PFR 2012 - Day 2

On Saturday morning (Day 2) of our reunion, we awoke to the aroma of breakfast. Lisa and Mack cooked and served up some homemade pancakes and bacon. It was super yummy!

Because it was the first time since forever that everyone was together, I made an appointment with a professional photographer to come take our family picture at the Reunion Home on Saturday mid-morning. Since it was Easter weekend, I had a really tough time finding a local photographer from the Rexburg area. Everyone I contacted was either out of town or doing a wedding. Out of approx. 15 requests for different photographers, only two said they could/would do it. One is well-known and was very, VERY expensive. The other one was a BYU-I student with a photography degree, who was a lot less expensive, but still had a high price tag. So, I went with the lesser one. He came out that morning and he and I walked around looking at different possibilities of sites, outdoor and inside. Then we gathered everyone and ventured out in the snow that had fallen the day before. It was cold, but the sky was clear, and he took a few shots of everyone, of grandkids, and of siblings.

After the half-hour photo session, everyone went back inside and did their own thing...lots of play time for the kids and lazy time for the adults! Except for Mick and Jen, who were on lunch duty, and began prep work for the best salad and fruit bar lunch ever!

We gathered together for lunch, and it was such a delicious and gorgeous treat! We ate so well at the reunion!

After lunch, the kids dyed and decorated hard-boiled eggs for Easter. My mom bought them all matching aprons so that the food coloring wouldn't stain their clothes. They looked so cute in them! They had fun coloring and embellishing the eggs. Each child chose their favorite egg they made to enter into a contest for judging and prizes.

The egg dyeing/embellishing took most of the afternoon, between applying colored layers and letting them dry, and decorating with markers, stickers, glue and accessories. While they waited for the eggs to dry, the kids just kept on playing; the 3 big rooms in the house complete with bikes a game tables and toys kept them entertained constantly! After the eggs were done, it was Cody and BreAnne's turn to make dinner. They made some yummy nachos with tons of toppings.

After another delicious meal was consumed, my dad went outside to hide all the plastic eggs for the annual Perkins Easter Egg Hunt. This has become a big tradition in my family to have the annual egg hunt every Easter. My dad hides the eggs, and my mom organizes the event and is in charge of prize money.

There's an adult egg hunt, and a kids egg hunt, done in different parts of the yard. Each egg hunt is done at a separate time, with everyone involved beginning on a start line. In the adult hunt, there are a gold and a silver egg that are hidden that are worth big bucks ($20 and $10) and that's the ones that everyone wants and goes crazy to find. In addition to that, each adult can find/pick up 12 regular eggs. Each of the eggs is numbered, and when the egg hunt is done, there's a paper that shows how much each of the numbered eggs is worth, ranging from 50 cents to $2. There's usually some mystery eggs that are worth $5, too. Then the egg tally sheets are added up, and returned to my mom, with the plastic eggs, for payment. The kids egg hunt is very similar, but on a cheaper and smaller scale: the kids are allowed to find a certain number of eggs each, there's a hidden gold egg worth $5, and mystery eggs worth $2, and regular eggs ranging from 10 cents to $1. Instead of the eggs being numbered, she has different styles of eggs that are hidden (animal-shaped eggs, sports ball eggs, silly face eggs, etc), so even the little ones can help separate and add up their tally sheets themselves. This was the first time we had our egg hunts somewhere other than my parents' front and back yards, so it was different trying to find places where the gold and silver eggs could be hidden!

My mom telling everyone the egg hunt instructions instructions before going outside.

(p.s. I LOVED the giant dining room in this house)

Jen & Tawna were the big winners of the adult egg hunt!

(p.s. Jen was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and this photo makes me smile every time I see it)

The kids on the starting line before their egg hunt.

Searching in their designated area for the gold egg...

Ammon found it! [again]

Back inside after the hunts, tallying the prize money.

After all the results were in, and all the prize money paid out, my mom got out cake decorating supplies for the kids to create their own edible designs on mini-cakes she'd baked in the shape of eggs before eating them for dessert.

And while the kids were doing that, some of the adults played a few rounds of "Qwirkle" with me (my new favorite game, remember?).

(this particular round was so competitive and challenging and high-scoring, I took a photo of it)

Then night time arrived, the kids went to sleep in the bunk room, and slowly everyone else went to bed as well. Jen and I, along with her two oldest daughters, and Tabbi took a nice, soothing soak in the outdoor Jacuzzi after dark. It really relaxed me; I love soaking in hot tubs. I fell asleep a lot easier that night because of it. The second day of the Perkins Reunion 2012, full of activities and eggs and fun, was a successful one!