On the Hunt

This year's Easter Egg Hunt at Sunnyside Gardens was the weekend before Easter which was already early at the end of March. Fortunately, the day stayed dry but temperatures were only in the mid 40s--not exactly the best for lingering in the park. But with my eagerness to kick off our park events for the year and Soula's help getting Starbucks to come pour coffee at our bake sale, we pulled off a great event. Volunteers came out in force ready to help assemble the trash bag full of eggs and decorate the park grounds. We had two different games for them to try: a spoon/egg race on the track and a bunny ears ring toss on the picnic tables.  The kids always show up right on time to get in to the park and scour the three hunting grounds (field, picnic grove and lowers) for all the colorful eggs. A few years back, we decided to scrap the idea of filling the eggs and just have the kids return them for a scoop of candy. So far that has worked out great and I improved on that this year by stamping their hands when they return eggs. Once you've done that and gotten candy twice, you're done. Add in a bunny photo op and the day was looking quite festive for a chilly Saturday in March...

I ended up running eggs back to the field a dozen or more times during the event and probably looked a little crazed as I bounced from one area to another. But really, I enjoyed the festive vibe of the park and the turnout was great. People brought plenty of candy to help us reward the hunters and there were free slices and prizes from Uncle Jimmy's Pizza for the lucky ones who found the golden eggs. We also had a jelly bean counting contest in the middle of the blacktop and lots of good guesses were collected. But Maggie O'Sullivan came in a staggering 9 jelly beans off the final count of 1548 making it easy to declare a winner. Yes, it was a day full of candy and plenty of smiles and I heard plenty of good feedback from members. Happy to see the park starting to thaw after the dark, gray days of winter. And I'm happy to say we covered our costs and made a little change on top which is all we need to do for members only events. So all in all, not bad for our first event and my girls were thrilled with their stuffed animal prizes which meant I didn't disappoint as a mom either. Woo hoo!