Easter Hunt and Hike!

Second Annual Easter Egg Hunt and Hike!

- yes I realize this is old, but my blog is going to go backwards for a while...

I have no idea why I am slightly obsessed with Easter. I think it has to do with the fun, bright colored eggs ...and I've realized I like hiding things for people to find.  :)

Anyways, I've started an "event" at Beaver Brook where we hide eggs on a trail and the kids hike along and find them.  It's actually a super awesome idea if I do say so myself!!

I started it because regular egg hunts stress me out.  First of all you HAVE to be there on time.  A minute late and you've missed the start ...and you are left with a crying child.  Besides you aren't really "hunting" for anything, you are literally running around and just grabbing ...and having to often fight off psychotic parents to get any eggs. I hate psychotic parents ...like a lot.

Anyways, MY awesome egg hunt is an ongoing hunt where eggs are rehidden along the trail for two hours straight ...so no stressful start time! ...and no psychotic parents to fight off...for the most part.  :)

The first year we did it was sort of a fiasco.  I had 70 kids sign up so I planned for 150 and the following happened.  I am just copying and pasting it from the email I sent a long time ago.  :)

----  Easter 2014.

Well.  That was fun.   : )

I am in awe of what happened today.  I still can't believe it!  It's my estimate that the Wildflower Trail probably saw around 500 kids today ...plus all their accompanying grown ups.

The egg hunt went exactly as planned for the first half hour, keeping in mind that I actually started at 12:30 with the thought of, "Well, I'll get these few people done and moving through" ...but people just kept coming!

By 1:20 we had gone through all 1412 eggs, (ten eggs a kid)  ...and re-stuffing with the extra ~1200 pieces of candy was going slower than anticipated.  We removed bunny pictures to lower the number of eggs to eight per kid and eventually we just started putting candy out sans the egg. Everything was gone by 2:00 and I had an hour to go and the place was still packed.

The Beaver (my husband) had already been sent to the store for more candy so we waited....   Kids played tag, ran through the gardens, poked at the compost, played with frisbees, looked for bugs, and dug holes with sticks.  We entertained with puppets and had live entertainment by yours truly: hokey pokey, Easter jokes, the wave, sing alongs, simon says... at one point I had everyone look at the clouds to see what they could see.  Everyone was happy and there was still not a piece of candy in all of Beaver Brook. 

As I talked with the 100+ people in line I learned that our egg hunt had made it ALL OVER the internet and that the Beaver Brook emails had been forwarded and forwarded and then forwarded again... turns out preschool and daycares had been busy advertising for us!

The Beaver finally returned at 2:30 with ~2500 more pieces which we quickly threw all over the trail and the last of the line was able to make it through by 2:55!  We only had a handful of candy left.

Today was controlled chaos at it's finest.  I saw only smiles and heard only positive comments. Everyone was so encouraging!  For many it was their first time to Beaver Brook ...so mission accomplished!  

Out of curiosity I just googled  "egg hunt new hampshire"  and ALL of these sites had Beaver Brook's event listed and most had omitted the RSVP portion of it!  HA!!  :)

-----------

That is what I sent to "Beaver Brook" after our first hunt to explain the day since it was just my family and some friends running the entire thing because I thought it sounded like a fun idea.

It was obviously popular so I upped our egg count to 3000 and we were ready this year... Or so I thought!!  :) Actually, the day went well, but with a lot more restuffing than I anticipated!  

This is my favorite picture...

It's of my brother in laws entire family plus some random friends who offered to help ...they are stuffing eggs ...which they did for 90 minutes straight... While I popped my panicked head in every now and then to confirm the were stuffing as fast as possible.

Some of them would leave to go re-hide or collect empties.  They pretty much saved my butt, because even with my 3000 stuffed eggs we were struggling to keep up with the crowds.  We had 1000 people hike that small trail in just two hours.  Insane.  Luckily we had opened the whole barn and had crafts going on and the bird museum opened... It turned into a huge day and tons of fun for everyone.  ...but it would have been a MASSIVE fiasco without my family and friends!!

After Easter I bought another 1000 so we are ready for next year.  :) 

PS.  Both hunts were free and I was pretty bent on keeping it that way, but even without a specific cost people donated over $600 each year.  See.  People are nice.  :)