An Easter like no Other

We ended up with about 15 people for Easter including the five weekend guests. Friday night we made carne asada tacos & hung out. Saturday, we went to Zell's Cafe for breakfast (yum), decorated easter eggs, made three trays of chocolate-covered strawberries & fabricated an Easter chick-ham (details & pictures forthcoming). We also picked up a keg for the weekend. By the time Sunday came, we had a full keg of Widmer's Drop Top Amber (didn't finish it; Brian Gaffney called it the K-egg), 5 magnums of champagne for mimosas (drank one), a ton of bloody mary mix & vodka (barely touched it) and the Jello shots that Taryn made in plastic easter eggs (totally ravaged and fought over).

So note to self: more Taryn drinks, less bloody marys, half a keg rather than full.

Easter in Portland is very different than Easter in Tucson. Tucson Easters are very hot, thereby requiring the hostess to hide the eggs 30 minutes before the guests come (the chocolate STILL melts). Portland Easters allow me to hide the eggs much sooner, although you have to wait out the rain & hail to actually search for them. The Easter games were very fun... an elaborate Easter version of Killer Bunnies rolled into a 325 egg 'Egg Hunt' (Ken won with the Taryn Carrot), a standard Jelly Bean Guessing Game (Ken won again, this time by guessing 204; correct=207), an Egg Run around the perimeter of the house (Adam S totally wrecked in the muddy driveway, thereby covering his new pants in Oregon mud; Ken won this too with a time of 19s. Brian Gaffney came in 2nd with 20, then Emily with 22s), the egg cracking contest (Rachel won), and an awesome pinata Taryn made depicting a chicken sitting in an easter egg (note to self: next time use something smaller than a softball bat).

In all, it was very fun. Rachel & Justin left Sunday night as did Taryn & Paul. Karl & Brian G. stayed the night, with Karl being upgraded to the guest room. The last guests left around 10 & I went to bed -- thereby getting 10 beautiful happy hours of sleep. I cleaned up the next day which wasn't too bad. Kinley's been great and, incidentally, isn't afraid of the shop vac... even when his mom 'accidentally' sucked up his snout. Apparently, curiousity mixed with unconditional love seems to be a recurring theme in our household.

Pictures coming soon. Happy Easter!