Easter Weekend! It had to be a combo of work time for Catherine and family time for us all. Stage 1 of the weekend was shelter and fire building with the boys while Catherine put in a basement office shift. We geared up for the morning with winter gear because there was a good wind blowing despite the mercury rising above zero. loaded a sled, some easy trail grub, hatchet, and headed out. We went up to the windmills as our first location had another dog walker. When marching into the bush the cold was a bit more than was reasonable and the snow still too deep to manage effectively, so we observed some deer tracks and returned to the truck to head back. Back at Radar lake, our dog walking competition was gone and we were good to go on the isolation. We headed in and found a spot with some downed trees and a couple good spots to make a shelter. We chose a tree with a nice dry patch under it and began setting to work on a lean-to structure. By setting to work I mean, the dog disappeared, Russell raided the snacks, Dom started gathering souvenirs, Felix removed clothing, and Julian tried to help me reign it all in and actually build. We did get somewhere, and over the course of two hours managed to get the start of a shelter done and a mock-up of a fire. Task complete we headed for home and a warm lunch plus the familiar digital comforts of the pandemic.

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Stage 2 of the weekend was Eggs-a-la-Mayer. The egg dying, competitive cracking eggstravaganza that now spans three provinces and was, for the first time, live streamed to other family participants! Keeping everyone’s hands from turning purple during the colouring of the eggs was a constant defensive struggle and only I ended up with green fingers. For the cracking competition, Dom had a veritable arsenal of eggs and won all his battles. Jules, Russ and Felix also had respectable victories. Catherine and I did most of the losing and therefore most of the eating (winning)! The eggs plus sauce toppings is a taste the boys are still acquiring.

Stage 3 was the competitive Easter Egg Hunt! With both an indoor and an outdoor phase, the hunters needed to be released in waves by age and experience. All Easter baskets were filled, many eggs held surprises from chocolate and one giant egg each even had a new outfit. The Easter Bunny having gone all out this year spreading pandemonium in our house! It took until about 3pm for the chocolate/candy bingefest to subside and then the goodies were actually not really revisited in earnest after that  (by the kids).

Stage 4 was getting my own haircut done, with a little help (err, cough) from Catherine. Managed to sort it out, though I am not sure how “can you do the hairline” was instantly converted to, “I see some long hairs you missed”. All told, I will be clarifying that I have changed the razor settings before inviting help back next time. To cap off the weekend and really the actual point of stage 4, we went on a family bike ride, first one of the season!

Bonus footage: