White House Easter Eggs

I did not realize it until today.  But the White House has an official Easter egg each year.

Since the Obamas have been in office, the White House egg has featured the Easter rabbit doing some sort of physical fitness activity.  This year the Easter bunny is jumping rope.

Here is what the official egg set looks like.  You can purchase this set of 5 eggs through the White House gift shop for $55.

If you would like just one egg, you can buy that for $15.95.  Here is a United States Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, holding one of the eggs.  This particular egg has been signed by the First Family's dog, Bo.  The other eggs have the signatures of the President and First Lady.

A company in Maine called Wells Wood Turning & Finishing, Inc., makes between 75,000 and 100,000 of these eggs.  They are made out of wood.

President Ronald Reagan first started the tradition of using wood eggs in 1981 for the White House Easter roll.

Here Senator Collins is with the owner of the company.  You can see the wood that is being used to make this large number of eggs.

Last year the 2012 egg had the Easter bunny using a hula hoop.

In 2011 the eggs looked like this:

Here is the 2010 design:

Until today I had no idea the White House made such wooden eggs as these.  These are the eggs that are used for the official White House Easter Egg Roll -- a tradition going back many, many years.

On April 1, the Obamas will host the 135th Annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.  Over 35,000 people will attend.

Here you can see the President with many children and parents as the children use wooden spoons to roll the eggs across the South lawn.

Sure.  There are a lot of really serious things going on in Washington D.C. this week with the Supreme Court cases and so on.  But activities like this are important, too. 

Maybe more important.