Easter Cheers
Easter Beers
Easter has always been a holiday that is much anticipated in my life! Mostly, because it signifies the start of such a beautiful and festive time of the year. Spring is blooming, cascaroñes are at every street corner, piñatas are being filled to the brim with candies, and my cousins and I are planning on hunting for beers instead of Easter eggs. Yes, it is quite a wonderful time of the year.
Cas`ca`ron´
n.1.Lit., an eggshell; hence, an eggshell filled
with confetti to be thrown during balls, carnivals, etc.)
Secondly, Easter has always been greatly family oriented since I can remember. When I was younger, we would dress in our top-notch Sunday best (sometimes matching) and go to mass as a family. Quickly after, we would go home and change into the most colorful of outfits. Bees were mistaking us for their flowers. Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration, however, they were fun and made me appreciate and love colorful clothing. Once dressed, Easter basket in hand and cascaroñes at the ready, we would split the day visiting both sides of the family. As any proper celebration goes, there was never a shortage in food, pool volleyball competitions were scheduled, cutthroat egg hunts, confetti everywhere, and of course, you can never have a successful party without the piñata! Easter is simply a wonderful time of love and remembrance.
Even being older now, we still look forward to the egg hunts and cracking a piñata open to aggressively battle for the candy. This year, Noah and I were the first to arrive at our Moe's house. We found two small piñatas ready to be filled with candy. One a traditional donkey and the other a bull. We only got around to hitting the donkey piñata, planning to re-gather and use the other during a fiesta celebration. Being that we are older and some a little stronger, we begin with the weakest link taking their try at the piñata. However, this year she did not want to go first, so I did. Annelise, my lovely cousin, went next. You can see her below as she prepares to swing. Really, once Annelise and I have taken our turns, the poor piñata does not stand a chance. Noah, Chris and Zach, all fairly strong, took their turn and ultimately beheaded the donkey piñata. Zach, being the last to go, busted open the remaining candy-filled portion of the piñata. In true traditional Easter fashion, I was prepared with my Easter basket at hand and anxiously awaiting on the edge of the safety zone. Once I witnessed candy falling from the broken belly, my feet reacted, quickly finding a good spot to begin the process of choosing only the best candy from the scatter. However, the next moment I can recall, I was being squished by a large charging body. Zach, Noah and Chris decided to extinguish the small joyous moment as I recalled the wonderful childhood memories of gathering candy into a brightly colored basket. I came out of the battle with no physical wounds, only grass adorned locks and an empty basket. All that was left in the aftermath was the flavored tootsie rolls, which are unfortunately my least favorite and not at all what I was going after. As I slowly moved to the table where all our parents sat, my face could only bring about a tilted smile, for I felt defeated and sad that I would not be able to enjoy an apple flavored blow pop. As it goes with brothers and sisters, they began to toss what they didn't want or what they thought I would enjoy. I walked away with two blow pops, one apple, the other watermelon. I shall redeem myself in our future Easter celebrations and gather the candy that is truly and rightfully mine.
Next on our day's agenda were the hunts! First to be conducted was our newly found tradition of an Easter beer hunt. 4 out of us 6 are old enough to drink. With that, our activities coordinator, Chris, discovered a fun new way of hunting for something delicious. Instead of the classic Easter egg hunt, we had Noah hide 4 six packs of beer around the backyard. Being that longnecks are both tall (implied) and shapely, I really was not expecting for them to be hidden so fantastically. Noah has a true talent and perhaps has found his calling ... in hiding strange objects outdoors. The hunt began with a group photo (of course!) to commemorate the First Annual Salinas Easter Beer Hunt (below)! We used the six pack cartons as our "baskets". We could go in search of whatever kind of beer we could find. However, in my dismay, I do not favor Shiner or Blue Moon, so my search was strictly for Dos Equis. The search took quite a bit of time, for, as I mentioned before, Noah found creative hiding places, blending in the glass colors to that of the backyard and utilizing the tall shape of the bottle to camouflage. Alas, I completed the hunt in last place, finding 5 Dos Equis and 1 Shiner. Luckily, my brother brought the Shiner and traded with me for a Dos Equis. Victory! My basket was preserved to its original state.
To close the Easter-themed festivities, we conducted the classic Easter egg hunt. The parents, in true custom, began hiding a plethora of eggs for the 5 of us to soon find. We figured out, to make things fair. how many we would each try and find. It has become more about the hunt than what is in the actual egg. At least, for some, Noah, enjoys the hunt, but truly cherishes the sweet treat inside of the colorful eggs. During this hunt, I conquered in not being the last. Finding some very well hidden and some not so well hidden eggs. The parents, compared to Noah, slacked off a little in their attempt to trick and challenge us. As younger children, the parents would always lay the eggs simply in the grass, for they did not want you to be unhappy and frustrated in trying to find the eggs that they very well could have hidden in more interesting situations. So, there were some of those sympathy eggs lying around in the grassy open areas of the backyard. We all went after those first and left the few more daring finds.
I hope that as always, you have enjoyed looking at some of my work as well as reading my stories. Thank you for taking the time. Please feel free to browse the site! Lots of changes have been made, new images can be found (in pink lettering) and don't forget to comment or send me a message through the Contact to let me know what your thoughts are! New images can be found under
Galleries > Personal Work > Texas/Nature/Easters
as well as
Galleries > Portraits > Medellin Siblings/Melani Graduation
Have a wonderful rest of your day. Look forward to seeing a lot of Fiesta photographs!!
VIVA FIESTA!
