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Earlier this afternoon we went to our town's annual Easter egg hunt. It's organized by the university and is held at a downtown park. Dave and I were curious to go for two reasons. The first one's pretty obvious: Henry's never been to an egg hunt before so we were dying (ha! punny!) to see what he would make of the whole thing. The second reason is the hunt happens to coincide with the university's annual student shindig called House Party Weekend. To sum up: there's lots of beer; lots of students driving in from other universities; a few live bands who all play the same Pearl Jam songs; and lots of all night partying. (As an aside, I think it's sad that the grunge music of my high school years is the same stuff that's speaking to college kids fourteen years later. Even I've moved on.) Some locals dread this weekend and try to get out of town but I kind of like hearing all the ruckus, especially since this town's usually really quiet. Anyway, back to the second reason: we wanted to see how hung over the students who volunteered for the egg hunt were.

When we got to the park there were plastic eggs strewn around the park as far as the eye could see, at least relative to a toddler. Henry immediately ran for them and tried to pick them up. We told him he couldn't do that yet, so he wandered around, pointing at all the different colored eggs. Then he discovered if he stomped on them they'd pop open, which technically isn't picking them up, right? Dave steered him back towards the sidewalk and distracted him from the glory of Easter eggs by pointing out a duck while I stayed behind and put back together the ones he'd stomped on.

Henry loved running around with all of the other kids. He was not enamored with the Easter Bunny so we didn't get any pictures of them together. He was, however, extremely fond of Bucky the Bison. Bucky tried a couple of times to coax a high five out of him, but Henry prefered to admire him from a distance.

At one o'clock everyone gathered around the grassy area in preparation for the hunt to begin. When the opening bell sounded a bazillion kids ran out with their baskets and started grabbing eggs. A bazillion kids minus Henry, that is, who stood on the sidelines and was either confused, or was doing a very good job of obeying his mom and dad's advice about not picking up any eggs. Obviously he was confused. I stood in front of an orange egg and encouraged him to pick it up. The other parents were very nice about steering their kids clear of that particular egg. Finally Henry ran over and picked it up. Then he ran over to a purple one and picked it up. After that, there were no more eggs to pick up. It was over that fast. Seriously. I'd guess the whole thing lasted 30-60 seconds and then everyone cleared out. Further up the lawn were a couple of empty eggs that had been looted and dumped, which Henry spied and ran to pick up. That's what's great about Henry's age. It's not about what's in the eggs, it's all about the thrill of finding them.

And in case you were curious, the students didn't seem at all hung over.