Looking for Easter treasures

The Easter bunny made its rounds in Alta and Storm Lake over the weekends (maybe other places that I am unaware of) and this Sunday, children will be expecting that baskets of candies and eggs will be delivered to them before they awake.

I don't have many memories any more of Easters when I was young but I do remember how wonderful it was to find a basket of marshmallow peeps, chocolate marshmallow eggs, chocolates and those beautifully colored eggs waiting on the table for me.

I liked to peel the shells off the colored eggs and was amazed to see the whites of the eggs sharing a bit of the color that had seeped through. I ate that white part of the egg but always found someone to eat that discusstingly dry yolk.

I began Easter traditions with our kids when they were young. One of the first was setting them next to the five-foot Easter bunny that was in my collection of stuffed animals, a gift from my then boyfriend now husband. (I can still see him pulling that gynormous rabbit out of his two-door car and carrying up to my house when we were only dating and it still makes me laugh.)

A couple of our babies were born near Easter so some of their first photos were propped up against the bunny.

I took them to an Easter egg hunt once at the Cherokee park and they were disappointed that all they found were hard boiled eggs; they would not even attempt to eat any part of the egg, not even the white part that I tolerated.

So I started our own Easter egg hunts. I most often put coins in the eggs so that they could gather them up and go buy something. At the time it seemed a better idea than giving them candy-filled eggs but now thinking back, they really didn't NEED to buy anything either.

The first hunts were in our fenced in area so I could keep track of them running around and as they grew older, they also outgrew the small spot and I had to make the hiding area larger so the hunt was really a hunt.

There were times when an egg or two went missing and was not located until sometimes later that fall.

The kids were always excited when they found the eggs; I can still see their bright smiles.

As kids are always excited to wake up on holidays, I would prepare the eggs after they went to bed the night before and set my alarm to go out early in the morning, often still dark, to hide them, because, when they arose, they expected to see the yard speckled with the plastic eggs left by the Easter bunny.

We had several egg hunts, even after they realized the Easter bunny was just another made up creature that parents lie to them about. Finding money was a much bigger deal by this time. We haven't had an Easter egg hunt for a few years now and I kind of miss it.

They are fun memories and I hope someday that they will share those memories with their own kids.