Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Easter and Bluebonnets

So I'm finally updating. Sorry it has been so long - its just that time of the school year where if you procrastinated then there is just a bunch of stuff to do! Well, guess who procrastinated.. lol.

So, I'll start with our Easter weekend. My parents, little brother, Erin, Darrell and I all drove down to Darrell's parents house to celebrate Easter with them. They had a big party on Saturday where a bunch of family and friends get together and play games, eat and have fun!

Bob in the early morning grass. 
Bob walking towards me in the grass. Its really grey and overcast in the morning smudginess.
Hanging out after breakfast - still really cloudy and wet.
Bob hanging out on a slab of concrete - the concrete is wet all around him from his fur and paws. Its still grey-ish.

One thing/tradition that their family does is playing with the Cascarones (or confetti eggs)! It's a spanish tradition where you get empty egg shells, color them and fill them with confetti. Once you have about a million of them you take and smash them all over everyone else's heads and rub all the confetti in their hair! lol. I heard about this when I first moved to San Antonio and did this with his family last year but this year was special; my family has never done it before (or heard of it) so it was fun to explain it to them and run around trying to get them with the eggs.

Now you may be wondering where to get a million eggs filled with confetti.. well down here people save them up over the entire year and sell them at flea markets and stores. They save all their egg shells and make the cascarones throughout the year, they spray paint them to make the coloring process quicker. Well, this year Darrell's mom made a bunch of Eggs for breakfast on Saturday morning and saved the shells so Erin, my mom and I could make our first cascarones ever! Apparently they would do this for Darrell and his siblings when they were little - keep them busy for a while haha. Well we got to decorate and fill our own dozen eggs. After they were dried they only lasted a few minutes lol but it was still fun. Bob didn't get to participate in this little ritual.. 1. I was afraid he would get stepped on/ run over and crushed lol. 2. There was way too much confetti and egg shells flying around and I didn't want him to try and eat all of it.

First you start with dried out egg shells... 
Egg carton full of empty egg shells, the tops have been carefully broken away to make a 1 inch hole

confetti...
a green easter bucket full of confetti

 and some markers..
close up of a pack of markers
You color and fill with confetti 
picture of a few of the eggs in the carton, they are colored and filled up with confetti

 and then glue some tissue paper to the bottom to keep the confetti from falling out
Close up of Erin's hands, she is cutting out some squares from streamer paper




Let Dry. Go eat!


After we all ate we had some fun with the 'adult's' pinata - all the kids already did theirs so it was our turn!

Darrell's mom helping him over to the pinata..
Darrell's mom leading him over to the pinata; which is a bunny sitting inside of a basket













Just missed it! Probably because he was blind-folded.
Hey! it had to be fair didn't it?!?! 
Darrell in the last stage of his swing, the pinata is about 4 feet above his head
Mom needed help finding it too..
Darrell's mom helping my mom find the pinata













Get ready to swing! 
Mom in pre swing

Darrell was one of the only guys that tried it. 
Most hung out over by the BBQ pits - thats my dad and brother in the blue!
Picture of some of the guys hanging out around the barbeque pits, its Darrell's brother in law, Darrell, Dad and little bro

Once the pinata was dead we (well mainly all the girls) gathered around to play a game. Its kind of like musical chairs but not really haha. One of the ladies had brought 2 big duffel bags full of random articles of clothing. The rules were like this; we would pass around a big plastic Easter egg while music was playing and when it stopped the person holding the egg had to wear a piece of clothing from the bags (the person on their left would go and pick it out of the bags and weren't allowed to look at what they were getting). After the game was over we would see who had the most things and strut our stuff around.. You didn't get anything for winning but it was still a lot of fun to see everyone in random things.

Darrell's sister got some funny head gear.
Darrell's sisters sitting in the circle, one got a big green curly afro wig, the other got a jester's hat.
So did his mom :) 
His mom and dad sitting in the circle, she has a shower cap on and a pair of fake glasses with a banana nose attached.














I got a mask with broken feathers lol - the front one kept falling in my face!
Me with the broken mardi gras mask on















After that we had fun with the cascarones!

Darrell hitched a ride with his brother
(P.S. that's a tent in the background - wind was too much for it lol)
Darrell hanging onto his brother's shoulder, he has a bright pink egg in his hand and is smiling













Confetti gets everywhere and some of 
those egg shells hurt! But its always fun :) 
Picture of me with confetti in my hair, you can see Darrell's mom in the background with more confetti in her hair and Darrell is behind her with it all over his shirt
Darrell getting my little brother.
Darrell reaching out to get my brother, little bro stopped and dropped his head for Darrell, he's really tall so makes it easier to reach him haha
Sometimes it can get intense! lol. 
 Picture of one of Darrell's mom's friends getting jumped by two little kids - one boy is in mid jump so is up in the air
P.S. - the eggs we made were definitely the best! 

We also had a "golden egg" hunt - where everyone would contribute a certain amount of money (we did 2 dollars each) and that would all go into the "golden egg". All the people that were participating went on a hay ride while the egg was being hidden and once we got back the search was on! Bob helped me with this but wasn't a very good money finder... it was fun though because he got to run around a bit and sniff the rest of the yard he has never been to. In the end Erin found the egg, it was tied up in a tree with a rope that was used for the pinata.

Darrell helped his brother get the truck for the 'hay' ride - if 
you click and enlarge it you can see him in the back :) 
Darrell's Dad's truck with the trailer attached, Darrell is sitting in the bed of the truck leaning over the side a bit.

After that it all started getting dark and we had one last game (well the people that still had energy that is). Darrell and I participated in a 3 legged race, we were against each other of course; its a competition after all. Darrell was paired up with his brother and I was with his sister in law(Vanessa). We played in teams (6 people each) so we weren't sure of our individual success agains each other but I'm pretty sure we would have beaten the boys if it had been one on one ;). After our race all the people still there headed out and Erin, Vannessa and I played HORSE at the basketball hoop.

I know there wasn't much to do with Bob in there but overall it was a really fun day; Bob did get some practice in with leave it though so good day for him too :)

This turned out really long so I'll save the Bluebonnets for the next post ;)

3 comments:

Sarah and Romeo said...

That sounds like a ton of fun! Glad it was enjoyable! I'm sure Bob didn't feel too bad, all those eggs he would have eaten wouldn't be so swell, he prolly knew this so he volunteered to stay inside....right? lol I wish they thought like that :) Glad you had fun

Infrequent Flyers said...

I love those traditions! I've never heard of any of them before. The $2 contributions/Golden Egg is fabulous--a mini lottery! And I love the random clothes!

Ro said...

Hahahaha ok so guess what. I'm reading about the pinata and I'm thinking, man that would be hard, as Darrell is being led up. Then you said he was blindfolded and I laughed out loud. Then I realized how stupid it was that I thought it would be hard blind, duh!! Hahaha!!!

I grew up with castanedas too. Those things are meeeeeeeessy!