A Quiet Easter

I always chuckle a bit when I read back on old posts and see how our lives tend to follow a carbon-copy pattern from year to year - especially at Easter time. There seems to always be a post in April that recounts a trip to Calgary with exciting egg hunts and outside fun. Unfortunately this year has been a little different. Pete's promotion came at an already busy time of year, chalk full with pre-booked trips. He was recently in Toronto for a conference, has an upcoming hockey tournament in Vegas, and we have a sans-kids trip to Europe coming up at the end of the month; all of which were booked and paid for prior to the promotion. With Pete now being responsible for the company's operations, it was important for him to put in face time right off the bat at the various sites (which are all remote). That unfortunately left him little choice but to head up over Easter. I'd be lying if I said this past week hasn't been incredibly tough on all 5 of us. Despite my best efforts at scheduling tons of fun for the kids, we are all missing Daddy terribly.

Thankfully, I managed to suck it up and pull together a half decent Easter for the kids (thanks in part to Kelly and Cliff who had us over for an Easter dinner Friday night to start the weekend off on the right foot). We had a great time decorating the eggs yesterday, which we followed up with a movie night watching "Hop".




I shot a quick video when we were decorating:


The Easter Bunny must have known I was single-parenting and went to great efforts to keep the kids entertained for as long as possible by hiding over 250 eggs (yes, seriously!). The hunt lasted for well over an hour and the kids literally turned over every inch of the house. The best moment was when we found an egg hidden in the central vac outlet. When I reached in to grab it, the system was triggered and the egg was sucked into no-man's land. Three out of four of us giggled our butts off. One of us (aka Ethan) is still beside himself that I wouldn't allow him to sift through the dust and dirt in the central unit to find it. Did I mention there were 250+ eggs??? Ai yay yay!






There was another classic moment when the kids decided it was time to go play in the garage and were shocked to discover more hidden eggs, as well as a new-to-them ripstik from their Mom and Dad. We had no trouble filling the rest of the day playing with both new and old toys.





Pete gets home tomorrow and has a solid 48 hours to cram in as many Daddy hugs and mini sticks games before heading off again on Wednesday. After speaking with Arlene today, I'm now contemplating a quick getaway to Calgary with the kids. They are off on their Spring Break this week and we could all use a change in scenery. After all, what's April around here without a trip to Calgary to blog about?