How to up the level of difficulty at the community Easter egg hunt

Our community Easter Egg hunt has always been a seasonal highlight. There was the year when I was overzealous about finding the golden egg and face-planted Hadley (as I lovingly documented in the Denver Post) or when she was a toddler and kept mistaking the eggs for balls, yelling “BALL, THROW!” and launched them in the air.

We were  on Spring Break last year in Utah so missed the hunt but we were committed to make this hunt our best year ever.

Until we showed up and saw the oldest age group was 6-8. Hadley is 9. Dismayed, we did what any Easter egg loving family did: we pretended she was 8. Too bad she’s really tall for her age.As Jamie likes to repeatedly remind me: she does not get that from my side of the family.

The one advantage of Hadley sneaking into the 6-8-year-old division (along with a lot of older kids, I might add) is this was the first time they were together during the hunt. They settled in behind the taped-off area. Intensely, Bode looked down the line and spotted our neighbor Maddie. As the countdown began, he shouted, “IT’S ON!”

Now that is something he gets from me.

At the signal, they raced out and pillaged the eggs and it was over a minute later. Afterward, we hung out with friends, played games and traumatized Hadley with the Easter bunny (he is kind of creepy with that Joker-like permagrin).

We had a fun morning but if we’re being honest here, it’s kind of a lame hunt. All the eggs are laid out before them on a field so it’s way too easy. As we were walking down a hill to the fields, I commented, “Now this hill would be the place to hold the hunt. There are trees where you could hide eggs, ditches to up the level of difficulty and divots everywhere for the fear factor.”

You’d have kids crying, skinned knees and a whole lot of excitement. Heck, in some of the eggs you could even have band-aids. How’s that for some excellent planning?

Now that, my friends, is an Easter egg hunt.

I totally hope they put me in charge next year.

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