Headed out to run errands after the Bears ended. For one thing, it was too gorgeous of a day not to. It was sunny, breezy, and warm as could be, in the upper 70's by noon. I strolled down Johnson and up to the big WaWa on the White Horse Pike to get money for the rent. Tried a Raspberry Chip Smoothie, too. It was delightfully tart and cooling, with real raspberry and chocolate chips mixed in. Stopped at Family Dollar on the way home to get Easter cards (and forgot two - I'll pick them up after work tomorrow).
Put on Yogi the Easter Bear while I got the cards ready. Ranger Smith is incredibly nervous about this year's Easter Jamboree. The super-tough park commissioner is bringing his grandchildren, and he expects them to have the time of their lives. He's really furious with Yogi when he doesn't act "smarter than the average bear" and eats all the Easter candy. Yogi and Boo Boo go off to find the Easter Bunny so he can replace the lost eggs and candy and end up having to save him from a pair of truly bizarre plastic-obsessed villains who want to replace the Bunny's real eggs with their fake ones.
Watched It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown during lunch and as I got ready for school. Each of the Peanuts crew prepare for spring in their own way, from Peppermint Patty and Marcie's hilarious attempts to color eggs to Sally going shoe shopping and Snoopy getting Woodstock a new birdhouse. Don't bother with all the fuss, says Linus. The Easter Beagle does that. Sally's more than a little skeptical after the Great Pumpkin incident at Halloween, but Easter Sunday brings more than one surprise for the kids!
Despite the nice day, I called Uber for a ride to Thomas Sharp. Jessa was picking me up later. Considering how late I called, I surprisingly got a ride in 6 minutes. I even had a little time to rest in a little garden before I went inside.
Good thing, because it was crazy today. We had 24 kids, 10 at my table. My kids behaved just fine. They all cleaned up this time, and they weren't that bad in the bathrooms. It was after snack time when the trouble started. They were absolutely wild in the cafeteria, running around, screaming, calling each other names and then tattling on each other. Even worse, one of the teachers called out so late, they didn't have time to replace her. It was just the head teacher and me today. The head teacher had to gather a rather large group of them to tell them that name calling isn't nice, tattling is for emergencies, running around and climbing under things is for outside, and they need to remember that we're all in a small space without a lot of room for all of that.
Things went much better once we got outside and the kids were able to enjoy that hot weather. To be honest, it was too hot. It was almost in the 80's by 4 PM on the last day of March. I had to take several kids inside to use the bathroom, and then to fill their water bottles, but they behaved much better when there was only a few of them. When they were on the playground, they happily ran around, looked for tiny pinecones on the ground, and danced to "Try Everything" from Zootopia, "Zoo" from Zootopia 2, the theme from Bluey, "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" from Lilo and Stitch, "Ghostbusters," and songs from The Little Mermaid, Moana, Tangled, Encanto, and KPop Demon Hunters.
By 5 PM, we moved the remaining 6 kids to the blacktop to play with the 9 remaining older kids. I stayed slightly longer to help with them, since Jessa didn't arrive until 5:30. They were down to 3 older kids and 2 younger ones when Jessa arrived with a newly cleaned-out car.
We had no idea where we wanted to eat, so we drove around a little. Jessa originally suggested Freddy's, a burger-and-hot-dog fast food chain in Cinnaminson, but we spied something far better behind it. Hibachi Grill and Buffet's enormous size belies its location in a generic shopping center. It was huge and gorgeous in there. The bright center area with the food counters are between rows of warm dining areas hung with Japanese paper umbrellas and separated by graceful wooden trellises. I had sushi, a spring roll, salad, two pan-fried pot stickers (I gave one to Jessa), a meat skewer, coconut shrimp, two steamed mussels, a spring roll, fried rice, a little bit of baked white fish, chicken and broccoli, and for dessert, a slice of white cake with tasty vanilla ice cream.
After we got home, I watched the last episode of Match Game '90, then finished the night with Spring for Strawberry Shortcake. Strawberry is worried that winter is taking much too long to recede. If spring doesn't come soon, she won't be able to plant her berries, Orange Blossom's trees won't bloom, and Ginger Snap won't have grain and eggs to make her delicious cookies. Huckleberry Pie and Custard the Cat are more interested in goofing off than helping. Strawberry, Orange, and Ginger go in search of spring...and learn a lesson about putting duty before pleasure, the importance of spring's place in the calendar year, and that working together not only gets the job done faster, but is a lot more fun.
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