Easter Carnival

On the Saturday before Easter, the three of us headed out to Wheeler Farm for an Easter Carnival. It had a little something for everyone: Easter Egg hunt for Emma, cotton candy for Laura, and Star Wars characters for Quinn. Seriously: Star Wars characters. Because nothing reminds us of the miracle of Easter like Jango Fett.

The first thing we did was check out the farm animals. Emma really enjoys stuffed animals, books about animals, and -- as it turns out -- actual animals. She knows lots of different animals and the sounds they make. She has a strong preference for "woof woof" (she thinks pretty much anything furry is a dog) but she can "nay," "baaaa," "quack," "moo," and "meow." Oh, and she also makes a cute fish face when you ask her "What does the fishy say?" and she opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish. So the point is: she likes animals, and she had a really good time seeing real ones.

Ready to go! The weather was overcast and looked like it would rain, but it never did.

We saw some really funny-looking chickens. The one on the right was all black except for this really big white feather afro on its head. Is there such a thing as a "white afro?" It seems like there should be some other word for "white afro". Anyway, there was another chicken that had big clumps of feathers down around its ankles so that it looked like it was wearing bell bottoms. What's the deal with these funny-looking chickens? Any former FFA-ers out there?

Note to selves: Emma doesn't particularly care for large farm equipment.

Well, after the farm tour was over, it was time to get "Eastery". Of course, that meant meeting the Easter Bunny.

And then on to the Easter egg hunt. I really don't understand why they insist on calling these "hunts" when they clearly make NO attempt to hide the eggs. They should call them Easter egg dashes, or sprints. Maybe Easter egg moshes. Anyway, the lady in charge of the "hunt" was nice and let us take Emma in by ourselves so Emma wouldn't get trampled by 8-year-olds throwing elbows in order to find more temporary tatoos than their friends.

Emma's Easter egg "hunt." There are 1,254 eggs hidden in this photo. Can you find them?

Well, Emma found her limit of 2.

Awwww.....
Emma's haul: A roll of Smarties and a pirate eye patch.


There was another Easter bunny over by the hunt. This one had a big belly, which Laura and I agreed made him look like a better Easter bunny.

Why don't either of these Easter bunnies have pants on? And don't tell me "because bunnies don't wear pants" because guess what? Bunnies don't wear bow ties or vests, either.


Next we ran into Grizbee and he was nice enough to let us get a photo. I think he was a little too much in Emma's personal bubble, though.


Okay, so then I practically squealed with joy when I saw that there Star Wars characters. They had been advertised on the flyer, but we didn't see any for quite awhile, and we thought maybe we'd missed them. We only got one picture with them, and I'm still kicking myself that I didn't have the spine to ask those nerd Jedi wannabes to get out of my picture and let the bad guys stay. I know some of you may laugh at me calling anyone a nerd, but trust me: within the realms of Star Wars nerds, there are varying strata of nerds, and I have no difficulty whatsoever calling out those who are nerdier than me.

Seriously. I blew my chance to get a cool picture with a stromtrooper.Nerds.
Well, that about did it for our day. One last picture, though:

He's no Johnny Depp, but it's a start.