soggy cash

I think I've had enough Easter to last me at least a year. Between 5 egg hunts and a treasure hunt, I'm all hunted out. I did get some good pictures, though. In a nutshell, we went over to Amber's house for some egg hunts there and then came back to do our hunts at the house.

Every year I tell myself I'm going to start my preparations earlier so that I'm done early enough to get to bed and get a good night's rest before the events. Every year I fail in this endeavor. This year was certainly no different. Instead of starting the preparations earlier, I chose to leave the house on a hunt for PEEP PEEPs. Not to be mistaken for Peeps, PEEP PEEPs are tiny little chicks made out of what I think must be some sort of pipe cleaners. Last year I bought some on a whim for the kids, and Nikolai carried them around for months afterward, as though they were as fragile and precious as raw eggs themselves. I beleive we had one survivor as long as just a few months ago when we moved into my parents' house briefly. I figured they would be really easy to find this year, as they were *everywhere* last year, but I could find them nowhere. Alas, Mission: PEEP PEEP was unsuccsessful. We headed home in the evening on Saturday empty handed (well, except for all the incredients necessary to make up the treasure hunt map). Thank goodness for the foresight which told me that I needed to use the last bit of daylight I had left to bury the box full of treasure.
I found a good spot outside the living room window and behind the shed and dug a 3' x 3' x 3' hole (incidentally, the box itself was about 12" x 18" x 6"...so much wasted effort). The sun went down in the middle of the dig, so I propped a flashlight up on a pole pointed directly at the hole. I knew it was going to rain, and that it might be disastrous, so I wrapped the box in a pillow case ("a PILLOWCASE?!" you, as the objective reader over there, are no doubt saying to yourself) and heaped dirt on top of it. I stuck a plastic knife into the mud directly over the center of the box and headed inside. (kindly note that there is no mention here of having taken the flashlight, which was pointing directly at the buried treasure, inside with me)
I started drawing the map at about 7:00 pm, and finished sometime around 10:30. I hadn't even begun to dye eggs, so I did that from about 10:30 to 11:30 or so. From about 11:30 to 12:30 I sat in bed and stuffed the plastic eggs with candy, accompanied by Nick at Night. Too many sit-coms later I actually fell asleep. I think it was about 2:00 am. Fortunately for me, Matt noticed the flashlight and retrieved it. I think that might have been a dead giveaway to the treasure's location (and another testament to mom's cleverness). Thank you, Matt.

We got up on Sunday morning (barely...Nikolai wasn't asleep the night before until about 11:30 as well), and I stuffed as much protein in the kid as I could manage, in spite of his fff objections. We headed out the door to Amber's house. First thing upon arrival Nikolai slipped and fell into a 3" deep puddle. Instead of getting up, he decided to sit in the water screaming until his sister picked him up. Even then he refused to let her help him walk into the house. Since I was laden with three huge baskets as well as other rain gear for the hunt, the solution required my going in the house to drop everything so I could return outside to pick him up. All in all it was about 5 good solid minutes of screaming until we were in the door and removing the soaked clothing. Thank goodness for the foresight to bring a spare set of clothes. As soon as Disaster 1 was resolved, I doled out the easter baskets. Amber handed Nikolai a gift, it was a little carrot shaped zipped up bag which contained the very precious and rare PEEP PEEPs for which I had searched so long. The kids dug through their baskets for about 1/2 an hour while I settled in and took a deep breath. Thanks to Amber, Nikolai had the biggest chocolate car I've ever seen in his basket this year. He had only gnawed the bumper off before I confiscated the remainder. As soon as it seemed they'd settled down for a bit, we headed out for the big hunt. The rain subsided at least for the duration of our hunt, which was a small miracle for which we were all thankful.
The little ones found their eggs pretty quickly. Chris did a fabulous job of hiding the eggs for them. Anthony and Melissa were battling each other, both wanted to be the first to find the hidden Carrot which would bring the lucky seeker the grand prize of a giant yard long tube of red licorice. Melissa was the victor, and treasured her prize. Chris hid the eggs for the older kids again, and after the second hunt we headed home via Taco Bell to do our own various hunts.
At home, we did a hunt inside the house for the plastic eggs. Here is a picture of Melissa looking for eggs in the kitchen. If you look closely you can see an egg hidden under the bottom edge of the clock right above her head. After we did the hunt inside, we headed outdoors to find the real eggs. This went pretty quickly, thank God. By this point I had pretty much had it with the whole "following kids around finding stupid eggs" thing.
The egg hunts were said and done, so I hinted to Melissa that there was something hidden on the table. After only slight exploration she found the letter from One Eye'd Pete which told of a treasure map hidden somewhere in the loft. After about 37 trips back down the stairs to whine at me that there WAS no treasure map hidden in the loft, they finally found the map. It was hidden in the loft. I think I didn't make the map challenging enough, because they didn't really even have to look to find the spot where it was buried. Melissa led, holding the map, and Anthony followed. To Melissa's credit, she was actually walking between the shed and the house examining the map closely to figure out where it was buried when Anthony piped up from behind her "Uhhh...it's kind of obvious where it's buried, Melissa", to which she replied "Oh. Shut up." They took turns digging. Melissa first, and then Anthony. Melissa actually did the dirty work of pulling the muddy bag out of the ground and extracting the box from it. She carried it inside and put it on the living room coffee table where it promptly began to ooze (D'OH!).
Damn rain.
Almost everything in the box was ruined (at least a hundred chocolate coins). We put a towel under the box and opened it up and the chocolate coins spilled out. Nikolai yelled "CASH!!" (maybe he'll be a banker)

Whew. I'm glad it's over. Work feels like a vacation today.