Welcome back.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and spring break.  Whether you traveled or stayed home, it is good to be back with you all.

Our family spent the better part of last week down in the Commonwealth of Virginia, visiting the Jamestown settlement, Colonial Williamsburg, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.  It was my first time visiting all three.  And I learned a lot—about the history of our nation, about the people responsible for establishing it, and what it really took to found America.  This week, I’m going to share with you a few of the things I learned.

But today, I will simply leave you with a quote that in many ways summarizes just about everything that I saw.

Captain John Smith, who played a key role in the founding of the Jamestown settlement and the colony of Virginia, wrote years later that, “Every thing of worth is found full of difficulties.”

I often tell you that “hard is good” – difficulty and challenge build character.  But the reverse, as John Smith observed, also is generally true: “Good is hard.”  From Jamestown in 1607 to the Declaration of Independence nearly 170 years later, the one thing that was obvious to me while visiting these sites of America’s beginning, is that nothing about any of it was easy for anyone.

I’ll tell you more throughout the week, but for now, if you’re finding it hard to get back into the swing of school after a long break, just remember that “every thing of worth is found full of difficulties”…

And have a wonderful day.