Better Late- Than Ever Easter Egg Hunt

Every year it gets better and better although this year we had to wait for it. It just wouldn't work on Easter weekend. We had so many scheduling conflicts for all the players and we were trying desperately hard not to sacrifice anyone. In the end, Scott ended up being out of town and we missed him and his egg hiding skills. Aside from that, we had the best time ever!

We always try to mix it up and think of new ways to keep the kids coming back. This year we offered the Senior edition. There were 6 graduating Seniors this year. Plus Amber and Anastasia who've already graduated, and the many younger players. (Thank goodness for them, we still have an excuse to egg hunt!)

I am going to guess we hid between 400 and 500 eggs and oodles of silver eggs, eggs with tickets for special prizes AND we even hid two-liter bottles of pop. Who has ever done that? GiGi found a a great deal on them and decided she would bring them for the kids. I figured we may as well hide them. :) You should have seen the faces of the first kids to find them. It was pretty funny.

Grandpa, Rocky, GiGi, Greta and I hid the eggs. Grandpa and Rocky took on the task of hiding the special eggs. And it took a l-o-n-g time. I think that means these kids are spoiled! There were lots of prizes and money to be found!

I made Grandpa keep a list of where he hid the eggs however he didn't notate which ones were the big money eggs and which weren't. It turned out pretty funny though and I think he confused himself even more by trying to decipher his own clues.

After the eggs were found, and our bellies were full the kids started looking at their loot. Holly came up with really fun tasks for the Senior kids to to do in order to get their prizes. She chose great things that would help them at college and even made them a filing system-box to start the next stage of their lives. The funniest task was making them find an adult and jump up and down in front of that person until the adult noticed and granted them their prize; a jump drive.

I always have those moments in which I get a little sad at how fast time is passing by but I must say I know how blessed we are that these kids love us enough to humor us year after year. I have an Aunt Karen whom I swear misses Easter Egg Hunts as much as I love having them. Every year I tell her to host an Adult egg hunt and I figure the day will come that I could be hosting my own but in the mean time I'll be praying to the Lord above that the kids will keep coming! And as a back up plan, I'll keep searching for ridiculous ways to keep it obnoxiously fun so can't stop joining in. Here's hoping it works!

Happy late Easter to you by the way and if you are ever up for an Easter Egg hunt, I know a place where there's one every year and it just gets better and better!

The Great Outdoor Challenge #1- A Low Key Easter

It's been a bit of an unusual Easter for us. Grandpa is working ridiculous amounts of overtime, GiGi has a new second job, Daddy is in a little village- Russian Mission and Amber and AJ were in Anchorage for the weekend.

As you know, we usually have a huge Easter egg hunt at the Norwood house but  knowing it just wouldn't be the same with so many people missing, we re-scheduled Easter. The Easter egg hunt gathering anyway.

Of course, the Easter bunny still came to visit and left awesomely cool Easter baskets.

And Scott and I found some super cool little gifts that we knew each girl would love. Grandma filled in all the cool things we would never find in our little town and sent them just in time for basket filling.

The girls woke to finding loads of eggs hidden in the house, up and down, in ears and out. :)

We even made our own Easter dinner. Before you make fun of me for saying that, know that big dinners are ALWAYS at Grandpa's house. That was the only real panic moment of the holiday.  The girls and I managed to pull out a full meal of Ham, mashed potatoes, fresh veggies, corn, rolls, and strawberry shortcake. YUM!

We even made enough to share with Grandpa and GiGi. We stopped by Grandpa's work to give him an Easter hug and drop off their meal and we even included a few Easter treats.

After seeing Grandpa we headed to the beach for a little Easter outing.  It was a fairly blah day as far as weather goes so I was a little concerned about what the beach would be like. It's always colder there.  We were dressed warmly and the wind wasn't too bad. In fact, I am pretty sure I've never looked so eclectically dressed but Cassi wanted me to emulate her style and well, it was fun. We were wearing springy skirts and dresses which I rarely do and I knew the two youngest girls were loving it. Why ruin a good thing right?

We collected loads of great driftwood for future projects and each of us found rocks we just had to have. It was a red rock day for me. I seem to collect certain colors in abundance when I am there. I never really know what the color of the day will be but there always seems to be a pattern.  Cali collected loads of everything!  She loves it all!  I also found a great clump of dried seaweed. It looks  a bit like moss. I really love it.

All in all, although it certainly wasn't the traditions we are accustomed to, it was a relaxed and fun day. And we still have Easter celebrations to look forward to in a few weeks. I do hope you had a wonderful day as well.

***My blogging friend Lisa at 5 orange potatoes has challenged us to get outside and sense the world around us everyday for the remainder of April and document it. I am linking this post to that challenge. Will you join us?  No matter the weather or occasion, get outside, see it, smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it, and help your children (or yourself) understand why it's worth saving.  This Earth is a beautiful place, be grateful for it and do your part to conserve it and while you are doing it, ENJOY IT!

Easter is the demonstration of God 

that life is 

essentially spiritual and timeless. 

~Charles M. Crowe

Wishing you a joyous and Blessed Easter from our family to your yours!

Hope your Easter was filled with all that is special!

We had a wonderful Easter; another year and super egg hunt. We challenged ourselves to think of ways to keep the big kids wanting to participate. We managed. Amber, AJ and Barry decided to hang in one more year. We even had an extra older guy, Brady who often hangs with the group but wasn't expected for this. I think he enjoyed himself as well.

The younger kids, Wren, Cori, Cassi and Cali all had fun and still like doing the egg hunts. I hope they always do. I'm not sure I'd survive the sadness of having them home and not willing.

I managed to get what I believe to be some beautiful pictures of all the kids. I'm not sure I can put into words why I like these photos so much but I do. I hope you enjoy them too.

First, there is a photo of everyone (except Scott-because he took the picture). It is rare that we take an all group photo and even rarer that it turns out all right. I'm not sure any that we took are great, but I think you can make everyone out clearly. That has to be blessing enough! :-)
In the event you don't recognize everyone for all they've changed and grown...starting back left going clockwise...Holly, Barry who is now 16, Rachel in her new glasses, AJ who is also now 16, Brady, Grandpa, who turned 60 this year, Cori who looks incredibly pale in these pictures, Cassi, Amber and Cali, Wren and Me. Some days it is hard for me to believe they are as old as they are.

We did the normal thing this year as far as Easter eggin' (as Cali calls it) goes. We hid well over 300 eggs. We had oodles of silver eggs with lots of cool prizes. We try really hard to make sure all the kids get at least one silver egg, usually everyone makes it pretty fair. The prize of choice this year was $10.00 gift cards for the local department store and a huge wiggly bouncy ball thing that I apparently should have gotten more of.






We always let Cali out the door first and have a little area that only she can find eggs in. Scott hid a silver egg in that area this year and couldn't remember exactly where it was. I believe it was the last egg found and there was actually an offer of extra cash if anyone found it; he was so frustrated that he couldn't find it! AJ looked for the longest time but never uncovered it. Cori finally scrambled for it and unearthed the darn thing after hearing there was extra cash for the taking.

Grandpa gave lots of weird clues this year. It's either that or I am getting more and more dense at figuring them out. It's got to be Grandpa! AJ is quite athletic and thereby finds LOTS of eggs. He also seems to be quite the logical thinker so he's quick too. He doesn't waste time and seems rather business like in the hunt. Barry is much the same; maybe they've been doing it so long it's like spring cleaning or some other job one does once a year or so. Maybe it's just "old hat".

This could possibly be the last year Amber hunts eggs with us for a while. We hope she will drive down from Anchorage next year but things change so we are all trying to wrap our minds around the fact that she could simply decide not to participate. I can't help but think of my Aunt Karen at times like these; when I talk to her about Easter I think she'd still be finding Easter eggs if someone would just hide them for her. :-) The kids are going to leave one by one and I'm going to be left looking for some one to hunt eggs with.







As always, there were treats and just general sharing of old stories and new ideas. It was a peaceful day with little drama. Joy, happiness and peace surrounded us and it was as special a Sunday as Easter should be. We have an awful lot to be thankful for; the sacrifices made through out time are never forgotten. It's my wish that as my own children get older and create their own lives they too will take time to appreciate things as simple as eggs wrapped in foil hidden by adored Daddies and Grandpa's. I hope they remember the sacrifices made so that these days might happen for them and that they continue to value what is most important. It's by the grace of God they have such a large and wonderful family and are so loved there shall never be the need to feel alone.








I hope the day was special for each of you in whatever way you chose to make it so. One of these years we should all gather for Easter. It would be different and fun and a great way to make new memories.

Love to all of you!

~Happy Easter~

Happy Easter to all of you. It was another blessed day in Alaska and we hope for all of you as well.

Scott and I were roused from sleep to many cries of glee and grinning eyes pleading to come hunt some Easter eggs
and rummage through Easter prizes. Cori explained that she and Cassi only found 1 or 2 eggs already but were ready to find more. Then she explained that she was sure there were more than the 8 in her basket. Apparently they had been up early and figured out there were easy eggs for Cali, which they did leave in place and harder hidden eggs for them. They got a jump on things before waking us up. They saved finding a few knowing Mom and Dad would want photos.























After a somewhat slow morning, we headed out to Grandpa's house. And it was off again for another hunt. The Easter Bunny hides the Easter baskets at Grandpa's house so the girls had to work for them. Cori found hers in the TRASH can, ewww! Cali really checked hers out and had a great time pouring tea
water) for everyone all day. I think Denali liked the tea the best. Cassi loved the new pants in her Easter basket and quickly
put them on.













AJ wrapped all the silver eggs in preparation for the big hunt later in the afternoon.

















Amber surprised everyone by having her hair cut off the other day also so we took the opportunity to take a photo of the lack of hair in the family.















Around 3:00 in the afternoon we headed for Holly's house for the annual easter egg hunt. I don't know exactly how many we hid but considering it took me at least an hour to fill eggs, I am pretty sure I filled nearly 200 hundred, possibly more. Holly did a huge amount of them too. All of the kids had more than they needed and plenty to fill an afternoon with fun.








































































Like usual, we hid silver eggs. Growing up Grandpa hid 1 silver egg with a large amount of cash in it; we have since changed it to hiding many silver eggs with an assortment of prizes and cash. These are the coveted eggs and trust me when I tell WE fight for them. I never hide the silver eggs. This is mostly because I like to antagonize the kids and find them before they do. I listen for the clues just like they do and then push them down in the snow to get one step ahead.





































The day is great fun for me and it takes me back to memories of my youth. I enjoy sharing those memories with my children and making new ones that they will look back on in years to come. As you might notice from the photos, no place is sacred and physical strength can come in handy. In the end the hardest eggs fall into to the hands of the oldest kids simply because the youngest are content to relax and watch the frenzy.


































































To some of us the fun is in the winning and then to some, well there is the cash!













And then to others, it's all about those beautiful colors and fancy Easter baskets.





















Since Scott and Grandpa hide the hardest eggs worth the best prizes, they don't get to hunt for them. However, speaking from experience, they take the least falls and go home with the fewest injuries. And they comfort the fallen.





















Once all the eggs have been found, everyone heads inside to see what they've found. Some of us use the opportunity to take more photos and eat...again.










Then we all go home realizing that, of course, it's worth it and gee, I'm glad we decided to do it one more year. And me, I am just wondering how many years I'll be digging out my 39 year old Easter basket to go find some silver eggs.





Happy Easter to All of You from All of Us!