Spring Break

For six school years now, we have been spoiled with a year round school schedule, meaning our kids go to school for nine weeks and then get three weeks off all year. I cannot say enough good things about this schedule. It is better for the kids, the teachers, and at least for this set of parents. It is so nice to have that time off to recharge. We've also gotten very spoiled and used to traveling when most other kids are in school. Sadly, with Oldest Child heading off to middle school in August (yikes!) our days of this schedule are coming to an end since the middle school follows a traditional school calendar. Having kids on different school calendars comes with a different set of benefits, like more individual time with them and fewer lunches to pack on a single day, but I will really miss this schedule.

The kids are finishing up their three weeks of spring break. I had it all planned that I would take off a week over spring break so we could travel a little and catch up on things at home. And as we've done before, I wanted the week off to coincide with a time when most kids were in school. But then, without going into detail, life happened, and taking off a week was definitely not an option. Thankfully, I was able to take three days off from work and time it so it made Easter weekend six days long. The shorter schedule definitely prevented me from being able to catch up at home, but it did allow plenty of time for family fun.

Our break began with a trip to Defy Gravity, an indoor trampoline park. We received a gift card for Christmas  (thanks Grandpa Gene and Gran!) and it was our first chance to go. Everyone had fun, and we escaped with no serious injuries. (I'm not generally a worrier about these things, but ever since I heard business for the local orthopedic practice quintupled since the place opened, I am a little nervous.)

 

Next, we got ready for Easter. The kids love reading my Parents magazine, and this year they found a project for dying Easter eggs by covering a cookie sheet in shaving cream, swirling food coloring in the shaving cream, and letting the eggs sit in the mixture.We were not wowed by the process, but we didn't hate it either, and the kids loved experimenting with a new craft technique.

 

Easter morning we headed to Airlie Gardens. I know this is azalea season in southeast North Carolina, but I loved these tulips. 

 

And, yes, the azaleas were pretty darn spectacular.

 

The day after Easter, we headed off for a different sort of trip. Jeff and his best friend had been able to get tickets to go see a practice round of the Masters Tournament, and the kids and I tagged along. We actually stayed in Columbia, South Carolina which is about an hour from the tournament in Augusta, Georgia. While the guys were off watching golf, the kids and I headed to Riverbanks Zoo and Garden. We went on a gorgeous day during spring break week for local schools, and it was packed. It made us incredibly grateful that we had been able to go to Florida last fall in late September/early October, because the lines at the zoo were longer than any lines we experienced at Legoland or the Disney parks. Still, we had a pretty good time and we each consumed roughly our body weight in Icees. Mike loves turtles and Leon loves penguins, and both were thrilled to find multiple species of their favorite animals in real form as well as represented in statues and painted rocks.

 

Mike also found this brick at the zoo with his name on it! 

 

Because it had been so hot, after the zoo we went for a long swim at the hotel before heading to dinner. Dinner was nothing fancy, but the kids loved it. We had also received a gift card for Panera (gift cards for experiences are definitely our favorite presents!) that had been burning a hole in my wallet, and the kids were very excited to finally use it. We had planned to go swimming again after dinner, but between seven hours at the zoo and the pre-dinner swim, the kids were pretty zombie-fied, so we spent the evening just relaxing in the hotel room watching Chopped. While watching one of their favorite shows, the kids finally really relaxed, and it kinda felt perfect. Like a real break before life got insane again. Like a spring break.

Myrtle Beach

It seems like once the boys hit kindergarten last year, our lives got completely crazy. One of the things that went out the window was blogging on any kind of regular basis, so forgive me for jumping around in time with my posts now. Back in March, as we were packing up to leave our hotel in Myrtle Beach, Mike declared, "Mom! You have to write about this on Nutty Mommy!" Except I didn't. So now, just because Mike asked, I am. But I guess I should back up and start at the beginning.

Last winter it dawned on me that we had never taken the kids on a true vacation. We've traveled out of town to visit family, and we've traveled to weddings, and we've traveled to family weddings, but we've never been anywhere just for fun. With the kids getting four long breaks a year from school, their schedule lends itself well to traveling outside of peak seasons, and the kids are finally big enough that traveling for fun actually seemed like a possibility.

Not wanting to get crazy and spend too much money or venture too far from home the first time we tried this crazy vacation thing, we opted to spend a few days in Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach is less than 90 miles away, and several friends recommended a hotel with an indoor water park. It's not nearly as fancy as a Great Wolf Lodge, but again, when you've never done anything like this before, anything is new and exciting.

The kids were excited, but they also took the trip very seriously. We left in the late morning with plans of stopping at Broadway at the Beach, a giant outdoor mall, for lunch. Leon cracked me up - he was very focused on making sure he had a perfect outfit for this excursion, and he elected to wear a button down shirt and cargo pants. Jeff decided he was dressed perfectly for the occasion, if he was a little old man. The other kids were only slightly less serious in planning their attire.

Because the drive was fairly short, Natalia wasn't completely horrible on the car ride, and we had a great time at Broadway at the Beach, walking around, playing on the playground, and eating lunch at Joe's Crab Shack. The kids even managed to eat all of their food and were very proud of themselves for not having leftovers. After lunch we headed to our hotel, and we pretty much just stayed there for the next two days.

We got a one bedroom suite which worked out great. The bedroom had two queen sized beds, and we gave one to the girls and one to the boys. The kids had their own TV in there, so they were happy to hang out in "their" room. Jeff and I opted for the murphy bed in the living room, which also meant we had access to the kitchen and balcony at night. There was a Food Lion just down the street, and we made daily trips there to pick up stuff for meals so that we only had to eat out once a day. I think we ended up making 5 trips to the hotel's water park over the 2.5 days we were there. The hotel was on the beach, and we even snuck in the first beach trip of the year. We spent one morning checking out more of Myrtle Beach, but other than that, we just relaxed and played. Overall, it was a pretty amazing first vacation. Good enough, in fact, that Natalia has declared that when she grows up she is going to live in Myrtle Beach. (And be a hair dresser.)

Atlanta Trip

Yesterday the kids headed back to school after fall break. For once, I was really happy for them to be going back to school. It's not that I was trying to get rid of them (really!), we just need to get back on schedule. It was a fun break, but it was crazy!

The first week we headed to Atlanta. We had tried planning trips to two other places, and the plans just weren't working. Then we realized that a long weekend in Atlanta would work well with our schedule and our budget. As a bonus, when we mentioned to my best friend's parents that we were heading there, they invited us to stay with them in Atlanta. We had a great time, and it was the perfect mix of fun activities and relaxing. It was exactly what we needed.

The kids had very few requests for the trip, so we tried to accommodate them. They wanted a variety pack of the little boxes of junk food cereal. (My mom always got them for us on car trips growing up, and that tradition lives on with my kids.) The boys wanted to go to Legoland. We couldn't quite fulfill that request, but we did make it to the Lego Discovery Center. They loved it. Ree wanted to go to an American Girl flagship store. Again, we couldn't quite accommodate, but we at least went to American Girl regular store in Atlanta. She really liked it. Natalia loved it. The mall with the American Girl store also had a Lego store, a traveling Lego exhibit with national monuments built to Lego scale, a carousel, and a food court with a Moe's. I am pretty sure that trip to the mall was the real highlight of the trip.

The kids also insisted on staying at a hotel, at least for one night. It was another one of those things that took several tries to find a plan that would actually work, but we ended up staying in Newberry, SC for the night. As it turns out, we were practically the only ones staying in Newberry, SC for the night, so we were able to score an amazing deal on a room at a Holiday Inn Express with an indoor pool. We had the run of the pool and the hot tub in the evening and again in the morning. In between the kids zoned out and enjoyed watching all the "forbidden" shows on Cartoon Network and we got more than our money's worth out of the breakfast buffet.

We got home on Thursday, October 1, right before The Big Rains came. The heavy rain started the next day. We were grateful that we only drove in light to moderate rain, and we were really glad we got home when we did once we found out the section of interstate we drove on  washed away that weekend.