Cold Weekend

The date on the calendar says April 17th, but if you walk outside you'd think it was February or early March. A month ago it was my birthday and it was in the 70's, today it was in the 30's when I woke up, it was crazy super windy, and there were a few snow flurries. Yes, you read that right... SNOW FLURRIES. All I have to say to that is WTH? I wonder sometimes why I live in Michigan because I really do hate the cold. I sure hope Mother Nature gets the memo soon that it's spring and this weather makes a turn in the right direction. The whole week was crappy weather wise. We went to the park one night and it ended up being colder than I thought it was going to be while we were there. That sun is so deceiving. The next morning Em woke up and had a runny nose and was sneezing all morning. So needless to say we didn't play outside the rest of the week. Crappy weather = being cooped up inside again. Ugh! A week ago the kids were in shorts and today they were in boots and winter coats (more on that in a minute).

Yesterday was supposed to be our neighborhood Easter egg hunt. This is the first year the association has planned it and it was to take place at our new neighborhood park. In past years some of us have organized it and just did at someone's house. I almost wished we would have done that again this year because it was so disorganized. The weather was crappy all morning. It had rained all night then rained off and on all morning. I called one of the ladies organizing it at about noon to see if they were still planning on it (at this time it had stopped raining), and to find out about maybe postponing it until Sunday. Well, no thought about having a rain date plan so they were still going ahead with it unless there was a torrential downpour. A little while later it started raining again and Greg and I decided we were skipping it. It was too cold, wet, and the park would be a muddy mess. We didn't want the kids out in the nasty weather and we had been holding off on going to the movie all day because of the Easter egg hunt. So we decided we were going to the movie instead. At about 2:30pm, a half hour before the egg hunt was supposed to be I got a call it was canceled due to weather and would be today instead. REALLY? I can't believe it took them so long to decide. Hello, the weather was crappy all day. The kids were glad it was canceled because they really wanted to go to the egg hunt, but also wanted to go to the movie. Greg's mom had told the kids she'd take them to see Rio this weekend and it looked cute so we wanted to see too. It was a perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon at the movies. It was a fun, cute movie and we all enjoyed it! I recommend you take your family.

So today we woke up and it was super windy. It was cold, a few snow flurries as I mentions, and the 45mph winds on top of it. A great day for an Easter egg hunt, right? NOT! It's all the kids could talk about all day and couldn't wait to go. It was at 3pm and we headed to the park about 15 minutes before. On the way there we were all freezing. The wind was crazy! The organizers of the egg hunt were still disorganized and by 10 minutes to 3pm they still didn't have all the eggs out. Stuff was blowing all over the park and they ended just dumping the eggs in piles basically. It was basically a quick grab the eggs, put them in your basket, then when they were all collected the kids had to quick open them and find any with golden tickets. One had a golden ticket to win a filled Easter basket, and five had golden tickets to win bags of jelly beans. We had dumped Ev and Em's eggs together and after going through them all, they had three golden tickets and won three bags of jelly beans. We collected their winnings, but before we left I asked Ev and Em if it would be o.k. to give one of the bags of jelly beans to Em's friend Maddie because I didn't think we really needed three bags of jelly beans, plus the candy in their eggs. They both agreed that would be a nice thing to do so we did. I try to really enforce sharing with their friends and doing kind gestures for their friends so this was a great moment for that. We were pretty much done with the egg hunt in about 20 minutes and back home to warm up. Who would have thought we'd be wearing winter coats and boots to an Easter egg hunt. Too bad the egg hunt wasn't last Sunday. Hopefully next year the weather will be better and the egg hunt will be a little more organized. It all went so fast, that I only had the chance to snap a couple pictures. So here's a couple of the half way decent one's I got.

And they're off to collect eggs!

They found some up on the the steps of the play structure.

Quickly opening the eggs to look for golden tickets.

Evan was cold and didn't want to smile for the picture so this is the best I got of them with their bags of jelly beans they won!

Yes, I know it's cold and Evan has ripped jeans. I didn't know if it would still be a little wet at the park and he's got very few good jeans left to make it the rest of the school year so I wanted him to wear an old pair. He wanted to wear these pants even though they had holes. Before I leave I want to wish my friend Marie a very Happy Birthday!