Spring Break Adventures 2015

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I hope you enjoyed the Around the World in 7 days travel series! I know I did! It was great to be able to enjoy my family during Spring Break, and have guests sharing great stories! I thought it was about time to write an “On My Mind Monday” post, and share some pictures of our Spring Break adventures. I don’t often “talk” as much as I used to with contributors and so much else going on, but I miss sharing the other stuff, too. I posted some on my Instagram feed, but that was just a brief summary. I also am feeling quite nostalgic and reflective after coming back last night from an overnighter with friends that I’ve known for a long time.

It’s crazy how life changes with it’s twists and turns, bumps and bruises, but ultimately, I feel so grateful for my life’s journey. I would not trade my trials with another, but I’ve been wounded, beat down, but choose to fight for joy in life.

Here is a sampling of the joy I experienced in the past week.

Our Spring Break kick started with an event at the kids school. It’s called the Wellness Walk, but I usually RUN. We lap around the parking lot at the school, and gather popcycle sticks for each round. Students get 1 stick per lap, adults get 2 sticks per lap, and teachers get 3. I always try to run it, to get the most sticks. I tallied up that I’d been to about 20 Wellness Walks in the past 5 years (since we moved to this school), and my youngest was always with me in the stroller. This was the first time that SHE was in the walk as a student, and I was stroller free. Bittersweet. My boys are in middle school now, so it was just me with each girl, during their grades “specials” time. (Specials are art, music, and wellness, and they rotate those daily throughout the week.)

My oldest daughters grade went right at 8am, youngest was at 1pm. I plan to run a slow and steady pace, but I’ll walk some with them, or they sprint and wear themselves out. Either way, it’s time well spent with my kids that I love, and I love that they love to have me there.

Elementary School Wellness Walk run

Friday night was my daughters last volleyball game (that my husband c0-coached) and sent 1 son to a scout campout.

volleyball fun

I then scurried off to a dinner downtown at Truluck’s, where I met with some bloggers and we discussed Animal Jam. I hadn’t heard of it, but sounded like a cool resource for kids to learn about science stuff! It was my first exposure to the hysteria that is South by Southwest, a.k.a. SXSW or “south-by” as the locals call it.

SATURDAY–in the morning, my husband accompanied me back downtown where I was speaking on a panel at SXSW all about blogging and brands. It felt fun to be “official” and actually be a part of the hysteria of SXSW.  It was put on by Piqora.com

My friend Jamie from C.R.A.F.T. and Stacy From Kids Stuff World all shared our tips on Blogging and Brands. We had a great crowd come out to listen and answer questions, and it was so FUN! My husband did a great job as photographer!!

Piqora.com panel

{As I was writing up this post, I got an email with a few more candid shots of us at the event, so here they are.}

Piqora Photo Booth

We walked around the streets of Austin, got some free stuff handed to us, free food, and even met some adorable St. Bernards, big and small!

SUNDAY– after church, we made a plan for our Spring Break week. Instead of traveling, we did some daily stay cations. My husband took off work Mon-Wed., and I scheduled out our hours. We built a fort in our playroom, and the kids slept in it each night all week! My husband is pretty amazing and building stuff with PVC pipes.

building a fort

MONDAY–we started with week with a family workout on the middle school track down the road. My son runs track, and I thought it was important that he kept that up, PLUS, I needed to keep up my exercise regime at least a little bit while on va-cay!  My husband created a little work out that was easily modified for all of our levels. It included a lap, then an exercise, a lap, another exercise, etc. Then, we played on the high jump section, and I didn’t even realize that my hubs did that event in high school! I took lots of fun pictures! If you want to see more ideas for exercising with your kids, check out this post I wrote.

family exercise

We then came home, got ready, had a quick home lunch, and headed out to the bowling alley. I’ll admit, it isn’t my fave, but it’s a great indoor family activity.

bowling shoes

We then went to the dollar theater and saw Big Hero 6. Kids loved it. I thought it was so-so. But I don’t generally love animated films.  I needed to go to the grocery store, and I knew there would be complaining, but I said we’d be FAST! I gave the boys a list and girls had a list by sections of the store, and we were done in 20 minutes!

grocery trip

TUESDAY–was St. Patrick’s day! I spent the evening before doing some prep, I always have a trail of gold coins and this time Rolo’s and Hershey’s bricks from their sleeping spot (the fort) down the stairs, leading to something in the family room, this time it was the start of a scavenger hunt.

The leprechauns turned the milk green and left some Lucky Charms for breakfast. We met some friends to go on a hike, and packed an all green lunch! It was a nice overcast day, perfect weather.

In the afternoon, we had a last minute trip and I took my daughters to go see Cinderella, and we went with their friends/my friend, too. It was SUCH a wonderful movie, I knew it would be. The boys stayed home to watch the beginnings of March Madness.

st patricks day fun

WEDNESDAY–we ran out of local ideas, and I decided we were going to have a cultural experience for lunch. It turned out to be a little less so, but still, we ate out Indian, and the kids chicken nugget at least had an Indian influence to them. I got coconut curry shrimp and it was quite delicious!

We then went to The Yogurt Experience. I wrote on instagram how 5 years ago, I boldly approached the owner and suggested some photo art go up on their walls, and I took some pictures for them!

family at yogurt experience

THURSDAY–The kids love to go to Jumpoline, and since my husband went back to work, it was the perfect day to ask a friend to come along.

mini van mom

jumpoline

boys outside

FRIDAY–It rained all day, so was the perfect “movie marathon” day. We found some kid shows on Netflix, and got cozy!

SATURDAY–My husband and oldest did iFly. I bought them vouchers at Costco for Christmas a year and a half ago, and I was so happy they finally used it! The rest of us went along to watch. Now the other kids want to go. I can’t decide if I’d rather just take pictures, or do it myself!  My son got a bit more height, he was able to arch his back more than my husband, I guess more spry and limber! But they both got some great air.

ifly pictures

I left around noon for an overnight adventure, but I think I’m going to share that in a separate post, later tonight. Stay tuned!

I’d love to hear about your Spring Break, or if you had an idea to do something after seeing what we did! What looked like fun that you’d like to try out?  I always love to hear from my friends out there, especially sharing family fun pictures!

 

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