Holy Week Reflections: The Elusive Chase

As is typical with the beginning of most school vacations, my older kids all went off to spend the night at their friends homes. Normally we like to have the home where they can invite their friends over and have fun sleep-overs but our house is but a tiny house for a family of six and when you have a house full of excitable pre-teens who find it fun to stay up to the wee hours of the night . . . well, let's just say there really is no escaping the madness. So off they go and I've got some time with my youngest son during the weekend.

We woke up on Saturday morning with excitement in the air! The potential for Easter Egg insanity was upon us. We had access to not only one, but two massive Easter egg hunts! If all goes well this could rival Halloween in less the amount of time! Well, off we go to the first hunt at a water park called the Beach. When we arrived there were hundreds of kids with literally thousands of eggs covering vast tracks of land. Ben magically weaved his way through the barrier of adults standing ready to watch the stampede. He was in the front of the crowd and ready to go. The countdown began and then off they went. The sea of kids moved as quick as dogs after a cat. Eventually the kids began to turn around to find their parents. Ben finally found me and much to my surprise, he held up his basket and with a smirk on his face he pointed out that he only managed to get one egg! This right here demonstrates a huge difference between Ben and my other kids. They would have walked out of the park with a huge amount of eggs leaving a path of destruction behind them! Their competitive nature would not have permitted them to find and hold onto only one egg. Out of shear curiosity we opened up the egg wondering if maybe the he got a golden Wonka ticket of sorts. As he opened it up, we saw that he got a temporary tattoo for "The Beach". The scene from the movie "A Christmas Carol" flashed through my mind as Ralphie got his magic decoder ring and with excitement decoded his first clue only to discover "It's just a damn advertisement!" Well, Ben was not disappointed as there was also a petting zoo to enjoy.

After that we held onto the hope that the next Easter egg hunt would produce a much more bountiful treasure! Two hours go by and now it is time to leave for the local park! I knew a secret parking spot that is rarely used, and sure enough, no one was parked there! Then we walked down to the park. As we got closer I noticed that lack of people and the few that I did see were walking away from the park! Much to my demise, a sign was posted that stated the egg hunt was cancelled due to the flooding from the previous weekend. SO! TWO hunts with only ONE egg! Ben surprisingly had a good sense of humor about it. I took him down to the local dollar store to buy up some candy. By the way, the tattoo only lasted two days!

Happy Easter to all and enjoy time with your family! He has Risen!