Thank you, Steveston!

On this blog, I wish to thank strangers that I have not met.

A week before Easter, I had a flash of brilliance - something that occurs less and less frequently these days.

I added bunnies, eggs, a baby chick, spring flowers and greens to my Steveston Museum image and posted a holiday greeting for my fellow villagers on this blog.

To spread even more cheer, I decided to blow the image onto a letter size colouring page and provided free copies for the neighbourhood kids. The good staff at Steveston Community Centre agreed to post them on the community bulletin board but I didn’t really expect many takers - especially since these pages went up just five days before Easter Sunday.



But I was wrong. They were all taken. I was delighted!

Your kind response provided the inspiration for my next project - a Mother's Day special for all Steveston kids - whether they are five or sixty five.

If you drop by the Steveston Community Centre between now and May 9th, you will find the Steveston Mother’s Day postcards hanging from the bulletin board or sitting in a clear plastic box directly across from the gym. These postcards depict a local favourite – the Prickly Pear – complete with Lucy (or is it Ruby?) sitting in the window.



Please feel free to take one, write your own personal message, slap a stamp on the corner, and send it to your mother, grandmother, or any other person who has given you lots of loving care over the years.

If you run out of time for the snail mail, you can always slip it into mom's bouquet of flowers, or her box of chocolates, or the pages of her new best seller. However you wish to use it, I hope it will bring joy to your mom's heart.

Have fun preparing for the celebration ahead and thank you for your support!

A Steveston child's Easter

Easter is but a week away and the stores are already flooded with bunnies, eggs,and baby chicks in marshmallow, rice crispies, jello, meringue, and my favourite - chocolate!

Some of my most memorable Easter memories revolved around scavenger hunts for these treats.

I remember painstakingly planning the best places to tuck away these treasures - not too well hidden that my children might overlook them, but not too obvious that I deprived them of the joy of discovery.

On a sheet of paper, I would sketch the floor plan for each room and mark each hiding spot with a big red "X." I didn't want these goodies to languish in some forgotten corner long after the holiday had come and gone.

Once, I had an idea to drive my daughter to three different neighbourhood malls so she could meet their respective Easter Bunnies and collect the token handful of foil wrapped chocolate eggs. We stopped after visiting Shellmont, Blundell, and Broadmoor malls. My husband thought the practice was verging on greed.

In reality though, at least at that point in her life, my daughter had not been properly initiated into the candy world. After the egg hunt, her basket would lay dormant in her room, the eggs losing their shine and the gummy bears gradually hardening with age.

I was ready to sign her up for a chocolate appreciation class had the normal course of childhood development not intervened. She started attending school and getting invitations to birthday parties. Talk about sudden overexposure to lip-smacking and sugar-laden cookies, cakes, ice cream, and whatnots in the goodie bags. Once my child developed a taste for sweets, she never looked back and Easter and Halloween took on a whole new meaning.

Yes, sugar is an acquired taste!

To celebrate this holiday, I thought I would present a picture depicting a child's view of a Steveston Easter - with bunnies, eggs, and a sweet chick - all ready to be coloured.



Just email me and I will send you the image file as an attachment.

Enjoy and Happy Easter!