They stood on the yellow starting line, trembling with excitement.

Baskets, bags and buckets twirled in anticipation of the 20,000 multi-colored plastic eggs that would soon fill the festive containers' empty spaces.

When the air horn sounded at noon Saturday, nearly 1,000 children charged across the Fernan Elementary School lawn in an egg-seeking frenzy, some cracking open the plastic cases, pocketing the candy and leaving a host of rainbow shells in their wake.

"It's pretty exciting," said Jenny Stark, event coordinator of Prairie Avenue Community Church's Eggstravaganza. "We haven't ever had this many eggs."

Prairie Avenue Community Church hosted its fourth annual egg hunt at Fernan in conjunction with its debut egg hunt at the church grounds this year, splitting up the events to cut back on overcrowding. Live music, face painting, prize giveaways and free lunch accompanied the egg hunt, which was sectioned by grade level and age for those who are not quite in kindergarten.

Tyren Baldwin, 12, of Post Falls carried a basket that looked like a baseball. But how many eggs would it hold?

"I'm not really sure, but just as many as I can," he said with a grin.

Cory Jackson of Coeur d'Alene brought her five children to the event. Their baskets brimmed with plastic eggs when the hunt was finished.

"They were excited about who was going to get more candy," she said. "Now we get to go home and check everybody's baskets to see who won."

Her daughter, Lilie Tomala, 11, had to sit out because of a roller skating injury, but she still managed to have fun.

"The most exciting part, even though I didn't do it, was seeing all the little kids run out," she said.

Stark said the Eggstravaganza is one way to show love for community.

"We want to just come out and reach out and bless our people that are in our community," she said. "We target Fernan; we love this area, we feel it's an under-resourced area, we know that they have more under-resourced kids here than at other schools. We just really want to come in, be a light and just give them a fun a fun day and bless the kids with some extra fun stuff."

Saturday was packed with fun Easter goings on, with egg hunts at the Coeur d'Alene Church of the Nazarene, Community United Methodist Church on Hanley, three different egg hunts hosted by Real Life Ministries and more.

Real Life's Coeur d'Alene campus held a traditional egg hunt in McEuen Park while the Post Falls location hosted a traditional hunt in the late afternoon. But the flashlight hunt at the Post Falls campus later in the evening put a different spin on the Easter pastime.

"We wanted to try something a little different," said Chris Short, Real Life's children's pastor. "It's a big hit with the older kids."

This was the third year for the flashlight hunt, where the exterior lights were darkened and the children had the extra excitement of searching for eggs at night.

"It's actually pretty dark for about five minutes," Short said.

The Real Life egg hunts utilized 10,000 eggs per hunt with anywhere from 1,000 to about 1,800 parents and kiddos attending. A handful of lucky youngsters walked away from these egg hunts with prizes such as bikes and scooters. And of course, lots of candy.

"We always see smiling faces," Short said.

A hunt organized by the North Idaho Men's Rugby Club will be held at 1 p.m. today in Coeur d'Alene City Park. More than 6,000 eggs have been stuffed with candy with chances to find prize eggs. There is no youth age restriction to participate.

The Rathdrum Easter Egg Hunt is today at 1 p.m. at Lakeland High School. Mayor Vic Holmes will welcome the community at 12:30 p.m. Youths will line up in age groups at 12:45 p.m. The age limit is 12.