Happy Easter!

Easter is always a special time in my family. We have our basic traditions. Coloring eggs, lots of chocolate, and hunting for eggs after breakfast.
Back when Daniel and I were little, my dad would always hide the eggs we had colored, every year, without fail. He would hide some easy ones, and some not so easy ones. He would follow us around and give us a hint if we were close.
We always found it funny though how quickly he would forget where he hid all the eggs! We almost never found all of them. Why just last summer I found a three or four year old Easter egg stowed away in the shop. It was past the point of rotting already, it was just dust.
My dad always had special places he would hide the eggs too, so we had a few ideas where to look. In the trees, by the trampoline, there was always one in the gutter. Now that he's gone, Daniel and I try to uphold his traditions for the younger kids, with a few of our own twists.

We still colored eggs. The kids made all kinds of pretty colors and stuck stickers all over them when they were dry. We took the special crayons that keep the egg white when you write designs and put it in the dye. Using the crayons we made what we call, Scribble Eggs. We wrote all over the eggs, scribbling over every inch, and then placed them in the die, coming out with interesting abstract patterns. It's also tradition to write the name of your crush on one of your eggs every year. You can imagine who's name I wrote down.

On Easter morning Daniel and I got up early while the kids were at sunrise service to hide all six dozen colored eggs. Daniel took the north half of the house, I took the south half. Daniel hid two eggs on the roof for a laugh. I hid one in the storage mailbox in the garden. I attempted to hide one on the edge of the tree house, but a sickening crack as I was climbing down ended that brilliant plan. Daniel hid one in the cat's litter box in the shop. He also hid two eggs in the chicken coop, where the chickens promptly sat on them.
The kids got home just as we were finishing up with three eggs. Once they had eaten we took them out and waited. There were quite a few easy ones we left in plain sight for Juliet to find, then there were more complicated, clever ones for the older girls. Juliet ran and screamed and giggled over every egg she found in the grass and in the flowers. Georgianna took finding eggs very seriously, as she does with most things. Annaliese saw it as a sport and wanted to find every egg.
Annaliese was not brave enough to stick her hand under either of the chickens to get the colored eggs that Daniel had hid in the nest boxes, but Georgianna had no fear in grabbing it from under them. I was proud.
At the end of the day, I feel sad that I can't share these memories and traditions with my dad now that he's passed, as well as wishing he could see how much we have grown in these few years. The kids have gotten so big and smart, Daniel looks more like him every day, and I know I am not the same girl I was. I like to think he would not be surprised at all. He would say he knew who we would become all along.