon the first clue of the annual scavenger hunt. . .

I always try to place the clues in an order that requires them to run up and down the stairs multiple times. It's a sweet revenge for the girls getting up so f***ing early.

This clue required the girls to head outside to check the mower. (I opted against taking a pic of every, single clue - there were a lot this year.)

(It was, like, 20 degrees out. Take that, girls.)

Coming back from Abby's room, also known as Star Wars Central.

These were both placed in the girls' rooms - but they were still awake when I was setting all this up, so I couldn't take pics of them in their room. The one on the left was in Alayna's, earlier on in the hunt, while the one on the right was hidden in Abby's, and was the final clue (directing them downstairs into the Captain's Quarters.)

Easter Baskets found. Watson actually found his earlier on during the scavenger hunt, and was running around the house with one of his new squeaker toys. Fortunately, Kris spotted it before the girls did - they were pretty occupied with finding clues - and I was able to put it back before they noticed.