HAPPY EASTER!

Hope everybody had a wonderful Easter. Our family really enjoyed it. A highlight is always the easter egg hunt at Frank and Vicki's house. They host our church on Easter mornings so that we can meet in the a.m. since our church usually meets in the evening and doesn't have space available in the a.m. Vicki took out the computer to look at the pictures of all the church kids last year compared to this year and it's a nice reminder of the wonderful tradition the Easter Egg hunt has become. This year certainly stands out because of the need to hunt for the eggs in the snow. Yes, here in Alaska we get to both search for Easter Eggs in the snow in the Spring and Trick or Treat in the snow in the Fall! Not many places can boast that claim to fame.

We had a wonderful Easter afternoon, too, made more wonderful by the fact that my in-laws hosted the Easter afternoon meal. No cooking, no cleaning required for me -- a true luxury. We baked Spring themed sugar cookies the night before as a treat for the kids so we still got plenty of baking in. Plus, I made a fantastic breakfast casserole to take to the church potluck.

I'm sure if you were to ask Christopher about the most exciting part of Easter, though, it would be the squirrel story. We have some issues with pests wanting to use our house as a nest of their own. We have some woodpeckers tearing up the back of the house, and some squirrels who had made their nest in the roof - -a real no-no because they eat up insulation and can cause serious structural damage to a house. The problem reminded me that you can take the boy out of Fairbanks, but not the Fairbanks out of the boy. My husband quickly decided that a pellet gun was the solution to the squirrel problem. Little 'ol me preferred the supersonic noisemaker that creates noises that squirrels don't like but is too high pitched for human ears.

Christopher and Greg purchased the pellet gun on Sat. and Christopher spent most of Sat afternoon on look-out. You can not begin to understand just how exciting this was to a 6-year old boy. On Sunday morning, he came and woke Greg up and dragged him out of bed to show him that the squirrel, was indeed, sticking his bushy little tail out of the roof. Christopher had quite an exciting morning watching dad both hit the squirrel and skin the squirrel. Yes, skinning the squirrel is required by Alaska state law -- lucky us. So, good news is that the squirrel problem is at least momentarily solved. For better or worse, my son now apparently has some Fairbanks in him, too.