Easta Feva

For most of us, the mere mention of Easter conjures up fond memories of egg hunts, fancy dinners, or new dresses. Easter is definitely awesome when you’re a kid but who says children get to have all the fun?

Every year my family does an Easter egg hunt for my nieces and nephews. This event is always a hit. After a group of the adults has hidden everything the kids rush outside in stampede style and dash around the yard looking for the goodies. It’s a very similar experience to the charging of the bulls except I’m pretty sure not all of my nieces and nephews have horns. Jason and I contribute an extensive amount of toys and candy to this cause, more than the kids’ parents actually, because we want it to be a fun tradition for the youngsters. Amongst many other things, we hide three golden eggs filled with money; the kids go nuts for these babies. Considering the rage these eggs inspire you’d think they were made out of real gold not cheap Chinese plastic. If only I was so easily impressed than Jason’s pocketbook would probably be in a healthier state.

The kids were eager to be let loose. Miles waited impatiently for the marching orders with his basket at the ready.
Wesley loved the hunt. He wouldn't hold still long enough for anyone to transfer his findings from this awkward bag to a basket.
Benson found one of the golden eggs far too quickly. That clever boy!
Isabelle didn't quite understand the concept of the hunt but with a little coaxing she started putting candy in her bag. Kids seem to pick up on how to horde sweets pretty quickly.

The kiddies’ hunt is a great yearly ritual but Jason and I have started another one we also quite enjoy. The last two years we have gone snowboarding on Easter. We have found that the crowds are usually sparse and the sunshine prolific on this holiday so it’s a great time to hit the slopes. This year Easter happened to also be the last day of the season for Brighton Resort so in addition to finding ski bunnies (literally) on the runs we saw Captain America, a wizard, cowboys, numerous strange animals, and a plethora of drunkards. Ah, the end of season craziness! Anytime a resort’s parking lot is filled with raucous groups of people having barbecue parties and boarders are riding down the mountain while playing the bongos you know it’s going to be a fantastic day!

Captain America boards. Who knew?
Brighton's Easter bunny's task of handing out candy didn't deter him from hitting the slopes a bit.

I love traditions but I’m also a big fan of surprises. That’s why this year I decided to also do something a little out of the ordinary and have Jason hunt for his Easter goodies like the little kids. I hid 11 items, ranging from comic books to candy, in 2 rooms of our house and made Jason seek them out. It took him 35 minutes to find those 11 things, and that’s even with numerous hints. Although he wasn’t much of a seeker he did seem to enjoy finding nothing slowly. The funniest thing about Jason’s hunt is that I actually hid all of his prizes 2 days in advance while he wasn’t home. I was banking on his lack of observation to keep them concealed until Easter. It worked fabulously; Jason has too much code floating around in his brain to notice his surroundings.

I gave Jason juvenile prizes to increase the authenticity of his hunt.
Jason wasn't a skilled hunter but he did eventually find all of his prizes.

We had a great Easter. Watching kids go crazy for candy is always a hoot and any holiday spent with Jason is a pleasure.

Catch Me If You Can

Last Saturday Jason and I chased Peter Cottontail all over that bunny trail.

For the second year in a row we participated in Lehi’s Easter 5K. This 5K is a lot of fun and, since it takes place so early in the spring, it provides great motivation to get out and get running as soon as it’s warm enough you won’t freeze your barnacles off.

I wasn't ever able to quite catch up with the bunny during the race but that's because he snuck through a shortcut. Silly rabbit, cheating is for kids. But I might be tempted to cheat too if I was running in that sweltering suit.

This year this race didn’t have as many participants as previously, due to the prestigious Salt Lake City Marathon falling on the same day. That was fine with us. The diminished number of runners in combination with an abnormally high percentage of these racers not particularly being in a hurry made me and Jason feel like track superstars. Not a single person passed me the entire race.

Jason, who always leaves me in the dust, crossed the finish line at about 23 minutes, which placed him in 4th out of all the men and 5th out of everyone. That boy was fast but it’s too bad he wasn’t able to shave off the 45 seconds necessary to make it into 3rd and get a glorious ribbon. I completed my run in an unimpressive 30 minutes but somehow, despite my very standard time, I won 5th place out of all the women and 11th place overall. I’m not sure how that happened but it must have had something to do with our competitors not being very competitive.

Jason received this giant pink bunny as his racing prize. How cute!

It was a good race with perfect weather and a fun crowd. I would definitely recommend this 5K to anyone looking for an easygoing family-friendly event. After all, you get to chase a man-bunny. How do you beat that?

The Con

Some of you may have heard of a little get-together called Comic-Con; it’s just a small gathering of over 100,000 of the world’s biggest geeks. Even if you haven’t been living in a cave long enough to know about Comic-Con, surely you have heard of RowleyCon. RowleyCon is an illustrious multiday event where the geeky 1337 are invited to work up a gaming sweat (deodorant optional) and compete for uber status. It’s sure to become the hottest thing on the nerd radar since D&D.

Our friend Jeremy Rowley is a gaming aficionado extraordinaire and he decided that instead of going to Comic-Con he was going to bring the Con to him. He and his wife Amber hosted a weekend teeming with everything nerd: board games, Star Craft II, DDR, Dance Central, and even some classic Nintendo games.

a nerd dressed as Batman
Not underwear on the head...but close. This brilliant, yet somewhat disturbing, Batman costume was all my idea but I still have to give Jason props for having the confidence to wear it.
A nerd party without Star Trek is like a Klingon without a bat'leth. I wore my Starfleet uniform on Friday so this get-together wouldn't be lacking an essential ingredient.

Since competitions were held in every gaming category, and used to determine not only each division’s champion but an overall mega geek, I decided I had better become somewhat familiar with all of these geeky pursuits so I could at least lose at RowleyCon with dignity. My desire to not be the suckiest led to Jason teaching me how to play Star Craft II. I had never played this game before last week but he taught me enough that I could give the impression that I knew what I was doing as I lost miserably. To be beaten gracefully was all I was hoping for; I seriously doubted I had the sweet skills necessary to win a round. But somehow, despite my minimal aptitude, I did manage to whip Jacob’s Terran hinny during the tournament even though he owns this game. (No Jacob, the force is not with you.)

Jason was also undefeated at DDR...until he played me. Wahahaha!
Jeremy is a DDR head. Good thing I didn't have to go head to head with that head or I wouldn't have ended up ahead.
Jacob wasted everyone at Duck Hunt. I'm glad he didn't play every game as pathetically as he played Star Craft.

There was one competition that I definitely didn’t need anyone’s assistance training for: Dance Dance Revolution, AKA DDR. While I am certainly no expert at this game, the hardcore DDRers would step all over my face, I can dance dance good enough to impress the easily wowed. I ended up winning the DDR competition undefeated. Good thing Jeremy excluded himself from the contest; that boy is unnatural when it comes to DDR. I never would have beaten him.

On Saturday Jason and I both dressed in a steampunk motif. Jason made a pretty great airship captain.
It only took some slight modifications to turn my Halloween costume from last year into a steampunk masterpiece.

My esteemed teacher, Jason, won the Star Craft tournament. He technically got second place but the first place winner, Adam, won the title of uber nerd making him ineligible for a Star Craft winning too. Surprisingly, I actually gamed my way into a close second place for overall nerd. Dang that Adam! If only I had been proclaimed the biggest geek in the world then I could have retreated to Valinor satisfied.

Andrew beat me, Jason, and Simone at Dominion. Maybe being the world's slowest Dominion player has its advantages.
The Small World contest was intense. I believe Adam's races slaughtered the other contenders.
Jason's brother was very popular with the Rowleys' cat. I think Mel wanted to live in his beard.

Even if I didn’t vanquish all the other gamers at least Jason and I won the prizes for best costume. The competition was really tough…okay, so Jas and I were the only ones that dressed up and consequently we could have just worn underwear on our heads and won…oh wait, that’s pretty close to what happened-just kidding. Although tighty whities may have been involved we actually did put together some pretty cool costumes at the last minute using pieces of costumes I had made previously and a few new accessories. With a little creativity we each ended up with two different outfits so we could wear unique attire on both nights of RowleyCon.

Jason's goggles made his big blue eyes look bigger, brighter, and bluer...and totally screwball.

RowleyCon was a little chaotic, with an abundance of tournaments going on simultaneously and sometimes haphazardly, but it was a lot of fun. It was also very refreshing not to be in charge of this party; being guests instead of hosts was a nice change. We are looking forward to geeking it up again next year. You nerds are going down!