The Easter Egg Hunt and the (totally unrelated) Cursed Jello Salad

This post will not be filled with darling pictures of my children picking up Easter eggs or posed in brilliant green grass wearing matching springy colors.  I just wanted to write about our ward Easter egg hunt and the cursed jello salad.

Ward Easter Egg Hunt and Potluck Picnic:

Since it was my idea (no activities committee anymore you know) me and my counselors planned it – I have never had to plan a ward party – only Primary activity days!

We had it on Friday night at the church since in Arizona, outdoor picnics at this time of year are rather sweaty.

We stuffed almost 500 plastic eggs with candy throughout the week.  (I heard a rumor that a ward in our stake had an Easter egg hunt with 5,000 eggs!  What the heck???  Is that even possible?)

Everyone brought blankets and sat on the floor in cultural hall.

Yes, it was a potluck.  I tried reeeaaaallly hard to convince the men in ward council that it wasn’t necessary to feed everyone at each ward party but they reeeaaaallly wanted food there.

We all but ran out of food.  Quite a few people came who didn’t bring a dish to share, which is fine if you are not planning on eating and/or feeding your 3 children….  Others brought food but when your assignment is “main dish” and you show up with desert (no matter how scrumptious) it just doesn’t quite cut it.  So my wonderful new counselor rushed out on an emergency pizza run.

Thanks to Scott and a few other men who were trying to avoid the chaos inside, all of the eggs were hidden around the church building.  No, it is not too hot here for an outdoor egg hunt as long as you are only outside for a short time, as the sun is going down, and there is not any chocolate in the eggs!

I was shocked at how many people came to the party – well over a hundred which is excellent for our ward. 

Finally we turned them loose on the lawn – ages 0-3 in one area and the older kids in a different area.  This is where you should picture adorable pictures of my children with their Easter baskets full of brightly colored eggs:

 

Can’t you just picture them?  Ahh yes, since Scott and I were so busy we got no pictures of the party at all!  Sad day.  Luckily, they get a second hunt at Grandma Smith’s house tonight maybe we will snap a few pictures then.

Can I just say that I am so glad that party is over??

 

The Cursed Jello Salad:

Have you ever had that scrumptious jello salad with the pretzels, creamy stuff and strawberries?  It is so very yummy.  One website accurately describes it as “An unholy marriage between pretzels and JELL-O, with a healthy dose of Cool Whip and cream cheese spread on for good measure.” 

Somehow Scott and I have become the official jello salad makers for both of our families.  This recipe is usually requested at Thanksgiving and Easter and when I ask “is there anything I can bring?”  It usually goes something like this….”oh, umm, you know what sounds good is that pretzel jello salad.”  So, like a dummy I say “sure thing!”  It is not my recipe – I don’t even know where it came from and while it seems simple, it NEVER is.  Literally every time we make this salad something goes wrong:

• forgot to buy ingredient = late night trip to Walmart
• can’t find recipe = frantic search through every paper in my messy collection of recipes
• pretzels are not crushed enough = horrible texture
• failure to seal cream mixture over pretzels before pouring jello on top = jello leaking into pretzels and a soggy, gross texture

Since this Easter is the last one at home for my brother-in-law, Dylan, before he leaves on his mission, we decided to humor him by bringing his favorite pretzel jello salad.  We figured that we have made every mistake in the book on this one already so we should have it down to a science.  So, late last night (maybe that is the source of our trouble – trying to cook at 9 or 10 at night?) we began the labor.  Everything was going very well.  We had all the right ingredients, the pretzels were crushed to a perfect texture, we even planned it out so the jello would be partially set before pouring it over the creamy stuff, preventing breakthroughs to the pretzels. 

Then, it happened.  A little misread and three cups of sugar mixed with cream cheese and cool whip later (instead of 3/4 cup sugar) we had a veeerrry sweet goo, totally unpalatable and unusable. 

• three cups of sugar instead of 3/4 cups = late night trip to Walmart for cool whip and cream cheese

All I could do was laugh and laugh.  I don’t think we will ever make this stuff again!  And no, I am not going to share the recipe with you.  You can google it if you are a glutton for punishment.  Besides, our copy of the recipe is obviously cursed and you don’t want any part of that!