He is risen!

Mrs. H is real big on tradition. One thing that she and I had in common as children was a family Easter egg hunt. It is only natural that she would want to carry on that tradition nowadays, much like the annual production of Christmas cookies that you read about a few months ago. We moved the yearly hunt to Saturday for a variety of reasons. Here is an abridged chronicle of what occurred yesterday.

An obvious first step is to decorate the eggs.

Everyone except Thomas got involved. Thomas is spending the graveyard shift at the hospital in Sonora as he pursues his Paramedic certification. Thomas slept through this part of the fun.

A game of Speed Scrabble helped to pass the time while we waited for Thomas to wake up.

This year I decided to hide the eggs in the back pasture, which is a departure from past practice. Mrs. H is a traditionalist, but she retains a certain degree of flexibility. Each one of us has an egg with our name on it. If you find an egg with someone else's name, you leave it alone while you continue to search for your own (along with the forty-some other eggs). I hid my own egg in my pocket. Mrs. H was not amused.

Did Thomas find his egg floating in mid-air?

Here's one for the basket.

When searching for eggs it pays to look at all levels for the elusive prizes. One of the last eggs found was hiding in plain sight atop a fence post.

The basket grows heavy as the pasture yields its treasure. I gave a few hints to help our hunters find the last few. Ginger's passing took a certain amount of the pressure off; she was very good at finding eggs.

Ben had more fun watching his siblings once his own egg was secure.

The house is in the background.

The Hector family recommends that you bring a football along when hunting for Easter eggs. I offer the following series of photos to help explain why Ben never tried out for the NFL.






If you want to get a reaction out of Mrs. H, just slip something into her Easter basket that doesn't belong there. If you can't tell what that strange object is, just remember that we are in a pasture that is occupied by a horse. I can assure you, it wasn't one of the girls that committed this despicable act.

The hunt is completed, all fifty two eggs are accounted for. It is time to head back to the house.

Before going in I posed everyone (except myself, we did not bring the tripod) for a family portrait.

Ben offered to carve the turkey at our traditional Easter meal. He attended the Norman Bates School of Culinary Arts.

This last photo is included to:

#1. Prove that I was there.
#2. Prove to Mrs. H that I have the effrontery to publish unflattering photos of myself.
#3. Provide a possible explanation as to where my family got their tendency to wear improvised headgear.

If you think that Christmas is the biggest Christian holiday of the year, I beg you to reconsider. Christ is risen! Easter marks the culmination of the greatest plan there ever was.

be safe,
Hec @ 19