When my little sister and I were kids, we hunted actual boiled eggs.  Where some people bought the hollow, colorful, plastic version for their small children to search for, my family just boiled some up, had us decorate them, and we hunted those.

All but one of the adults in our family would take the eggs outside (there were usually around two dozen), and hide them in various places in my grandma's yard.  Then, once it was time for my sister and I to find them, we were released from the house.  My sister and I were superb egg hunters, even at a very young age.  It usually didn't take us very long to find all the eggs.  The adults would count to make sure every one of them was found.  

Every year, my sister and I would want to hide the eggs for the adults to hunt next.  Of course, they humored us, gave us the eggs, and sent us outside to hide them ourselves.  Typically, we would split the number of eggs in half, and hide each half on our own.  

Well, this one particular Easter, we went through the same motions.  My sister and I finished hiding the eggs, and waited eagerly for the adults to find them all.  It didn't take too long to realize an error was made.  No one could find the final egg.  All of the eggs that I had hidden were already found, so it was one that my sister hid.  When we were little, my sister had the tendency to forget where she would hide things.  Now, all of us know this is an actual boiled egg, so we went to searching my grandma's yard as carefully as we could.  The egg was still missing.  We'd deducted it was one my sister dyed blue, but we couldn't find it.  After a while, the adults decided we should just give up.  It wasn't that big of a deal after all.

Weeks later, we were at my grandma's again and noticed one of our dogs had a blue tint around his mouth.  He'd found the egg.

While all the children, in their Easter Sunday best

Searched grass, tree, and stone, their hair messed

We religious ones, knelt inside the church praying

Looking out at the "pagan egg hunters" playing

Instead of a bleeding, thin nailed to a wooden cross

Couldn't this Easter be about candy and Bunny soft?

Easter morning when you are 10 is full of mixed emotion. You know there really isn't a magically bunny that brings you gifts and candy. But you still want there to be, at least you hope mom and dad continue the farce.

We came down stairs early, what kid can sleep late on Easter morning? Even though, we were unsure if there would be baskets for us. Mom always said the magic continues as long as you believe. Why had we decided to tell our parents we didn't believe any longer?

We looked in the normal places; under the chairs, behind the couch, on the basement stairs. We were getting worried, we looked in the stranger spots, maybe mom and dad had just gotten better at playing the bunny. They weren't in the washer or the dryer. No baskets were found, when we got brave enough to search the basement. We even snuck into our parents room and looked under their bed.

Mom woke up and asked what we were doing. Sadly we told her " the Easter Bunny didn't come" My dear sweet mother smiled and suggested maybe he couldn't get in the house since dad had forgotten to leave the door unlocked last night.

My little brother and l looked at each other then raced down the stairs and out the front door. We checked the bushes, we checked the flower gardens, even behind the garbage cans. I was worried again but Scotty yelled " the back yard" as he ran that direction. I ran after him and almost ran him over as I turned the corner of the house. He had stopped cold in his tracks, mouth hanging open, he pointed to the center of the back yard.

There was a 12 foot trampoline, with net sides. Inside was covered in fake Easter grass, colored eggs, and candy! The largest Easter basket ever!!