rites of spring

Easter sneaks up on us every year. You'd think that after our combined years of Catholic education we'd be more on top of it, but it seems every year we discover that it's Easter when we go out and everything is closed. (When did that start happening, by the way?). Or when my younger brother calls to wish us a happy Maundy Thursday because he likes saying "Maundy Thursday." And in the interest of full disclosure, I ate pork chops for lunch on Good Friday. Are we done? It seems I still know how to confess (or whatever they're calling it now).

Anyway, this year we had Easter thrust upon us by our pals the Ladies Jorgensen (and one Mr. Harris who had to leave for rehearsal shortly after we arrived which seems to be a pattern and we are trying not to take it personally) who invited us over for egg dyeing and enchilada pie. After a brief round of Princess and Dragon

That's the adorable Nora in the dragon costume. Trust me, she's adorable, but she isn't my kid and I forgot to ask her folks if I could put her face on the internet, so you'll just have to trust me, she's adorable.

we got down to business

See! Look how adorable is the back of her head.

while someone drank a lot of beer. Then we had time to enjoy the fruits of our labors

For the purposes of this conversation, an egg is a fruit.

before retiring to the lounge to build a railroad.

Two adorable backs of heads!

Many thanks to the Ladies Jorgensen (and the enigmatic Mr. Harris) for a swell time.

Keeping the Easter festivities (or pagan spring rituals, depending on your perspective) going, we headed to the zoo on Saturday for the annual "Bunny Bounce." It's billed as a big Easter egg hunt which seemed like it might be fun so we bundled up (it was damn cold) and headed to the zoo.

Another outfit for the books.

So we got there and hiked about 17 miles to the field where they were holding the "Bunny Bounce" (next year, remember to use the North Entrance which is RIGHT THERE!) which was also right by the Carousel which made somebody's Carousel Radar go nuts and we had to negotiate to get her to stand around waiting for the event. But at least we got to see the Easter Bunny!

She doesn't look at all like I thought she would.

And we ran into our friends Jill and Ann and their sweet kiddo Lila, so we had a few laughs and Jill gave us chocolate milk, so the hike turned out to have been worth it.

Now, how the "Bunny Bounce" is advertised and how the "Bunny Bounce" plays out are vastly different. After turning the teeming masses loose in an enclosure full of plastic eggs

"Don't be afraid to throw an elbow!"

participants gather as many as they can in the hopes of finding the one (or two or whatever) that have a special sticker that entitles them to a prize.

"Is there a point to all of this?"

Everybody else takes their empty plastic eggs and dumps them in a bucket so the surly zoo staffers (okay, I'd be surly, too) can scatter them around again later for the next batch of confused and yelling players.

So then we rode the carousel which maybe we should have just done in the first place.

Don't know if you can tell, but her hands were purple by this time. Did I mention it was damn cold?

Later that day we went and got some plastic eggs of our own and filled them with stickers and hid them around the house so Kiddo could find them on Sunday morning. It made way more sense to us than the zoo thing.

And Kiddo got a boss new pair of shades.

Then our friend Jen came over and we ate three meals at once while listening to the Easter Parade soundtrack. No, I won't be invited to any Dominic Savio Society reunions, but we had a delightful weekend, all the same.

And on Sunday night, Kiddo discovered the sticker she got at the zoo. So let us close with the second installment of an incredibly sporadic series we call "She Didn't Think It Through."





(heavy sigh)