The Great Easter Race of 2013

Today I am the best kind of sore. This is because I spent yesterday afternoon sprinting through the hills of Laguna in my Sunday finery. Minus my Easter high heels. Although I have to say, the classrooms I teach in during the week are so far from my office that I reckon I'm getting mighty skilled at power walking in heels. Watch out Kelly Ripa, no doubt I'll be a contender for the next NYC high-heel-a-thon blue ribbon.

But I digress.

In the week leading up to Easter I'd pushed through a pile of rather tiring grading with the anticipation of a rip roarin' resurrection celebration on Sunday. Thank goodness I'm a Jackson, because I can always count on Jacksons to deliver in the celebration department.

And they did.

My aunt, cousin, and Nana-in-law prepared a lovely spread, which we ate in my aunt and uncle's even lovelier backyard.

Over lunch, we laughed, read scripture, and went back for seconds and thirds. Then my uncle announced the Great Easter Egg Hunt of 2013.

The goal, he'd said, was to crush your familial opponents by doing whatever it took to find all 41 eggs, before anyone else could fine a single egg.

Actually, he'd really said something like, "You and your partner will race the other teams in a backyard egg hunt." But I am a Jackson, which means the goal of any race is to obliterate your competition with inimitable cunning and prowess.

Thank goodness I remembered halfway through the race that Jacksons are also very silly, and that it's possible to have fun racing, even if you don't win.

By the way, here's my egg hunt partner, Hunter.

He's my cousin Kyler's college friend. As his name suggests, Hunter is a very adept egg-finder. It turns out I am not, however. Apparently I spent too much time jumping around and exclaiming excitedly to maintain any sort of competitive edge.

Between the two of us we found nine eggs. Which put us in 3rd place, out of 4 teams. Our abysmal finish was eclipsed by the excitement of the next activity:

"Operation Figure-out-what-do-with-all-these-numbers".

Each of the 41 eggs had a number in it — some positive, some negative. As you may have already deduced, our task was to figure out what to do with the numbers, and then give our aunt the cracked code. If we were correct, then she would give us a golden egg to open.

It did not take long for us to realize we needed to add up the numbers, which took quite awhile because adding up 41 long numbers is more confusing than you'd think.

But we finally emerged victorious with our 5-digit number, and opened the revered golden egg, which had the name of a street in it.

Armed with what we determined was an address, we sprinted down the driveway and up the street.

Well, we girls sprinted. About 100 meters into the race the boys realized they weren't a match for our feminine speed, agility, and determination, and so they hopped in the car.

Boy, they missed out.

Several minutes later we arrived, panting and sweaty, at a neighboring house, where we discovered our Easter candy.

Delighted and tired, we jumped in the back of the boys' truck and drove back to the house, where we enjoyed our spoils and ate my aunt's divine coconut cake.

The rest of the evening was full of rich conversation, laughter, and music. My cousin is an amazing vocalist, and I am a pianist, so we joined forces to lead the family in singing praises to a living God who gives us new life.

It was a lovely end to a stomach-filling, sore muscle-inducing, soul-satisfying, rip-roarin' resurrection celebration, made possible because He lives.

"Because I live, you also will live" (John 14:19).

© by scj