Were you at either the morning Eggstravagana or the nighttime teen egg hunt?
The technique was the same, just the ages were different.
Both were a great time for the many that attended.
The under ten kids ruled the day...
...the teens ruled the night.
There were no official head counts, but it's safe to say that several hundred attended both. The teen event was a first for Wildomar and if you take a look at the short video, you'll get a feel for how many kids were out looking for glow in the dark eggs and what the vibe was like.
After about 10 minutes of combing through the grass, the lights were turned on to glean what was missed, or clean up any broken plastic eggs.
This area was set aside for egg hunters with the special needs. In the teen event, special needs kids got a couple minute head start if they were accompanied with a parent or guardian.
The daytime event had a bounce house, craft area, glitter art, and face painting.
Kids love getting their faces painted.
The evening event had cornhole, giant sized Jenga and Tap Snap.
Keith Jared of Tap Snap calibrates his magical machine.
The park event season is just getting underway for 2019, be sure to sign up for city emails to be alerted. LINK TO SUBSCRIBE You can also follow the city's facebook page: LINK TO FB PAGE
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Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. – Abraham Lincoln Wildomar Rapthinks Abe must not have been to too many egg hunts in his day, or doesn't value Tootsie Rolls, Smarties or m&m's.
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It was somewhat chilly at the start of Wildomar's annual Eggstravaganza Egg Hunt, probably about 55 degrees when the first group of kids (ages 0 to 3) started picking up the plastic, goody filled eggs.
Mayor Ben Benoit isn't checking his watch because he was bored, just counting down the minutes before the next group of kids were to descend onto the field of eggs.
The pregame strategy session.
Casting her gaze upon her heart's desire.
No pressure here, plenty of time to choose which egg was best.
There were four different age groups and each had an early and a late start time, two for each group. • 0-3 • 4-5 • 6-8 • 9 and up
Someone was caught looking at my camera, as another photographer snapped some reverse angle photos.
This young baseball player had a winning technique with her hat as a substitute basket.
In addition to the egg hunts, there were other things for the kids to do also. Bouncy house, pictures with the Easter Bunny, face painting, an art station, and a "pop up" workshop of the future park site. Seeking community input about how they'd like to see it designed.
Fun at a craft table.
My favorite photo of the day.
Assistant City Manager Dan York shows people the various options planned for the new park.
Girl Scout Troop 2399 hosted an ADA egg hunt. It was part of a Silver Award project, where they designed and built several ways for special needs children to participate in the fun.
Troop 2399 hosts an ADA egg hunt. One tub has the eggs hidden in Easter grass, another among pom poms, and the last one (as pictured) in rice.
The games the girls created can be used year after year, and they made extras of each too... just to be sure. ☺☻ They already have next year penciled in to host the ADA egg hunt.
Find the matching eggs.
These can be used for more than just Easter events. They can swap out the eggs for other items for other park events.
These eggs emit sound for the visually impaired.
Four of the five key girl scouts responsible for the ADA egg hunt, I was told that they are cadets. Left to right... Raylah F, Hailey C, Sarah H and Kaydee L. Not pictured is Sydney, she was on a school trip.
In total there were 16,000 plastic eggs. I think each child went home with between 50 and 200 apiece. One new grandma posted about how much fun she had bringing her young granddaughter to the event:
"It was so much fun! My granddaughter absolutely had a blast. People were so friendly. I have not been to an egg hunt in years because my child is an adult. This was a wonderful and respectful event. I was so worried kids would be mean and she would not want anything else to do with these events. She is 1 and a half and she had the best morning ever! Of course we stopped by the dairy for chocolate milk and a peak at the animals on the way home lol".
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Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together. – Georg Lichtenberg Well, looks like you can scratch Wildomar Rap from that latter group.
This blog was produced for viewing on a desktop or a laptop. Though it's been optimized for smartphones, the formatting can look odd on a smartphone or if you get this delivered through email. Link to proper format.
With threats of rain through much of Friday, the 2017 Eggstravaganza was greeted by blue skies with billowing white clouds.
A worm's eye view of the impending stampede of five year old kids.
The event was from 9:00am to 11:00am and the four various age groups had two different opportunities to participate. All the while Robert Walker performed the roll of DJ again this year and kept the peeps alive with tunes from all eras.
From left to right: Councilmember Bridgette Moore, Little Miss Wildomar (daughter of Councilmember Nigg), Councilmember Dusting Nigg and Young Miss Wildomar Daisy Varney are getting the next group of egg hunters revved up to start.
As has become the custom in Wildomar, there was a special needs table that drew a handful of participants. Besides the egg hunt, there was a bouncy house, face painting, glitter tattoos and pictures with the Easter bunny available.
Face painting was a popular attraction.
In addition to the city's booth, the Elks Lodge had a booth and so did the San Gorgonio girl scouts.
Scouting is a great activity for your child (boy or girl). Consider getting them involved.
The snack bar was being manned by the parent's of boy scout troop 332, and troop 2011 was raising money for a coming eagle scout project that will see a refurbishment of the base of the water tower at Marna O'Brien park.
Members of the Elks helped out at the prize table.
There were also some tables for young artists to get in some coloring time or fabricate some crafts.
This aspiring artist was seen applying the just the right color to the just the right spot.
Families lined up to get a photo with Peter Cottontail.
Be sure to mark April 29th as another day to come to Marna O'Brien park. There will be the first of two 5K runs of 2017. It's a very good cause, water safety awareness. Drowning is for keeps, and it is the number one cause of death in children under the age of five. Even if you don't want to run, it's going to be a beautiful morning with lots of activity at the park starting at 8:00am. There will be vendors and other activities too... so come on out! ☺
There was a pretty good turn out at an Easter egg hunt event at Windsong park, sponsored by the Onello Group (Real Estate). Since it was right down the block from our casa, we strolled on down at about 11:00am to see what it was all about.
It was amazing to see the park so full on a holiday morning. There were several inflatables for kids to play on, popcorn, professional pictures with the Easter Bunny, a DJ playing tunes and a kiddy train that picked up new passengers about every five minutes.
Then there was the egg hunt.
Let me take a step back for a second and ask, how can it be a "hunt" when the eggs are right there on top of the turf?
When I was a kid, half the fun/battle was finding the HIDDEN eggs... but I digress.
The kids had fun collecting the plastic, treat filled eggs.
The only negative thing to report, from this popular event, was that one of the neighbors called the police, complaining of several things.
Wildomar's park security discussing things with event promoter Joseph Onello.
It seemed that the music was too loud and they also took issue with the kiddy train being on the actual basketball court, instead of just the sidewalk.
The security officer was as professional as a person could be, that was called out to, essentially, bust up a well publicized community party for kids.
Onello is the kind of member of the community we'd all love to have live on our block. He didn't hesitate to lower the music (though there was no need to) and they rerouted the train away from the playing surface.
His point in hosting this event was to bring the community together, not cause consternation among the locals.
He lives in District 5. Though they have a fine council member right now, Marsha Swanson, a conscientious person like Onello, also a veteran, would be someone that would inspire confidence if he were to run in the future.
When I mentioned that to him, he did one of those raised eyebrow moves, didn't respond directly, but thanked me for the kind words.
Either way, a big thanks from the community to the Onello Group for putting this on.
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Last up was seeing the new enclosure for the porta-potty at the park.
This was an Eagle Project by Ryan Bellinghausen.
I was there, holding up a shovel, when Troop 332 was busy digging the footing(s) for it, but had no idea what it was going to look like in the end. I'm so glad that ugly old black fence got taken down too.
There is a ribbon cutting ceremony this week, recognizing the completion of the project.
I did notice that those brackets holding the posts to the concrete, did appear to have some sharp edges on them. A bit of filing will knock those off in no time.
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Easter Egg hunts prove that your child CAN find things when they want to.
IfWildomar Rapwere to host an Easter Egg hunt, it would either be where the eggs were actually hidden, or one billed as Full Contact where the kids looked like they were ready to tryout for the NFL or Supercross.
The day started with some low hanging clouds that broke away for a beautiful SoCal day for Wildomar's annual Eggstravaganza held at Marna O'Brien Park.
Boy Scout troop 332 manned the snack bar and were selling donuts, breakfast burritos (from Don Panchos), coffee and other treats.
There were 8 different age groups, that each had two scheduled times, starting at 9:00am. A total of 14,000 plastic eggs were up for grabs. There were lots of smiles, as countless families enjoyed the music played by Robert Walker of Heyday events, face painting, balloon animals, photographer Kat Ellis taking pics with the Easter Bunny and a jolly jump/bouncy house. The special needs egg hunt had 4 participants total. A table was set up with different containers that had an egg in it. In one container the egg was in pinto beans, another in rice and yet another in Easter grass.
Below is one of two videos I made of the event. The first video is live action with all the sounds of the day.
The second video is a photo montage. If you like cute kids and happy music... this video is for you. ☺ What a great event to kick off the event schedule for 2016. Below is a list of city events for the rest of the year.
One observation I thought I'd share I know this has been going on for a couple of years now, but when I was reviewing my photos and videos I made, it was funny to see all the parent's with their smart phones pointed at their kids.
Makes you wonder what people from the distant world of 2007 (the year that the iPhone was introduced) would think if they could be magically transported to today.
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One blemish, which very few people noticed, was one woman that looked to be about fifty years old, was cheating in the egg hunts.
"Now how can such an outlandish thing be true," you're asking.
Well, the city would put out several special eggs per round. They were different in appearance since they were white with a cartoon bunny face with ears that extended beyond the oval of the egg. I saw this woman cross the yellow caution tape during the 4 to 5 year old time slot, pick up an egg before a child could get to it, and then put it in her child's basket who had been no where in the vicinity.
I turned to my left, and a parent gave me that "can you believe it?" look, and said, "that woman just took an egg away from my child."
As she plotted her next egg heist.
C'est la vie... or so I thought. I saw this same woman sizing up another prize egg about an hour later. Being the good tattletale that I am, I ran over to the yard duty... I mean one of the staffers, and told her how this lady had pilfered a prize egg earlier in the day.
She told me that they'd already had to talk to her twice about her actions. It took me about 10 seconds before my inner vigilante took over. I went up to her, looked her in the eye and told her to stop stealing eggs... in not the most friendly manner I might have been able to muster. She then told me, "I don't speak English." To which I replied, "Neither do I." She walked away and didn't hijack any other kid's chance at a prize egg, that probably had a street value of about a buck.
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Good Idea: Finding Easter eggs on Easter morning. Bad Idea: Finding Easter eggs on Christmas morning.
It was a brilliant day for Wildomar's annual Eggstravaganza Egg Hunt at Marna O'Brien park. People started showing up shortly after 8:00AM in anticipation of the first Egg Hunt of the day at 9:00AM for the 0-3 year old children.
In total there were four separate age groups for the kids. 0-3, 4-5, 6-8 and 9+. Also, there were two times for each group. If a child missed it the first time round, or were very enterprising looking to score twice, they'd be able to hit the later time.
In total 14,000 plastic eggs were "found". Thanks to the sponsors which included Waste Management who had a truck out on display and a table with some give-a-ways of their own as they were touting the virtues of recycling to all.
☺
There were donuts, milk, coffee and things along that line available at the snack bar, which was being run by Crew 332 (a coed group that is comprised of Boy Scouts and helpers). Crew 332 also provided a photo booth so that kids could have a picture taken with Peter Rabbit.
There was a Jolly Jumper, Face Painting and a Balloon Artist (you know, they make things like poodles or ninja swords) and the lines never abated for those once they started.
There was also a "wheel chair accessible" egg hunt for children with special needs. Today there was only one child that took advantage of it. I'd heard about this, but couldn't understand how it worked until I saw it for myself. In the video below, you'll see a snippet of this young man, and his parent's, quest for an egg.
Down below is a video that is a combo slide show and live action display of what today was about. You'll see several different age groups running around at top speed (I speed it up over 1000%) looking for eggs.... that are so plentiful that they would be harder to avoid if it were a race from one side to the other and the object was to NOT step on them. You'll see a sped up version of three year old Sunny Watkins have her face painted like a cat, plus a glimpse of all the people that came for part of the day in a couple of panoramic shots like the one directly below.
This looks much better in the video as I pan slowly from left to right. Or you can click on it to enlarge it.
I was asking the city manager Gary Nordquist his guess of the crowd and I think he underestimated it by a lot when he responded 400. Let's do some Wildomar Rap math here. There were 4 age groups times 2 egg hunts. There were easily 100 kids in each age group, and even if 80% repeated the process, that would mean about 500 kids came. I'm guessing that they didn't walk or drive themselves, so even if there were only 100 additional people, that would put it at 600. Still, I'm going to say there were closer to 700 from start to finish.
There were a ton of people that made this happen, but I'm going to single out Janet Morales as the linchpin that brought it all together. Though she'd been planning it for months, as crunch time got to the week leading up to the even, she was sick yet sallied forth and completed the task. Thanks for all the hard work!
If you missed this event, there will be another one next year. Go over to the city's website and sign up to be notified of such things with their "Stay Connected" Service. Click here.
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Peter Cottontail, Bugs Bunny and Roger Rabbit walk into a bar... They order three carrot juices, pay their bar tab then leave. The end. Did you seriously think I was going to post a blue joke about those fellas on this blog? Did ya? Come on man, cut me a break... plus, I couldn't come up with a better punchline in the time frame I had so I went the Anti-Joke route.
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