Best.Family.Activity. Read more for some funny tales of the Johnson clan...

Warning: Spoiler alert. If you are in Aberdeen, and have been "egged," there may be spoiler alerts ahead! Continue reading at your own risk (of hearing a spoiler)... OK, are some of you still with me? Last week, I saw this post online and decided that it was something I simply MUST do! MUST! Problem was, Wes was moonlighting out of town and it's H.A.R.D. to do any activities with 5 kids. BUT, I wanted to do it and thought it would be a blast!!! So, the first thing I did was print out and laminate these nifty signs: 

Then I asked the oldest 4 children to pick a friend to deliver these to. I thought Everest wouldn't care. I was wrong. He pitched a fit that he HAD to go to his friends house too! So, we were up to 5. Then other kids started to think of people that would LOVE it and let's just say my efforts exploded...we ended up capping the list at 12 houses. Yes, 12. Since I did not want to stuff 144 Easter eggs I purchased prefilled ones (total cop out, I know). We were getting ready to go when Drew, our next door neighbor stopped by (he was on our list to egg) and Armour told Drew all about the plan and invited him to come. His parents were cool with it so away we went, all 6 of us.  Here was the plan. At each house, the children would split up the eggs to hide and one child would be responsible for placing the sign on the door knob, ringing the doorbell and running to the van. Everest would remain in his carseat at all times quietly watching movies on my Kindle, Kindle MUST be the first one back at the van (slow runner-young girl), Solace had to be back ASAP as well and could NOT be the door person (she was one armed last week as she had a brace on her left arm-she sprained her elbow in PE), and the boys had to take turns being the door man. It was a highly sought after job... With that in mind, away we went. Many of the houses were ones I had never been to and I just went with an address in hand (thank goodness for GPS directions on my phone). I knew that 4 of our hits would be in the next city over, Hoquiam, so I went with those first.  Hit 1: Armour's School Teacher Armour and Drew both have the same school teacher so this was a huge deal one for them to do. It was still light outside when we got there...We found the house fast and I drove a couple hoses past and sent them back to do their thing. We left all the doors open so they could just pile back in quick. The did their thing and Armour and Drew did the door. Kindle was too afraid to try on the first one-didn't want to be caught. So, She stayed in the car with me and Everest. The kids were screaming down the street running to the car that "she opened the door"! She caught them. The house looked empty to me. So once the got in the car, I said, lets do a drive by on the way back to the next house because I don't think their home. They all freaked out, ducked down as we passed the (empty) house and were (are) still sure they got caught by Mrs T. I asked Armour and Drew if they were going to tell Mrs T. They said, NO WAY! They were going to keep it secret, besides they were sure in sharing time in the morning she would talk about it. You see, each morning they tell how the previous day was in class, ranking it from a 1 (very bad) to a 4 (excellent) and they tell why. So, we "egged" on Thursday night. Friday morning Mrs T didn't mention it, so it came to Drew's turn to talk and he said "Last night was a 4 because I egged people!" Mrs T said "Funny, we got "egged" at my house, and Drew just pointed back and forth between him and Armour. So, as Armour says, He totally gave it away.  Hit 2: My friend over at Grays Harbor Deals We went over to another friends house. She goes to church with us and has 3 kids. The youngest is a boy about Kindle's age. This house was funny because the kids said he (the boy) watched them the whole time through a window and waved goodbye to them as they rang the doorbell and ran away! Kindle actually went with them at this house too! I think the kids actually liked getting caught more than NOT getting caught... Hit 3: Everest's Buddy This was the house Everest insisted we go to! It was probably the funniest one because WHILE the kids were hiding the eggs, Dominos pizza got there and just went straight to the door anyway before they could even do the doorbell or anything (they were still hiding eggs-Kindle was still there). It was hilarious. They all finished while Dominos was there then ran back to the car yelling "Hurry! We're going to get arrested by Dominos!!!!"   Hit 4: Kindle's friend (child of Armour's football coach) This one was pretty funny as well. This house has a girl Kindle's age, a boy Armour's age, and a teenage girl. We could see the teen watching TV in the front room. When they went over to the yard, they triggered motion lights. Kindle was yelling "(Friend's name) is catching is! She's catching us!" and Armour and Drew started yelling "(Boy's name) is watching us! He can see us!!" and Ender walked up the steps to do the doorbell job. Before he could put the sign on the door, Teen opened the door and he screamed in her face (it totally scared him) and threw the sign as he and the boys booked it back to the car (the girls had been back a while). HILARIOUS!!! Hit 5: My friend over at Craftily Ever After This one was a friend of mine who has 3 kids. One of them is in Armour and Drew's school class. This one was quick and easy. But the funny part was when I got home I had a message from my friend asking who we egged so she would not repeat anyone. I was like "What?! All those noisy kids gave us away?!" and she said that actually her husband had looked outside and seen what was going on and said to her that they were being egged by someone with the exact same van as them...curse those twin vans for giving us away! :)  Hit 6: Ward friends that live in the world's hardest spot to do something like this OK. The location of this house made it tricky...on a hilly corner of an eventual "dead end" street. I parked in the middle of the road in front of their house and was sure they could see me because I could see them watching TV in the front room. I should have noted earlier that at each and every house where we saw people in the front rooms, Drew would say "Who dares me to knock on the window? Come on, who's going to dare me?!" So, at this one they were all over in the yard hiding eggs, and halfway through Drew goes "Finish hiding, I'm Knockin!!!" So, they literally throw all the rest of their eggs and start booking it to the van as Drew knocks on the window and Ender does the door deal...We were totally in the street still trying to get everyone in the van and leave when the door was opening... Hit 7: More Ward friends On the way to this one the kids were going on and on about how they were going to hide these ones in HARD spots because the kids were in 4th and 5th grade. I had to remind them there was also a 2 year old...I was worried about what them might do at this house, but it was remarkable easy (even though I was parked in a weird spot). They got in and out quick, efficient and did not even wake anyone up...almost too easy... Hit 8: Another Family from the Ward This was a house all the kids wanted to hit because there are 4 ladies living there that range in age from Solace's age to just older than Everest. They were all so excited and I am pretty sure they were hoping and trying to get caught at this house, but alas, they weren't even home. So, it was another quick easy one. Hit 9: Fantine, yeah, I said FANTINE! My friend played Fantine in Les Miz and during that time Ender grew to adore her and her lovely daughter. She actually has 3 kiddos that we thought might like hunting for the eggs. She also has a fenced yard with a chicken coop on the side so some of the scared kids (Kindle) would not go on this one. No one appeared to be home and everything went smoothly (after they got the gate opened which took quite a while...)  Hit 10: Drew's House Yes, that Drew, the one egging with us. He was like "Let's still do my house and I'll pretend it wasn't us. I'll be like 'hey-someone egged you guys while I was with Armour'"  The funniest part of this is that Drew has 2 teenage brothers and his parents. And it was pretty obvious who was egging them. During the time they were hiding eggs, Drew's oldest brother got home. Drew and Armour ran (screaming back to the van). Ender "hid" behind a bush that would not hid a mouse and just stayed there. Oldest bro, just walked past the bush and acted like he didn't see Ender (nice guy). Then they finished and rang the doorbell. Armour said that on Friday Drew told him that Drew's dad admitted that he had watched them the whole time hiding the eggs. Hit 11: Our neighbor The kids were ALL most excited about this one because it was a neighbor to us and Drew that they all like to play with and hang out with. Apparently when Ender left the door part, he actually pushed it through their mail slot and yelled in the house "Special Delivery." Nerd! :)  Hit 12: Another Neighbor We have neighbors that sometimes have their kids and sometimes don't (shared custody) and we did their house hoping the kids were there this week!  The best part of the whole thing was watching on Facebook the rest of the week/weekend as friends posted about getting egged-watching where they ended up going and seeing people pass on the egging fun!  Then the most amazing thing happened this morning. As the kids walked out to walk to school, they found that this little baby had found it's way back to us:

It was so fun for us to see the eggs get around and to see one make it back to us! The older kids were on their way to school when we found it. They searched quickly and found 7 eggs. Then Everest woke up and found 4 more, but that elusive 12th man is still missing... I'm sure the search will commence when school ends. Here are a few pictures from today: