Going for the Gold!!!

The Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Perkins house is a big deal! My mom and dad make it a great event for the whole family, with separate hunts for the kids and adults. My dad spends time hiding all the eggs outside in the yard; some of them are so well hidden that we can't find them and he'll discover them months later! My mom is in charge of coordinating the hunts, getting out and organizing the hundreds of plastic eggs and working out the prizes for the egg finders. Each egg is numbered, and she has a chart that shows how much each of the numbered egg is worth. For children, they are worth between $.10 and $1.00. For adults, they are worth between $.25 and $2.00. Each participant can only find 12 eggs, and after the egg hunts are over, everyone uses tally sheets to determine how much money they earned. There are also gold, silver, and mystery eggs that are worth higher dollar amounts (between $5 and $20 more!). Those are the eggs that everyone wants and searches for!!! Because not only do you get extra money, you earn the unofficial title of the Gold Egg Finder, the Egg Hunt's Top Title for the whole year!!! My mom records everyone's earnings as well as who found the gold and silver eggs, so we can look back at previous year's hunts and see who's won big and who hasn't. Josh has found the gold egg multiple times, but I've only found the silver egg once.

The kid's egg hunt goes first. Without the Perkins girls (we missed you!), the only kids in the hunt this year were my boys! They had a great time! Ammon found the gold egg, the silver egg, and two mystery eggs.Jonah found the 3rd (and final) mystery egg. Micah liked searching for the well-hidden eggs.Kanyon was just excited to be egg-hunting at all!!! The boys with their full baskets after the egg hunt was over!
The adult hunt always goes last. The anticipation leading up to it includes smack talk with the siblings and several proclamations of "This year I'M finding the gold egg". This year, the adult hunt included more than just the regular siblings and spouses. Mick and Cody's families were unable to come, so we had cousins Ben and Liz join us. Ben brought his girlfriend Bridget and Tabbi's friend Josiah also came! It was exciting with all the "fresh blood"!!
We readied ourselves at the "starting line" and dashed across the lawn to search for the gold after my mom gave the word. After several minutes, it became apparent that the big-ticket eggs were in the bushes, so everyone scrambled over there to search the area.

And sure enough, they were hiding in that area! For the first time ever, I found the gold! And I found the silver! And I got the mystery egg, too! I was SO ecstatic!!! The "official" family rules state that you cannot win both the silver and the gold eggs. But since I'd found the silver egg first, I wanted to continue to search for the gold, because it's worth more! Nobody's ever actually found both of them, though, so after I found the gold one too, we had a family consultation to decide what to do. My mom picked a random number for the silver egg winner, and Tabbi had that numbered egg, so she received the earnings from it.

I've never had so much fun in an Easter Egg Hunt in my whole life!! Thanks Mom and Dad for such a great time had by all!!!