A is for Alligator - B is for Bunny - C is for Contraption

I hope everyone had a happy and blessed Easter. Jeff and I went to Easter Vigil service at church. It was Jeff's 23rd anniversary of joining the church and he always likes to go and welcome the new ones who join each Easter. Then he also was able to go to Easter Services with his mother on Sunday at her church. It was winter coats over Easter finery for everyone because it was very cold. There was frost in the morning and the temperatures never warmed up much during the day. That was OK with the grandkids because for the past two years our Easter Egg Hunt has been indoors. We do it a little different, so even the older ones have fun. They are each given a clue that they must decipher, which leads them to a particular place in the house where their first egg is hidden. All the eggs are color-coded. In that first egg is another clue, which leads them to another hidden egg with another clue, and so on, until they come to the final clue. This leads them to the golden egg with the prize, which lately has been money - better on the teeth :) We also got to have another type of celebration because Easter Sunday was also Jeff's birthday. I think this year is supposed to be the earliest any of us will see Easter in our lifetimes and it just so happened that it fell on his birthday. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23744701/
So we had candles and cake with the Easter ham.
The Saturday before Easter was also cold; however, we spent that morning outdoors. The church youth group that Jamie and Audrie belong to were participating in a fundraiser for our local food pantry that involved constructing with canned goods. The object of the contest was for each participating group to use the donated canned goods they had collected to build some sort of sculpture. Points were awarded for resemblance to object depicted, number of cans used, and originality. Only 10% of the completed project could consist of objects other than cans, such as cardboard, paper, etc. After the judging, all the cans would be donated to the food pantry. The kids were all-enthusiastic, even after their first attempt collapsed; they started over and completed their structure before their time was up. The construction used cans of green beans and peas and they constructed a very good likeness of a big, green, grinning alligator.



Some of the other constructions were a church building, a dollar bill and coin rolls, the great pyramids, and even a transformer. However, it was the alligator that the judges felt deserved the trophy. The youth group kids were ecstatic. The newspaper came to take pictures and then the alligator was dismantled, living on in their memories and many, many pictures!

Besides alligators, we also had plenty of bunny rabbits over the weekend. Or should I say, Rayman Ravin Rabbids. We got the kids a game for the wii for Easter and I thought a game with a bunch of crazy rabbits would be in the spirit of Peter Cottontail and all his kin. The Rabbids remind me of rabbits on steroids who have escaped from an issue of Mad magazine. Of course, if you’ve read the earlier post on my infatuation with the wii, you may guess that I had an ulterior motive in getting a new game on Easter. Since they were at our house most of the day anyway, they could just bring the wii over here and then we could play. I have to say, though, after seeing them play the new Rabbid game and several more complicated games they rented(even though they all involve physical movement), I still enjoy the bowling one the best!



The grandkids also had to work on school projects over the weekend. Jamie’s science class is learning about simple machines and their assignment was to construct a Rube Goldberg type contraption. www.rubegoldberg.com This is right up Jamie’s alley and he enlisted poppa’s aid to help him flesh out his ideas. After he drew his sketch he scoured the junk drawers and old toy parts for pieces that he turned into a machine that even Rube himself would be proud of. It was the highlight of our weekend when after several test runs, everything fell into place and his “Running Goal” ran through from the first move to the last. Now if he can just get it transported to school and recreate it in the classroom without breaking it or losing pieces!