Our day was nearly ruined. It started with rain. No back that up. It started last night when the girl said "I can't wait to see my Easter dress" and I responded "Well we're going to a farm, so I thought you'd just wear your cute flowered overalls."
Oh dear. No. That was the wrong answer. Luckily the husband had run to Walmart and I sent an emergency ACQUIRE SOME SORT OF DRESS text. He shot back some photos and I picked one and we were set.
Then Saturday arrived. The husband was full blown sick, switching places with me as the most deathly ill person in the house. He came to bed freezing and shivering and chilling, and wasn't much better when it was time to go. I loaded up the address in my phone as this Easter Egg hunt farm is up in the mountains and I didn't really remember where it was.
That was the first problem. Most places in our mountains can't seem to be properly GPS'd. I find this to be problematic. I know that there are people who crave spots the GPS doesn't know but I am not one of these. I WANT TO HAVE EVERY INCH OF THE EARTH MAPPED AND PINGING A DAMN SATTELITE. So we made a turn we didn't recognize and ended up rolling up a mountain, eventually onto a one lane road.
We'd laughed about the "last gas for 20 miles" sign except when we were halfway up the mountain with no sign of it ending and our gas light came on. The time was ticking and we were losing. We asked one then two locals. With no signal we were stuck trusting their directions - none of which were QUITE right it seemed as they kept us going mountain-ward. Eventually we circumnavigated an entire lake community, a mountain or two and our gas gauge was dropping further and further below the line.
(Photo credit - things I saw while lost)
Suddenly - I GOT SIGNAL. I made a frantic phone call to some really nice people at the farm who, despite me having no signs or landmarks for a minute or two were able to piece together where I was from the sign at a church - AND GOT US THERE right on time. Low on gas, nerves frazzles, but ON TIME.
We lined up and got ready...to GET SOME EGGS.
Miles has to wear his hood up like a Sith. I don't know why.
Louis had to help Charlie, but he didn't seem to mind, and even though he's "too big" for all of this I think he kind of likes participating. Don't tell anyone.
The hunt itself went quickly, as they do. It's a nice big field and no one seems to mind the twins, even though they're kind of big for it. I am sort of thinking maybe we'll just end up filling eggs or something ourself next year - Julia is still little enough but Miles and Charlie won't understand why they are too big. It's hard being a great big little guy.
They dont conceive of being 11. They're just little tiny guys in their own minds.
Charlie looks drunk. He is not drunk. I promise.
It's a very nice spot, however, for egg hunting and even better than that, there are other things to do there. Like, take a train ride. We may officially be getting too big to get on these little trains together.
With my husband feeling worse and worse we crammed into a little train car for a tour of the farm. It began to rain, but we were in the covered caboose with no worries, except that we were crammed into a little train car.
The oldest boy suffered the indignity of the whole thing rather well I felt.
After that we headed into the gem mine to pan for gems, and buy pretty rocks, and just look at stuff in general.
We got to swing a bit and play before it was time to head home and get Daddy to bed where he so desperately needed to be.
The twins love to swing so much, I wonder sometimes how much it would be to put in a REALLY sturdy wooden swing set like this that THEY could use for a long time. They would love it.
All this being said, we had our Easter egg hunt and the fun of the Hillside Farm once again. We survived being lost in the mountains, almost running out of gas and a rain storm that threatened our day. Eggs were obtained, joy was had, and really that was the point of it.
I've got my husband tucked back into bed sick as hell, and my kids are doing random things and I'm just relaxing and thinking about how much my mom would've liked the photos of the kids today. We would've talked about all of them, and laughed at Charlie's silly swing face, and his silly drunk face. I miss having her to share these moments with, but I'm glad I'm still making these memories with my little people.
I asked Julia what was her favorite part of the day.
She said "Everything."
I'll take it.
