In the years that we've lived in Washington, we've lucked out with lovely Spring Break weather (I went back to old blog posts to make sure my memory was accurate). This winter has been extra long, cold, and wet (with only a handful of mild, sunny days since October). We were all hoping that Spring would make her glorious appearance just in time for a few days off from school. She made a valiant attempt, but Winter just wasn't quite ready to relinquish her power. Spring and Winter battled mightily all week. We had rain, wind, hail, and sun - sometimes simultaneously!
On Monday, we decided to make one last trip to Northwest Trek before our annual passes expired. It's always more fun to take friends who have never before visited, and this time we convinced the Morris family to join us. We prepared for cold, pouring rain, but enjoyed mostly sunny skies.
The Park was not at all crowded, and since it was cool and early, all the animals were impressively active. The kids were especially impressed with the wolves, who came right up to the glass viewing window and glared at them.
When the Park isn't busy, the tram rides are longer. Generally that might be considered a benefit, but by the 45 minute mark, Nellie was DONE. The last 15 minutes became Operation-Avoid-Meltdown.
The big kids enjoyed the tour, but were unimpressed with our driver/tour-guide, and also lost interest by the last 15 minutes.
Mostly, they were anxious to get to the kid play area. That's their favorite place to visit. I thought Nellie would be thrilled to get back to the slide she loved last time we visited, but this time around she thought we were trying to torture her.
She was more interested in following the big kids on their adventures.
Graham convinced Patricia to be his buddy. "Patricia!" he would call, "Come play with me!"
Generously, she always responded with enthusiasm and willingness, even when he wanted her to sit on the cougar statues with him.
On Tuesday, we went up to Katie's so Seth could help Bryce with his Pinewood Derby. Mark and I lack skills and knowledge (and tools!) in woodworking, so we are super grateful that Seth is willing to help us out. Seth let Bryce help as much as possible. Even better, Thane and Dallin made their own car from the leftover wood from Bryce's car. They loved it!
When it was time for us to leave, Anna jumped in our car and joked, "I'm going home with you!"
I looked at Katie and asked, "Why not?"
Anna quickly ran back in the house to pack a bag, and came home with us to spend the night. Aubree was very excited to have "another sister," and the two of them were inseparable for the entire time Anna stayed with us. It turned out Anna picked a good night to sleep over. Aubree and I had planned to go out that evening for her half-birthday date. Anna got to join us at Red Robin. Aubree thought the food was fine, but the bottomless rootbeer float was top notch.
Wednesday morning we met up with Katie again to visit the Museum of Flight. We didn't have a lot of time to explore, so we hit some of our favorite spots. Of course, we had to take the to the shuttle replica, which is special to the kids because, "that's where Daddy worked!"
Bryce couldn't wait to teach his cousins the tradition of "flying" across the sky bridge.
Walking through the planes is always fun.
So is posing with the mannequins.
Our last stop of the visit was the kid play area. Nellie walked over to Katie and asked to be picked up. Then, she wouldn't let Katie put her down (even when Jordyn got super jealous). Maybe she's starting to overcome her unwillingness to let other people hold her!
The lighting was great, so I tried to get a couple of the kids to stop playing long enough to snap a picture. I had moderate success.
Aubree's a little too old for the kid play area these days.
Thursday we had our regular mini-co-op during the day. Despite our extra outings, I tried to keep up with a minimum of school work. One of my kids (coughBrycecough) has a hard time getting back into school work after having breaks.
Thursday evening, Thane had a soccer game. The game started out mostly sunny, and I hoped we'd make it through the hour unscathed. I hoped in vain.
The heavens opened, and the boys looked like drowned rats. Thane continued to play courageously, but towards the end, when a ref blew his whistle, Thane asked expectantly, "Is that the end!?" With a negative answer, he then turned to his coach, "Sub? Coach, sub?"
That was a cold, miserable game, and made indoor basketball look quite appealing.
Saturday we had a bunch of scheduled activities, but they were all at almost the same time. First, I took the four big kids to the aquatic center for "safety lessons." They spent the hour learning about hypothermia (they insist that station was boring), water currents, life jackets, and safe swimming practices.
I'm not sure how much they got out of it, but it was a free event and it got them back in the water after a long winter hiatus.
We hurried from the swimming event, dropped Bryce off at his soccer game, and hustled home to make it barely in time for our neighborhood Easter egg hunt.
Nellie had just woken up from her nap, and was a little disoriented and unsure of what she should do in the 2-and-under hunt.
At the very end of the hunt, when all the kids emptied the treats from their eggs and returned the empty eggs to the storage container, Nellie finally figured out how the whole process worked. She was very excited at that point to grab the eggs and put them in her basket.
The big kids had no such learning curve. In fact, most of them couldn't slow down enough for me to grab a picture.
I'm not sure which they prefer more - the egg hunt, or the post hunt candy swap.
We can't wait till Spring fully returns Winter to her cage.
No comments:
Post a Comment