A Beautiful Easter

Did you know that dogs like cake? And that your normally well behaved dog might just cave while you are at Church and do some counter surfing? Which culminates in a text like this? 

"Sorry, we are going to be late to dinner. Gus ate the cake while we were at Church and Vanessa is making another one."

Gus is a Standard Poodle and the tallest dog of all of the family dogs. He's sweet and there is nothing he would rather do than play ball. (Here he has set one on the kitchen table in the hopes that someone will toss it for him.) As tall as he is, counter surfing isn't difficult but he is well trained and the food is safe. Usually.

Having said that, the carrot cake that Vanessa had left cooling on the kitchen counter proved to be too much for him and he caved, leaving only remnants for the rest of us. (I really can't blame him; Vanessa is an excellent cook!)

Luckily Vanessa was able to get another cake baked (lemon this time) before we met at Leslie's farm in Brookston for Easter dinner.

It did not take long for the usual family shenanigans to begin.

Such as Les being caught eating the crunchy onions that were supposed to go on the green bean casserole. 

AND, not sharing them with her sisters when she did.

Our nephew, Eric, who often is in Europe for work, was able to join us. He is leaving to go back in a week so we were glad to have him with us.

During dinner, it came to light that Cowpoke Lukie likes butter. 

Like, REALLY.

Directed by Mama Vanessa to cut it down to a more reasonable size, it wobbled off the roll and onto the floor, but no harm done.

Cowpoke Ian and Teacher Daughter Lisa.

After dinner, we all gathered outside for an Easter egg hunt that Leslie and I put together.

I bought and filled the eggs; she hid them around the farm.

The farm is nine acres, but we limited it to the three fenced acres around the house.

The kids were given 30 seconds to hunt before the adults were allowed to join in.

It was rumored that the kids had scoped the place out a bit first; had some of the adults, too? Curt and Vanessa sure were casual and confident as they began! (Hah!! I just spied a pink egg hidden in the arm of the clothesline!)

It was a lovely day for our hunt.

Those eggs were hidden well - we did not find them all!

But finally we called it quits and walked back up to the house for prizes.

Pony Pal Mila won a golden egg as did Eric,

while Lukie and Ian shared a giant chocolate T-Rex. (Which Leslie coveted - she loves T-Rexes, but since she'd hidden the eggs, she could not win any prizes.)

Pony Pal Mila opened her golden egg and consolidated all her candy into it.

Then it was back into the house for the final event of the day - eating Hershey pie, lemon cake, and watching Purdue beat Tennessee in their Elite Eight game and make it to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament!

We are off to Phoenix next weekend! (Cartoon by Dave Sattler and shared on social media.)***

The team celebrating after their win yesterday.

Boiler up and hammer down!!

*** Dave is a long time friend of mine. I'll write about him another time, but one of my most treasured of all his drawings is one he gifted me as a surprise. It is framed and hangs in our bedroom.

He even included his cat, Boo, knowing that I was very fond of that cat.