2007 - Year in Review - April

April brought us Easter fun and baseball. We had our annual family easter egg hunt and egg decorating at my sister-in-law's house. It always bring back memories of when the boys were little and we would go to the community egg hunts.

Oh how I hated the community egg hunts. You know the kind. There is a HUGE field of eggs, all filled with nutritious candy, and hundreds upon hundreds of children vying for a spot at the starting gate. All of a sudden, someone who apparently does not have children, yells GO and the stampede is on. My boys had not developed the competitive gene at this young age, and they would stand at the starting line, frozen. No movement. And as a parent, you have to stand there helplessly watching all of the eggs being sucked up like there were hundreds of Dysons on the field.

We participated in all varieties of egg hunts before we wised up. There were those where they would have the fields segregated by age, the ones where you would bring a certain number of eggs with you for the hunt, and then tell the kids you can only pick up 12 eggs. Yeah right. Like that really works in a free-for-all. There's always those parents that want little Susie to get all that she can, completely ignoring the rules.

I can't remember what year we had the revelation to no longer participate in the stampede hunts, and to just have our own. Not sure if the kids like it since it's usually only with one cousin (this year we had friends come to our house for Easter also, so that added to the numbers) but I sure am glad that we started a new tradition.

Enough ranting about plastic eggs. Our other fun event of April was minor league baseball. Our local team had a promotion last year (I think they have it again this year) called "Small Fry of the Game". You could enter online for a chance to be picked as Small Fry and you would get a ticket to the game and get a chance to be on the field for player introductions. I'm all about some free tickets, so I entered C & G into the contest, and they were chosen to participate early in the season. Now I did have to purchase tickets for the rest of us, but anything is plenty. They were introduced on the field, and then stood under the Golden Arches as the players ran out on the field. It was a neat experience for them, and we got to enjoy a beautiful night at the ballpark, complete with hot dogs and fireworks.