Easter egg hunts are evil

We've only been to one other one, and I should have remembered. But the city did one right next door to us, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to walk on over. Yeah. Firstly the kids were divided by age, so I had to send my 9 YO and 6 YO off to different sections of the field on their own. Secondly, even though we were there when the horn went off, we were at the back. I understand separating the kids so the big ones don't grab all the eggs before the little ones have a chance. But seriously? The parents are the worst of all. My 2YO found zero, but the people just ahead of us had like, ten. If you're going to be in charge of one of these things, you need to put the little kids in a penned-off area and keep the adults outside. That, or tell everyone that when they've found four or five eggs, they're done.

So then we had to find the 6YO, and luckily she'd found one. But the 9YO wasn't in the meeting spot. So we went around the corner to her field and found her standing there, the last kid, crying and talking to a police officer. Yep, she'd come up with all of zero as well. I'm glad someone found one that we could split among the kids, but I'm thinking that this is the last egg hunt we're ever going to!

springlike day

The sun came out today, so it ended up being a nice sort of day. Busy, but nice. (As long as we don't mention the Evil Easter Egg hunt, that is.) Son 1 had a campout last night and got back in time to babysit while DH and the youngest two went to this graveside service for his great-aunt. DH is much more freaked out by funerals than I am. He's always worried that something like that won't be a good place to bring kids. I, on the other hand, grew up in The Place America Goes to Die (aka a Sunbelt Retirement Destination), and funerals are sort of normal events for me. Obviously when it's a kid or close relative who dies, it's a shock just as much for anyone else, but when someone is elderly and have lived a good life, there's a sort of celebration of their life as well as being sad for them being gone. Anyway, it was outside, so it wasn't like the kids were going to disturb things much, and they didn't know the person in question, anyway, so it was fine. I realize that most of the funerals I've been to have been one of two kinds: funerals for relatives I don't know very well, and funerals for people I do know well but am not related to. Which also tends to diffuse things quite a bit for me. This was nice because we got to see some of my husband's living relatives who we DO know.

Then we stopped in at this huge and fascinating estate sale/used and new furniture place in town (if you've ever been to Shelley, you know which one I mean!). We bought some beds and a couch there when we first got here, and when we walked in, one of the guys said, "Nice to see you again." I guess they remembered us from months ago. Anyway, the store has every kind of strange farm implement, kitchen tool from the 1950s, all the books your grandma has in her basement, and a lot of cool antique and/or one of a kind pieces of furniture, like the bedroom set made entirely from wooden skis, snowshoes, etc. There was a moosehead bigger than my whole body and some amazing airplane and ship models. We even saw a shelf that looked a bit like Dumbledore's cabinet where he keeps the memories for the Pensieve. We would have bought it, too--we need something that size--but the shelves themselves had some structural issues that we didn't have the time to fix.

Then this afternoon we went to the river, which is still pretty high, but at least the snow is gone and there were one or two green leaves. Spring might be on the way! The kids wore shorts because they said it was "hot." (It was 48--but with sun!) So, spring is coming, but slowly.