Spring Break Recap

I’m going to be honest from the get-go here that Spring Break was kinda a bummer for us this year. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why, but it just didn’t feel very fun and break-ish to me haha. I think that because we did our big family vacation last year during Spring Break, that this year felt really boring. Theo also worked the entire break, so that felt like another bummer factor. And the weather was terrible the whole time- cold, dreary and rainy with a spot or two of snow. It was just…dissapointing. And then there is the mindset trouble. I pictured myself being ON BREAK, but I kind of forgot that a break from my teaching job does not also mean a break from my Mom job. And that job felt like double full time the week of Spring Break.

But after a few attitude adjustments, we focused on making the best of it and I think in the end we did manage to have some fun and make some memories! Here are some of the things that we did:

1. 1. Grant Park Egg Hunt.

Ya’ll this egg hunt just about did me in. There were 20 eggs hidden around a large hiking park/reserve. You had to find the egg and then scan the QR code to find the mystery animal. Then you could submit all your answers to win prizes. The eggs were large and easy to see, but finding them was not so simple. There were many paths and trails that diverged, making it challenging to know if you had covered that ground yet or not. I took the kids solo the first time and we found four eggs on our two mile hike. So I knew finding all 20 would take us at least 3 trips. Spoiler alert: buckle up- it was more than 3 trips haha!

Round 2 we found five more eggs, making it a total of 9 eggs found.

Round 3 we decided that I would take my running gear and go for a run to look for some of the eggs that we thought were on the far trails. Theo took the kids hiking at a slower pace. I ran every.single.trail of that park and in the end we had 17 eggs and were missing 3. When I met Theo back at the car we just could not figure out where the last few eggs could be. Finally we decided to drive around and look in each parking lot entrance of the park.

We found two more that way!

But we COULD NOT find the last egg. Theo got out and jogged around some paths we spotted that weren’t on the map. We looked EVERYWHERE. Finally, we gave up and called the park office and begged them for a clue HAHA.

They weren’t available right when we called, so they said they would call back. We decided to head home but it was driving me CRAZY that we had only found 19 out of 20 eggs. Finally, they called back and told us exactly where it was. The next day Theo took the kids to find the 20th egg.

Annnnndddd…..after all that….we DID NOT win. Not even a door prize. Womp Womp Womp.

• 2. Puzzles, Puzzles and Books!

I spent a lot of time just relaxing and doing some puzzles. I think I completed three puzzles over spring break and read at least 5 books. This peacock puzzle was beautiful but incredibly frustrating because the pieces were cut almost exactly the same. In the end, I just rammed a couple pieces in the “wrong” spot because I could not for the life of me figure out where they actually went.

• 3. Thrifting and Errands

I pretty much stuck to our regular schedule of going grocery shopping and going to the library. But I also made a couple pit stops at the thrift store. I took the kids out thrifting once and went by myself once. I scored a bunch of warm weather clothes for the kids, some clothes for me, and let the kids each pick a new toy. I also found these plates and I almost bought the whole set because they were SO pretty and SO unique.

• 5. Get Air

Some school friends were meeting at Get Air, so I last minute decided to go and join them. We showed up on a Tuesday which is buy one hour, get one free. The kids had a BLAST. At one point I looked up and Ezra had taken off his shirt. HAHA. He got hot, what can I say? I had to go bounding across the trampolines to put his shirt back on him before he got us kicked out of there. LOL.

• 6. Sewing Day with Memaw

Tera had a sewing day at Memaw’s house and came back two hours later having made this skirt! I am very impressed. I am completely and utterly useless behind a sewing machine, so this is crazy impressive to me! Tera also had a “Flat Stanley” project for school that she was working on, hence why you may see the “Flat Tera” in some of these pictures.

• 7. Ark Encounter

I also took the kids to the Ark Encounter one day. I will have a full blog post review up later this week, but it was a really fun experience for us!

• 8. Jungle Gym!

Theo put up a jungle gym/American Ninja Warrior type thing in our backyard and the kids have had a blast playing on that! For some reason I only have pictures of Tera hanging, but the boys also really love it!

• 9. Family Bike Ride

We hooked up all the equipment and went for our first family bike ride of the year! This year one kid has graduated to their own bike, we have one kid on the pull behind bike and one kid in the trailer. Tera and Kiah actually took turns switching between their own bike and the pull behind bike. We went about 5 miles. And Ezra has started practicing riding a pedal bike! I think this summer he will really take off on it!

• 10. 100 Hours Outside

We also hit 100 hours outside in 2022! I know for some this is nothing, but for us this is a big deal! Mostly because I have managed to track it for four straight months haha.

And that was a wrap on our Spring Break! Now we just have six weeks left until the end of the school year and they are going to be a BUSY 6 weeks! We are so excited for warmer weather and more hours outside and more social events on our calendar.