An Egg Hunt for Grandma Betty

As a child I would look forward to Easter every year for one reason..well two because the Easter Bunny was pretty good to my sister and I...but this one came first.  We had a huge egg hunt at my Grandma's house with all of my cousins.  We were all close, close in age, close by location and close as a family.  It was always so much fun.  

I know that as a child, it was great for obvious reasons but now as an adult I think my Grandma had the most fun of all.  You see, she was a poet.  She liked to write short whimsical rhymes, ones that a child would relate to.  She put her talent to good use in writing short poems for us to give clues as to the whereabouts of our final eggs.  I can picture them clearly, carefully written in her curly and articulate handwriting.  Her writing was so distinct, so different than any other. 

The annual egg hunt was one of many traditions we had with my Mom's side of the family.  She has one brother and two sisters and with all of the children combined there was a grand total of 12, 10 of whom lived in the area.  And of the 10 of us there was only a few years difference between the oldest and youngest.  Who needed friends when you had cousins like that!

As we all grew older, the egg hunts stopped.  We got together for happy hours and birthdays, then for bridal showers, weddings and baby showers.  We all grew up and started living our lives eventually having children of our own.  A few years ago,  the Easter egg hunt was started again and little by little the guest list grew.  We had all had babies, nearly every one of us, and our family was growing.  What can you expect with all of those girls!  Between all of us we have a grand total of 18 babies with 2 more on the way!

This year was our first Easter without our Grandma.  She left us in the Fall and we all miss her terribly.  The home that we have gone to our entire life had been sold to a young woman who will hopefully feel the joy that has been in that home year after year.  There was so much love, how could you not.  As a family, we decided to celebrate Easter with Grandma, in her home, with her family and in her love..one last time....

We postponed our celebration until after the Easter holiday in hopes that we would have decent weather.  We were able to coordinate every last one of us to attend and although the forecast called for rain...for sure...we hoped for the best.  The weather turned out to be perfect, the wind died down and the rain held off until we were able to complete our egg hunt and our balloon release to celebrate Grandma.  It was her you know.  She would have never let it rain on us.  And as soon as we went back into her house after the outdoor festivities were complete the skies opened up and the rain fell down. Thank you Grandma...