Easter

Since my daughter has turned two, I have felt more pressure (coming only from myself, mind you) to do more traditional activities during holidays. This presented a bit of a challenge at Easter time, since Rainbow's food allergies essentially prevent her from eating eggs or candy (other than the expensive "allergy-free" sweets you can get at health food stores). This did not deter us from going on not one, not two, but three Easter egg hunts and from dying eggs (I can't eat them, either, so she didn't feel quite as left out as she would have otherwise). 

Sunshine? No coats? Yes, Saturday's weather was that awesome.

The city-wide egg hunt at Baranov Park (within walking distance of our house) featured 5,000 eggs. Even timid kids like Rainbow actually stood a chance of getting a few eggs.

Unfortunately, all of the eggs had chocolates in them which Rainbow couldn't eat, but she didn't even seem to mind giving  them all away to other children. 

Our eggs didn't turn out very bright because  we used organic, cage-free brown eggs (yes, we are those kind of people), but Rainbow still had a lot of fun coloring them.

Easter Sunday's weather was more typical of Kodiak and of what I expect Easter's weather to be like--cold and wet. 

Almost every egg hidden in our yard was covered with slugs. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Rainbow to pick them up at all. 

After hunting for eggs in our own yard, we went to another egg hunt at a friend's house. We didn't have an Easter ham or any of the other traditional foods, but we had a fun day anyway!

A sunny day and a snowy day

I keep hearing people who have lived in Kodiak longer than I have saying that this has been a difficult winter with an abnormal amount of rain and even less sun than usual. So last month when we had a "warm," sunny day one weekend and a snowy day the next, both were unusual, and we got out and enjoyed the weather as much as possible.

We had a picnic at the end of the road at Chiniak. It only takes a little over an hour to drive out there (well, longer if you have a recently potty-trained toddler who is obsessed with peeing outside).

There are always wonders to be found on the beach.

It may surprise you to know that Kodiak gets very little snow. March 20 was our first real snow of the winter--and our very first opportunity to take Rainbow sledding. She loved it!  

It was a good thing we went sledding in the morning, because even by noon much of the snow had melted. That's very typical for Kodiak.