Colvin Run Mill & Egg Hunt

I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by visiting a new historic site that happened to be holding an Egg Hunt today.  So, we traveled to Great Falls, VA and visited the Colvin Run Mill, which was a state-of-the-art hydraulic mill built in 1811.  The site also has a General Store that sells items of yore.  However, the problem with my plan was the corresponding Egg Hunt and the masses of young children that kept us from doing anything except crafts and our egg hunt.  It was a cute little site, but probably best to go on a quiet day when they offer tours and plenty of picnic tables.

The Egg Hunt part made the trip completely worth it.  They offered four craft tables where Alison made a paper plate chick and two bunnies.  Then they shuttled us all outside just in time for the hunt to start.

Waiting for the hunt to begin

No skills necessary to actually find the eggs

I don't think my competitiveness was passed down to Alison.  She was supposed to grab six eggs, but she walked over to a blue one that she liked and proceeded to spend inordinate amounts of time inspecting its contents - right then and there.  I finally convinced her to find another egg and when we were all done, she had five eggs, but two from children who had gathered at least ten and were told they needed to share.  She, of course, was thrilled and spent the entire ride home eating nine jelly beans and playing with a plastic frog.

An egg in the basket is worth six on the ground surrounded by other ravenous two-year-olds

Showing off her stash

Needless to say, Alison is really excited for the Easter Bunny to come in a week.  I think I might tell him that hiding five eggs may just be the perfect amount.

Dying Eggs

I bought an egg dying kit this year so that we could re-live our childhoods and introduce Alison to the concept of edible Easter Eggs.  Yesterday, four days after the dying event, I was still finding red food coloring patches on the dining room floor to clean up.

3-13-13 - So far so good, the eggs are making it into the cups relatively unscathed.

Everything started out great.  We showed Alison how to dunk the eggs in the cups using the little wire tool thingie and she took off.  You've probably already figured out what our first mistake was: using the darn wire thing.  Because of that, we had numerous eggs endure several levels of smacking (table, then chair, then floor) on their plunge to the earth.  No eggs went undyed, but a few will certainly never be eaten.

Monitoring

Exit Strategy

Our egg exit strategy evolved over time from using the wire thing, to helping with a spoon, to just grabbing them out; which led to our second big lesson: You can never have too much newspaper on the table, chair, child, floor, etc.

It was fun!  No one has been bold enough to eat one yet, but we had a lot of fun making a mess.

"Snow Storm"

Snow!

I can't say we didn't know what we were getting into when we moved here.  In February 2010, we visited my brother-in-law during "Snowmageddon".  That time, DC got over 32 inches of snow during a two-part snowstorm.  We were on one of the first flights into Reagan National after the airport was reopened and after the government had been shut down for an entire week - due to 20 of the 32 inches of snow.  I happened to switch flights on the way home to an earlier one and ended up escaping just before the second snow wave pummeled the capital.  We had arrived from Minnesota and North Dakota, and the amount of snow that shut down DC for a week was laughable.  So, even before we moved here, we knew that DC is filled with a bunch of wusses.

Last winter, the only accumulating snow occurred on January 9th.  For one glorious evening, we had enough snow to build a small snowman that was melted by the time we left for the bus the next morning.

This past Wednesday was going to be the next big one.  The weather channel had a name for it, but everyone in DC simply called it Snowquester, after the furlough period that started last week.  One headline declared it the biggest snowfall in two years.  By the time we left work on Tuesday, everyone knew that the next day would be a "telecommuting only" sort of day.  The government is incredibly good at shutting down the commute if any hint of weather is possible.  It is a good safety measure given that we have the worst traffic congestion in the United States.

The build-up for 5-8 inches of snow was very exciting and we scrabbled to put together a makeshift sled for Alison made out of the lid from one of our storage containers.  In the morning on Wednesday, we did actually have snow!  Maybe two inches of it, but it was also....raining?  Then it snowed, then it rained, then, well, I don't know what was happening. We went out at lunch and built the wettest snowman I've ever seen.  We tried to sled down the hill in the backyard, but couldn't go more than a foot without stopping in the mud.

Grandma & Alison Getting Ready to Play

Alison in the Snow

Snowman

Grandma's Snowsaurus

 By Thursday afternoon all that was left were lonely snowmen in every front yard with their hats and eyes strewn about and their bodies sagging.  The Capital Weather Gang summed up the whole experience nicely with their Ode to Snowquester. 

At least Alison will know what snow is as she grows older, she just won't know what it means to have a real snow storm.

Sequestration

I have no idea what the rest of the country thinks about Sequestration.  Do you think about it?  Is it all your papers and local radio stations talk about?  Since I live in the DC bubble, it's hard to ignore it. All of the neighbors we slug in with work for DOD or TSA or Homeland Security.  Everyone is facing furloughs, some once per pay period and others will be hit every week.  There have been threats that if they use their Blackberries on furlough days that they will face legal action.  It's forced, unpaid vacation time!

In this pre-furlough honeymoon period, everyone is really upbeat about it.  By everyone, I mean all the real people I talk to - not official press notices from the White House or that economist from the FTC that keeps giving interviews.  I suspect the allure of an extra vacation day every-other-week over the summer is enough to make you forget about the impact to your paycheck.

It took me a while to realize that Nathan is a Federal employee and would likely be impacted.  However, every agency determines its own cost-savings measures.  The National Park Service has an abundance of seasonal employees, so the rumors circulating are that most parks will hire less Rangers for the summer instead of furloughing employees, if they have that choice.  While that lets the permanent employees breathe a sigh of relief, that could mean longer lines at park entrances and visitor centers, fewer facilities open, and definitely less hikes with a Ranger.  That grizzly bear you really wanted to see at Glacier National Park?  Well, he's right over there, but you missed him because you didn't have a guide familiar enough with the terrain to spot him.

In Virginia, an estimated 90,000 Department of Defense employees will lose over $600 million in income.  Most of that is right here in Northern Virginia where we live.  You can compare your state's cuts right here.  I'm almost more worried about the $3-4 million reduced in each state for "clean air and water".  What does that even mean?  I really want to keep my clean air and water.

You might think that, being in the midst of Sequestration Fever, I think it's BS like everyone else.  Except that deep down, I don't.  I really want the government to make smart cuts so that we can balance the budget.  I want to spend less on war and more on STEM education and rebuilding our energy infrastructure with a smart grid that uses renewable fuels.  These are things that will really benefit future generations.  These are the things I want.  But we are so polarized right now that we can't come together for the common good.  Instead of every Congressman (or woman) getting a team of real experts who can help guide them in making policy decisions, we have lobbyists: paid influencers that could care less which issue they push as long as it keeps their personal bank accounts flowing.  So, while I think that semi-blind, automatic cuts are a giant cop-out, it might be the only way to get us moving in the right direction, given our current circumstances.

In the mean time, I'm just going to be glad that I love our new house and wouldn't mind being stuck here for a long time.  We'll see what the real Sequestration impact is and, if we have to, we can always start our own business spotting grizzly bears.