Easter Eggs Wanted

So I'll tell a little story on myself and hope it makes you smile as much as it makes my husband laugh.  I decided weeks ago that we'd take Sara to an Easter egg hunt at a local park.  Sara has gotten really good at picking up objects and putting them in baskets or containers, and she usually thinks it is very thrilling, so what could be more exciting than repeatedly doing just that with colorful eggs and a pretty purple basket?

Well to Sara, there are probably a lot of things that could be that exciting, but for some reason, I had gotten my hopes up about how fun this was going to be.  So, when McDonald's conveniently forgot about our coffee while we waited in the drive-thru for 10 minutes, I was only a little nervous that we might miss the beginning. The hunt began at 10:00, we pulled up and parked at 10:05 and as we walked towards the egg field around 10:08, we quickly realized we missed the beginning, middle and end.  As we passed hundreds of kids with baskets full of eggs, and looked out upon an expansive, empty field (which only 4 minutes prior had been covered in 10,000 eggs), I turned into a disappointed 6 year old.  I was very grateful for my sunglasses as I actually got very close to crying over the situation.

But my sweet little girl and her pretty purple basket bounced along happily looking around at all the kids, and racing towards a couple of plastic egg halves, and cheerfully putting them in her basket.  Then she found some tootsie rolls that had gotten loose and tossed those in there too.  She didn't have a clue what the event was supposed to be like and was perfectly content to run in circles in an empty field with her basket full of rejected egg halves.  Then a very sweet family saw our predicament and donated 3 (complete) eggs from their basket so that Sara could enjoy a "real" Easter egg hunt.  Egg charity feels pathetic, but is actually quite funny.  Admittedly, I pouted, but the whole thing did have a very nice silver lining.

See, as we walked onto the scene and Sara began to participate in what she thought was a very fun Easter egg hunt, a young lady from the Northwest Herald walked up and asked if she could take a picture of Sara.  Apparently in the frenzied mess of the actual hunt, getting a decent picture of wild, egg-craving savages was impossible.  But Sara was able to conduct her miniature hunt with lots of room around her and plenty of excellent photo opportunities.  It paid off.  She made it into the Sunday paper.

So after all the pouting and disappointment, Sara's first Easter egg hunt turned out to be a more lasting memory than if I'd had my on-time way.  I do think it would've been funnier and more truthful if the caption read that Sara Tinsley picks up the 10,000th egg.  No matter; she didn't care that it was the last egg, but rather that it was hers and she got to take it home.