Spring Break and the Great Easter Egg Hunt

So this past week I have been on Spring Break - one of the benefits of being a public schools teacher. I will admit that I had hopes of spending most of my break playing video games and sleeping, but I knew that my "list" had way too much on it to ignore it for an entire week. Since we have a backyard we invited some of the other children in Owen's primary class to come over for an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday, so I had a week to get the backyard cleaned up, and to get the playset safe for kids to play on.

We decided to move the playset to the back corner, which was an amazing feat of strength made possible by the missionaries, whom we invited over to be our manual labor. In the end we also built a border box and then filled it in with pine bark chips. We think it looks pretty nice.

WARNING!!! ANGRY RANT!!!

(The following paragraph has nothing to do with Owen...if you are here only to read about his cuteness, ignore the red block of text and skip down to the pictures. The following has lots to do with things that are bugging me, and since this is a blog, I am allowed to vent.)

So getting the bark for the playset exposed me to things that just drive me crazy. I needed about 145 cubic feet of bark to fill under the playset. That is 72 bags of bark from Home Depot. I figured that it would be cheaper to purchase it in bulk from a local nursery, so I called three or four. Not only was it more expensive from the nurseries, it was TWICE as expensive. This baffled me...how do these places stay in business? The answer is actually very simple, they make a killing because people here are too lazy and incompetent to do things themselves. We ran into this when we wanted to redo our kitchen. At the IKEA they have contractors who people hire to install their kitchens. Isn't the whole reason that IKEA exists is so that people can do it themselves and not have someone do it for them? When we were looking at ceiling fans last summer, there was an electrician hanging out there who informed us that it was against the law for us to put a fan in ourselves and we should hire him to do it. (This is a whole different rant that I need to get out later.) Anyway...People here do nothing for themselves, and so contractors make a killing by charging outrageous prices. In the end, I made 4 trips to Home Depot, where they still believe that you can do things yourself. /End Rant

With the playset complete and the backyard relatively hazard free, the Easter Bunny visited our house, and hid color coordinated eggs for Owen and each of his friends. (Everyone thought that I was rather silly for hiding a different color for each child, but my siblings understand...)

Owen was ready to start on Monday...so waiting until the end of the week was quite a chore, but he made it.

The Easter Bunny may have hid the green eggs a little bit harder than the others...but Owen still did a pretty good job of finding them.

Owen and his friends Dean and Lizzy combing over the playset looking for eggs.

Owen found this one hidden in the steering wheel!!!

After finding one in the corner of the yard, Owen had to run back to make up for lost time!

After the egg hunt, Owen and his friends went inside to dye eggs. Owen's favorite color this month is green...so his egg is getting a good soaking in the green dye.

After all of the Easter festivities, it was back outside to play more on the playset. The fact that the kids loved it and were all over it, made the fact that I haven't been able to walk since Thursday worth it.

They also had a good time in Owen's wagon...which hasn't seen kids playing on it for a long time.

They all took turns pulling each other, but Moroni was by far the champion puller, he could pull all three of the other children at the same time!

And if they hadn't had enough stimulation, we busted out Owen's 5000 bubble per minute bubble machine...epic.

So in the end it was a very successful day, and I think that we will have to have the kids over again soon!

(This is the end of the nice part of the post about Owen...what follows is the other part of the angry rant which I mentioned above...you don't need to read it, but I need to write it.)

WARNING!!! ANGRY RANT!!!

So there has been lots of talk around my family about the current political situation and lots of emotion on every side, so I thought that I would weigh in a bit. I think the first problem is that neither side, Democrats or Republicans, are really concerned about what is best for the American people. They are only concerned about getting the "one up" on the other. This has come out in the Health Care problem, where Republicans have adopted a "Hell No" attitude, and Democrats a "Damn the Torpedoes" approach. Now, I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but I think that those who are in favor of Universal Health Care feel that we have a duty to take care of those less fortunate. While those who are opposed feel that the cost is too great, especially with the already increase national debt.

When I was a child, there was a cartoon about the Ants and the Grasshopper. (In case you are not familiar with what I am talking about click the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAd0jOuQg8o. ) The Grasshopper's little song, "The World Owes Me a Livin'" could be the theme song of Maryland. (Now, I am painting with a rather large brush I know, but hang on, you'll see.) I pay 4 times the taxes that my family in Idaho pays. I pay more property tax, income tax and sales tax. Maryland has almost 4 times as many people as Idaho. So with all of this tax revenue you would think that things would be pretty good here. They aren't. The road infrastructure is crumbling - you would not believe the potholes on the freeway - the water and sanitary system is outdated and in shambles - water mains break weekly. Police and Fire Departments are understaffed, the Schools are underfunded and just plain bad, and the State Budget is still hundreds of millions of dollars short. Where is all of the money going? I ask myself this every day...and then I hear my students talking about how you don't need to go to college, you can just have kids and collect money from the government like their mom does. Now, there are people who do truly need government assistance, but we are dealing with Grasshoppers...lots of them.

This is where I think that those who are not used to dealing with Grasshoppers get taken advantage of. Because taking care of others is a very Christian idea, we want to help others. And so we act like the queen in the video, and bail the grasshoppers out. In Aesop's actual fable, the ants do not help the Grasshopper. Somewhere along the line the Disney version became the standard, and now we are over our heads in entitlement programs. (And those who argue that if we weren't involved in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan we wouldn't be in this mess 1. don't understand our governments need to spend, and 2. refuse to realize that entitlements cost us more than the wars.) So why am I against Health Care? Besides the fact that I lived in England for 2 1/2 years and have seen how it works, I also feel that we can't afford it, and people need to stop relying on the government for everything. Sadly, those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul's vote...so the dependence upon the government will continue until there are no more Peters. /End Rant