Easter Sunday: “If it were a snake…”

Easter is one of those funny holidays for me.  I am not a religious man, so Easter to me will always be a holiday of egg coloring, toys, candy and the traditional egg hunt in the backyard.

Growing up in Carson our family always had a strong tradition of egg coloring and early morning egg hunts in the backyard.  This usually involved lots of running egg dye because the grass was always wet from either:

1. spring rain
2. spring snow
3. dad forgot to turn off the sprinklers

This is how our egg hunt usually goes:

Last Year…
Susanne: How many eggs were there?
Me: Seventeen…I think.
Susanne: Do you remember where you hid them all?
Me: (Full of confidence) Of course.

15 minutes pass while the kids find the eggs.

Susanne: The kids have found 15 eggs, where are the last two?
Me: ummmmmmmmm
Susanne: You don’t remember?
Me: (wandering around the yard showing my age then yelling) OHH… THAT’S RIGHT…I REMEMBER!

The fact that I cannot remember where the eggs are is fodder for jokes about my age - Am I sure I counted right? Will we find them rotting? How could I forget because I just hid them 20 minutes ago?   So much abuse that I should probably go to a shelter.  So this year, it was Susanne’s turn to hide the eggs.  I was tired of the abuse and I was just not going to take it anymore. 

This year it went like this…
Me: How many eggs were there?
Susanne: Seventeen…I think.
Me: Do you remember where you hid them all?
Susanne: (Full of confidence) Of course.

15 minutes pass.

Me: The kids have found 15 eggs, where are the last two?
Susanne: ummmmmmmmm
Me: You don’t remember?
Susanne: (wanders around the yard showing her age then yells) OHH… THAT’S RIGHT…I REMEMBER!

Paybacks are a bitch aren’t they.

This holiday brings great memories of my father flooding back. I remember he would just light up watching us hunt for eggs.  He would put money in plastic eggs for us to find, and he loved to hide eggs above our line of site.

I would walk under the egg’s hiding place, and he would smirk his little smirk and say “If it were a snake, it woulda bit ya!”  He liked to hide “snakes” in the yard.

So this is a tradition we continue to carry on.  Here are a series of images where “If it were a snake, it woulda bit ya” still rings true.  The kids did NOT find these eggs on this or several other passes.

She actually touched this one as she put her hand here (blue egg just behind her hand).

This one was JUST above his line of sight.

In the vast desert of our side yard, this egg was passed by many, many times.  I finally had to point it out.

As they get older, its going to be a bit more challenging to find good hiding places.  I’m up for it.

My dad was a great teacher. And to prove it, this year I forgot to turn off the sprinklers.