Powell Gardens has always been a destination for something fun to do with the nephews and the nieces. It’s Kansas City’s botanical garden, and is set on more than 900 acres of lush, rolling hills. It was established in 1983, and my Mother and I started going there a couple of years after that, always with one or more of the four kids with us.
The egg hunt was held along a trail in the woods at Powell Gardens
About a 45-minute drive from Kansas City, we would get in the car and drive out there and make a Saturday of it, doing everything from just walking through the gardens to attending special exhibits, from taking water color painting classes, to going to the annual butterfly festival (which deserves its own story in the weeks ahead!). The kids especially loved the days we’d go for walks, have lunch in the café (or sometimes we would take a picnic) and then do arts and crafts like painting clay pots.
In 1991 we decided to take Nick, Katie and Ian to Powell Gardens’ annual egg hunt the Saturday before Easter. At the time they were age 7, 6, and 2 (Elyse hadn’t been born yet). The day started a little cloudy, but we didn’t let that deter us and off we went to the hunt. The kids looked so cute – it was spring and Saturday and they were excited and talked about all the eggs they would find and all the fun they would have.
Katie’s birthday had been in March, and she had on for the first time this really cute outfit my Mom had given her. It was cream color velour jeans, with a matching cropped cream corduroy jacket. The jacket had all these gold buttons sewn everywhere on it, there must have been over 50 buttons of all types!
The Easter Egg Hunt at Powell Gardens consisted of two activities. Kids 6 and older could go hunt eggs in a wooded area where they had cleared a trail with hundreds of eggs scattered along the route. They said it was about a half hour walk from start to finish. (Remember that this was Powell Gardens in 1991, not many years after it had opened. It was a little rough back then, as now the wooded trail is a lot longer, is paved and they have made considerable improvements, built lots of buildings and attractions since then.)
The littler kids less than 6 years old could go across the field to a hilly area where they were having an Easter egg roll. To take part in the roll, they had requested that you bring a dozen eggs so the Powell Gardens’ volunteers would have enough to roll down the hill for all the little kids.
So I decided to take Nick and Katie through the woods hunting eggs, and Mom took Ian to the Easter egg roll with the dozen eggs I had colored the night before. Off we all went with several baskets in hand to line up for each event. As we lined up at the designated time, a very light sprinkle started. But it didn’t deter any of us and when the Powell Gardens’ volunteer blew the whistle about 100 kids followed by many adults scrambled to the entrance of the woods. (There were also about 50 or more smaller kids at the top of the hill ready for the roll.)
Kids quickly scooped up the brightly colored neon eggs and Nick found a blue one and Katie a sunshine yellow egg. Right after each of them found these first eggs, the sprinkle then turned to a light drizzle. I was a little worried about all of us getting wet, so I asked them if they wanted to go back to the car, as we were still near the entrance. Both Nick and Katie said no, they wanted to keep going until they each got the eight eggs each child was allowed to pick up. (Powell Gardens’ way of insuring that everyone would get a fair number of eggs.)
We went further into the woods, and things were really getting wet. The ground had already been damp from a Spring shower the day before, and very quickly things started getting a little messy. Both Nick and Katie were worried about getting dirty, afraid that my Mom or myself would be upset for getting their shoes and clothes muddy. Katie was especially concerned because of her new cream-colored outfit and tiptoed on patches of green to try to avoid mud.
Because they were being so cautious about avoiding the mud, they were missing out on getting eggs they saw, as more aggressive kids in more appropriate clothing for the weather were splashing around in the mud and greenery getting far more than the allotted eight eggs!
Katie spotted a purple egg like these before she got stuck in the mud and fell.
I was very damp and feeling a little cranky, so as two boys about 9 or 10 years old passed by who had been kind of hogging all the eggs along the trail (their parents weren’t with them in the woods), I stopped them and questioned them about the number of eggs in their baskets. While both boys shot me guilty looks as if I had caught them red-handed, the one with wet sandy-hair said “you’re not the boss of me!” And then they ran off.
Katie, Nick and I trudged along the trail, stepping gingerly to avoid the mud but it was almost impossible. Suddenly Katie spotted a purple egg hidden in the moss by a tree near a small stream. She went to step over the stream but her foot got stuck in some silt and suddenly she was sinking fast with mud oozing over her shoes that by this time were already filthy.
When I reached her, Katie’s damp cream-colored jeans were grey up to the knees and getting darker every minute. Before I could grab her hand to pull her out, she lost her balance and fell back. She got right back up, but now the backside of her pretty cream velour jeans and the back of her matching cream jacket had mud all over on them. By this time the drizzle had let up a little and had turned into a steady, gentle rainfall.
A half hour had passed, and it appeared as if we were almost to the end of the trail. However, Nick had only collected 5 of his 8 eggs, and Katie only 3 of her 8. I looked at my poor miserable, wet and muddy niece and nephew and said, “why don’t we head back and find Grandma and Ian? This isn’t the best day to hunt for eggs.”
They nodded in agreement and both started saying sweet little things so I wouldn’t feel bad. Nick grabbed my hand saying, “We found plenty of eggs, Aunt Sheree, we don’t need any more.”
“This has been so much fun it’s not your fault that it rained,” said Katie, taking my other hand, “I’m sure Grandma or Mom can get my outfit clean, they’ll just have to use some extra soap.”
Nick put one of his eggs in Katie’s basket so they each had four eggs. We finally made it to the clearing and walked over to the parking lot. But the egg roll was over, and we couldn’t find my Mom and Ian. Suddenly this door opens to a big white van, and there she is on the passenger side, Ian on her lap, with some strange man on the drivers’ side.
She explained that the driver of the van had let them take cover from the rain since I had the car keys in my purse. At least the two of them were dry! But my painted easter eggs were a bust. First of all, we weren’t supposed to have brought real eggs, and the dye quickly had washed away with the rain. The hard-boiled eggs sat in a basket on the ground outside the van with just hints of color left here and there and they weren’t allowed to be rolled down the hill by the powers to be at Powell Gardens.
I had no pictures from this adventure at Powell Gardens, but Katie still talks about it to this day!
Nick wasn’t that muddy except his shoes, or at least it didn’t show on his navy pants and sweater. But poor Katie was a disaster. Her long blonde hair was wet and had a little bit of mud in it from the fall, and the cream-colored jeans and the cute little button jacket were wet and covered in mud and green stains from the foliage, ferns and grass.
The rain had stopped and we all headed over to the car. We took off Nick and Katie’s muddy shoes and socks (all soaked) and took off Katie’s jacket and put them all in the car trunk. Fortunately, I had a couple of blankets in the trunk. I took one and circled it around her, had her slip off the muddy wet jeans, then I wrapped her up in it. We put Ian in his car seat, then next to him in the back, we bundled Nick and Katie with the other blanket and we headed back to Kansas City.
Fortunately, we had a change of clothes for everyone at the house, and had everyone cleaned up by the time Nick and Katie’s mom came over to pick them up. My sister-in-law had decided to take all of their wet clothes home saying she would wash them, but it was a hopeless cause for the cream jeans and gold button jacket. The outfit had its one and only “wearing” that day.
When we talk about our Saturday adventures, Katie especially remembers this escapade at Powell Gardens. She clearly remembers the cute outfit because of all the buttons. She remembers hunting for eggs in the rain and getting that cream-colored outfit all muddy. She remembers her brother giving her some of his eggs. She remembers finding Grandma and Ian in a car with a stranger. She remembers riding home barefoot and wrapped in a blanket.
But what I remember from that day is what good sports both Nick and Katie were. Especially Katie. Instead of complaining or crying about how the day turned out, she just giggled and laughed about the fiasco all the way home. And she still laughs about it to this day.
However, despite her being such a good sport, I have never been able to get her to go to Powell Gardens again.
The Do's & Don'ts of Aunting 