Easter, Ducks, Tortoises & Such

I feel like I HAVE to write a post tonight, just to assert myself as 1/2 owner of "Tumbleweeds & Pinecones". Jodi wrote the "Welcome" post and her "Easter" post...so unless I write something pronto, I have zero presence on this blog.

Not that it's a competition, but Jodi's Easter sounds better than mine. Jer and I (and the kids) were supposed to go to my parent's house, but that got nixed because my stepsister just gave birth to twin girls, so my parents had to make an unplanned road trip up to Northern California. We visited my mother-in-law yesterday, which for me is always an exercise in fortitude. A visit with her typically involves high levels of endurance and moderate amounts of alcohol.

On the bright side, I got to hold a desert tortoise.

If I wasn't at my mother-in-law's house, I probably would have smiled a LITTLE more.

To my mother-in law's credit, she did have a cute Easter set-up for the kids. She also gave them a lot of Easter gifts/candy.  

My brother-in-law showed up for a little bit with his children, so that was a lot of fun for the kiddos.

Did I mention he has a bazillion kids?

The part of Saturday that I did enjoy was the "Duck Derby." Every year, Pinecone spends the month prior to Easter selling tickets for $5 each, and the proceeds go to pay for our town's "4th of July" fireworks show.The purchaser of the ticket gets to "adopt a duck" for the duck derby. Oh, yeah, they are rubber ducks. All the rubber duckies have numbers on them that correspond to the tickets. The ducks are shot down a water slide into the lake, and if your duck is the first to get to the finish line, you win $1,000. 2nd place gets $500, and 3rd place gets $250.

Every year, the race is actually kinda pathetic and anticlimactic. The rubber ducks kinda bob around aimlessly, and they are pretty slow. Many of them get stuck in the water slide, or start drifting out of the racing area. You can't see the numbers on the ducks, so you have no idea whether yours is winning or not. Still, it is the silliest thing....to see hundreds of Pineconians show up every year to cheer on their rubber ducks. I just love it. And hell, it helps pay for our fireworks, so what's not to love?

Easter morning was actually pretty good.We awoke to the little ones squealing happily after finding their Easter baskets.Then we had an Easter egg hunt in our front yard, and the weather was beautiful.

The downside of the day was I had to study. Every Sunday, I spend about 8-10 hours studying for the EPPP (it's the first of two tests I have to take to become licensed as a psychologist). I could have skipped studying today, but that would have put me a week behind (hard to explain, but I am on this strict 14 week studying schedule....if I deviate from it, it messes me up big time, because I am a hopeless procrastinator who finds it nearly impossible to study). I really became discouraged today because I failed my practice quiz, and I couldn't focus. And I didn't WANT to focus. I wanted to go to the park and binge-eat on peeps & jelly beans.

Jer DID made us a delicious Easter dinner of tri-tip roast with baby potatoes and carrots. It was REALLY good.

Just for the heck of it, here is the tortoise again.

P.S Jodi, How did you do that cute name thingie after your post?!

P.S.S.  Never mind.