CAMAS — The only real Easter Fools’ pranksters at Sunday’s Camas Easter Egg Hunt may have been the kids making wild guesses about how many thousands of eggs they planned to grab once they were let out onto the field.
For the rest of the 27th annual egg hunt, put on by Camas Parks and Recreation, there was very little in the way of April Fools’ pranking. In fact, most families there forgot that this Easter oddly fell on April Fools’ Day.
“We were a little worried about that, actually,” said Krista Bashaw, the city’s special events coordinator who has organized the Easter egg hunt for the last 24 years. “This is the first time I remember Easter falling on April Fools’ Day. We wanted people to know the egg hunt wasn’t a joke — so we made sure to put ‘no fooling’ on the flier.”
People apparently got the message, because despite the drizzly afternoon about 2,000 visitors joined in the fun — a lot more than Bashaw had expected given the gray skies.
“It went way better than expected,” she said. “Rain usually keeps people away, but it didn’t this year.”
The weather wasn’t about to stop Sui Liu and Weili Min from bringing their two kids, Vera, 5, and Skylov, 4, to their first Easter egg hunt. The couple, originally from China, recently moved to Vancouver from Chicago.
“We just moved a couple months ago, so we wanted to get to know the community,” Liu said. “The people are very nice. And we wanted the kids to get a chance to meet other kids.”
But Vera and Skylov, for their part, seemed more interested in their potential haul of Easter eggs. And they both had big ideas about how many of the 12,300 eggs they’d grab as they stared out over the ribbon into the area for ages 4-5, waiting for the event to begin.
“I’m excited to get a lot of eggs,” Vera said. “I want to get 1,500 of them.”
In response, her brother decided to be a little more realistic about the whole thing.
“I want to get 1,000,” he said with a little grin.
Another young egg grabber in the 4-5 area, Lincoln Wilson, 5, had gotten over the shyness he’d experienced in the past two years. His parents, Jeremy and Kelly Wilson, watched as their son fidgeted by the ribbon, waiting for the event to start.
“He’s actually excited this year,” Jeremy Wilson said. “He was scared of it before, but this year he’s ready.”
Lincoln also spent some time before the ribbon dropped estimating his potential haul.
“I want 100 eggs,” he said eagerly.
The kid with the most realistic idea of her haul had to be Tenishka Bagal, 4. When asked how many eggs she thought she’d get, she quietly said “five.”
Her family recently moved to the area from Boston. Her mother, Mahi Bagal, said Tenishka was eager to try an Easter egg hunt for the first time.
“We hadn’t taken her to any Easter egg hunts before, ever,” her mother said.
After about 20 minutes of eager anticipation staring at the field of goodies, the countdown started and then the kids burst onto the field, bouncing up and down as they grabbed as many colorful plastic eggs as they could get their hands on.
Vera circled the course of the field, with Skylov close on her heels, appearing sporadically in the sea of perhaps 200 kids competing in their age group. And, after about two whole minutes of chaos, the eggs were all collected and the kids were back to investigate their hauls.
Vera ended up with about 20 eggs, Skylov with perhaps a dozen. But neither seemed to care that the haul didn’t match their prior estimates.
“I got a prize ticket! I got a prize ticket!” Vera shrieked after her father opened an egg with a circular token in it.
The two also got their share of chocolate eggs, plastic rings and other toys and stickers.
“Another chocolate for me!” Skylov yelped when his mom pulled a candy out of one of his eggs.
Willow Britt, 8, who was waiting for the Easter bonnet competition to begin, was the only kid who seemed to have an actual Easter Fools’ Day story, albeit a small one, about her father, John Britt.
“He told me it wasn’t Easter this morning!” she said, slightly outraged.
Her father said he had planned to do something a bit more elaborate, but with all the Easter planning — and helping his daughter create her custom Easter bonnet with a hatching chick on top he mostly forgot about April Fools’ Day falling on the same day.
“I had plans, but in the end I forgot about it,” John Britt said. “I’ve seen people out there wrapping Brussels sprouts and grapes in foil pretending they’re chocolate eggs, though.”
By the Numbers:
Camas Parks and Recreation Easter Egg Hunt
8,800 = number of plastic eggs stuffed with candy.
3,000 = number of eggs filled with toys.
500 = number of eggs filled with prize tokens.
220 = pounds of candy for the eggs.
12,300 = total number of eggs hidden.
92 = number of volunteers to run event in its 27th year.
Overall, the event went on without a hitch — and with lots of happy kids and parents, said Cassidy Hines, the recreational lead for the event.
“It went so well,” Hines said. “The kids get so excited, and they’re super cute. Even with the bad weather it was great.”
