All 4th graders in California get to do a Mission project. This means, as a parent, that you'll be shelling out some bucks for craft supplies. And by some, I mean a whole lot of bucks.

Then, you'll become an expert on your child's assigned California Mission, so that you can help them write their report. And by expert, I mean you'll spend a few bleary eyed evenings looking up stuff on Wikipedia and hoping that whoever wrote that stuff knew what the heck they were talking about.

Then, you'll browbeat your unwilling 4th grader into writing his report. You'll resort to bribery, threats and finally weeping. It will be printed out for the last time about 8 hours before it is due.

In the meantime, you'll have to make a model of your mission. Now, most kids will have parents who either stand back and let the kid have at it, or you'll have parents who take over and do the whole thing. Either way seems to work fine - and when all is said and done, your mission will have a footprint of a sheetpan.

And then there's us. Welcome to Mission San Jose:

We have very tiny priests and natives, and our warm springs are glittery.

Our trees are pretty, um, florescent. And our horse is really deformed.

Our sheep are really ridiculous, too.

Man, are we glad that project is over with. And by we? I mean me.