On Easter, Thomas gets out of hand; the boys do a typical Anchorage Easter Egg hunt

Kalib and Jobe had stayed with us since Friday and none of us had any idea of the mischief their parents had been up to while they were with us. It all had to with Thomas the Train. They had found this battery powered, ridable Thomas the Train on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago, had kept quiet about it, but had been arguing inside their own heads the whole time.

Should they get it? Or was it over the top? Spoiling their boys just a little bit too much, maybe?

Well, they got it - and boy, was it fun! At least for Kalib and his cousin Ashley. Jobe was asleep in the car.

Oh yea, cousin Julian, too. That's him falling down.

As train wrecks go, it was grand and glorious.

Now, it is still Easter Sunday and this is the second post I have put up today - even though on Friday I said I would put up no more posts until Monday, and then I would take this blog right back into India.

What was I thinking? Yes, on Monday, I will still take this blog right back into India - but what made me think I could let Easter pass without making a good morning Happy Easter post and an end of the day, kids celebrate post?

Except for Melanie, who is doing a job up on the Arctic Slope, and Caleb, who opted to stay home, watch the Masters golf tournament and do laundry, everyone came and everyone contributed. Rex and Cortney bought themselves a smoker and smoked a ham with cherry tree chips - and I swear, it was the best ham I have ever tasted.

Oh, my goodness! Was it good!

I felt bad for the pig that contributed to our Easter feast with its life, but still it was good.

I wonder why God made the Earth this way?

And does the ressurrection apply to pigs?

How could it not?

Someday, I might meet this pig. It might say, "Bill, I am not very happy with you."

I might respond, "but you nourished me and all my family, pig, and you tasted good, and we thanked you and thanked the Good Lord for you."

"Well, okay," the pig might then say. "I'm resurrected, anyway, so what the hell. Everything is fine."

"Being ressurrected is good, but I sure miss the taste of ham!" I might then add.

"BILL!!!!" the resurrected pig might then squeal.

Of course, if it turns out that reincarnation is the real deal, then I might be the pig next time, and the ham might be the man. That would be karma. Sooner or later, though, we would get it right and we would both be happy.

I photographed everybody who came for dinner, from the babies Lynxton and his beautiful cousin Arial - the youngest in the family right now - on up to Margie. But I still have a lot to do and I can't let this post get too long, so I am restricting it to the Easter activities of the children, beginning with the arrival of the big Thomas the Train.

Maybe I will squeeze a couple of the others in this week, somewhere between India posts - at least Lynxton and Arial.

Then I move to the Easter egg hunt. After his Uncle Anthony (Ants) hid the eggs in the nearby park, Kalib slid down the snow bank on his butt and then led the way to the hunt. The first Thomas picture and all the egg hunt images were done with my iPhone, by the way - not because I was following Richard Murphy's example, but because the battery on my 7D went dead.

Cousin Julian heads out in search of eggs, just ahead of Kalib and Jobe. That's Charlie's lens. He photographed the action, too, and already has images up on Facebook - including one with me.

Ashley and Kalib search for eggs at the teeter totter - finally beginning to emerge after Anchorage's snowiest winter on record - 135 inches so far, undoubtedly with more to come.

Julian searches for eggs on the slide. I thought sure he would spot and grab this one, but he didn't. So I did. And I ate it, right there on the spot.

I JOKES! I JOKES! I JOKES!

What? You think I steal candy from babies?

Crimeny. Don't take everything I say so seriously!

Ashley finds an egg. I took it away from him and ate it right there, on the spot. It was really good, but it needed pepper. At first, it needed salt, too, but I turned Ashley upside down and sprinkled his tears on the egg and that was salt enough.

Jobe with his eggs.

It was the kind of day that turns snow into water. After hoarding a good supply of eggs, Jobe wandered into a puddle.

After awhile, he got out of the puddle. Then he dropped an egg into the puddle. "Ohhhh noooo!" he said.

Jobe does not yet have a big vocabulary, but he's got "ohhhhhh noooooo!" down pretty good.

As Ants looks on, Lavina and the boys frolic in the puddle.