Easter+Cousins=FUN

Friday I met my daughter and gathered up my grandson so we could go the the big gathering of cousins in the country. Dear daughter has a pressing engagement and the drive with young un and infant is just too much. H and I did the museum on Saturday, all the while ticking down the time until "Going to the Cousins". He planned on filling a backpack with eggs to share with his friends. More about that later. Somehow E.B. discovered there was a child in the house and really left enough treats for the three children who lived here and grew up. Miscalculation. It took a comically long time for H to even find the treats because he was not expecting them and was amazed at how E.B. knew those were the exact cars he asked Daddy for recently. He then decided he had so much candy that he didn't even need to get eggs at the hunt.
The weather and the temperature couldn't possibly have been one iota better yesterday and we arrived at the gathering of three generations of cousins, seconds, maybe a third or two, and some several times removed. The food was particularly beautiful as Rose is a vegetarian, so the salads are just photogenic and amazing, she made an eggplant dish she invented that I was able to eat a bit of and it was superior. There was a table laden with desserts, strawberries, and apple slices AND a chocolate fountain. Reece, a third grader, has his first strawberry in chocolate and I swear the boy was in ecstasy. I asked him if he wanted a chocolate fountain at his wedding and he literally shivered with joy, yes, he closed his eyes and shuddered. Want a party idea for kids? Fruit and a chocolate river...and a river of babies--Baby B. Baby L. Baby E. is that all? not sure, then tots, then preK then elementary and three middle schoolers who no longer wanted to tolerate a 5 yr old boy...for a while.. a trampoline, 2 great danes--two calves the size of great danes and good old lemon drop, a beagle with a body the size of a fatted calf. At five there was bottle feeding of calves.

At some point we "hid" the eggs, 200 plastic eggs with various treats and some with slips of paper with very funny tasks inside. Believe it or not, the kids loved the tasks. Hug 5 trees, thank your mom, hop ten times on one foot....Marci and Matt live in the country, have acres, woods and a creek, we hid the eggs in the yard only, which is probably 2 or 3 acres and woods encroaching, some eggs were hidden, many were just tossed especially for toddlers, then the brood zoomed over the land filling their sacks and H's plan to save all his eggs to share with friends? No deal, he did the same as last year, ate everything. I made him eat something with protein at least twice during the day, but the rest of the time....oh well.

I hadn't been with my cousins and their children since Thanksgiving and now I really look like THEIR mother--that was fun, and once Mandy mistook me for HER mother, my cousin Rose. I think we have the same sharp jawline now. Right at 6p.m. we rolled out toward home and H said with disappointment, I thought we were staying till night. It's six o'clock! Oh. He did not collapse and fall to sleep on the way home..unbelievable (we talked all the way home) but he is still in bed right now at 8:15. He wants to go home today, he's afraid he'll miss school tomorrow, I think he wants to share his good times!