The Easter Bunny Is Coming To Town

We got home from Spring Break, had a couple days, and found ourselves at Easter morning. Because of the holiday being so early this year and crazy weather, our yard was a giant mud puddle and then a giant frozen mud puddle. And then, it snowed. All these things combined led us to cancelling our annual egg hunt - much to our children's dismay. We are all hopeful that it'll be back on next year!

We had a really low key Easter weekend, which was just perfect. We were begrudgingly climbing out of vacation mode and catching up on sleep. We had our traditional Easter ham and cheesy potato dinner on Saturday and also did our egg dying. We also baked a cake for Easter day. While we usually celebrate Easter up at my sister's, she had a crazy work week and didn't want to add hosting to the list. My parents weren't coming down as the long drive is still too hard on my mom after her back surgery. Mike's mom and Bill were not coming down for the same reason ... only Bill's back. So Auntie came down to our house and we spoiled her and celebrated her birthday a little bit early.

Easter morning, the kids were up early and ready to hunt down their baskets. They did a good job of not giving it away when they found a basket that wasn't theirs. Fiona's was behind the TV, Quinn's was in Yogi's food bin, and Dec's was in the pantry by the cereal. He had given up hunting to grab some cereal to sustain his energy and was so surprised and delighted to discover his basket blocking the cereal boxes.

Once everyone was dressed in their Easter finest and Mama did her standard "I have all day" to get a picture, they ran downstairs to hunt for their eggs. This year, they each had a specific color egg (that matched their baskets) and then there was a color that anyone could find. The bunny made Quinn's eggs particularly difficult as she typically finds them all. At one point, she realized that she had found the fewest eggs. She set her chin, raised her game, and was the first to find all of hers. That girl is pure willpower!

Their individual eggs had money in them and the joint eggs had pieces of paper. When they put all the paper together, it gave them a clue to look in the oven ... where they found the Yeti in my Spaghetti game. So exciting! Then we headed out to church, making sure we arrived early enough to have caramel rolls before the service. They are homemade, amazing, and may be our favorite part of Easter!

On our way home from church, we played an April Fool's Day prank on Auntie and then kicked off the birthday celebrated with burgers and bundt cake. We played lots of the Yeti game, tested out the new art supplies, read our new books, gave Auntie lots of hugs, and watched The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town. It was a great end to our break and a lovely way to celebrate.

The girls and I did question our choice of Easter dresses when we walked outside in our spring finest and realized it was 14 degrees. Brrrrr!

That Vacation Where We Almost Broke Bugs

As Dec put on his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pjs tonight, I thought I'd prove how cool I was and named all the ninja turtles for him (and sang the theme song too ... Heroes in a half shell. Turtle power!). He was sufficiently impressed and excitedly asked me which one was Raphael. Crap. And with that, all my cool points were lost. At least until Google came to the rescue later (red. Raphael was red). Funny how fast those cool points can disappear in the wind.

On our final full day in the Dells, cool points came and went for the whole group. It was definitely a different experience than last year with six kids that were a year older. We had more independence and improved ability in the water. Some were even tall enough to try new rides. We also had a group of big kids who remembered the resort and had very clear opinions on what they wanted to do and when they wanted to do it ... and who were not influenced by group think in any way. It was a new dynamic. 

Tuesday morning saw most of us walking toward the WaterDome. Declan and Mike took a right instead of a left and went to the Wild West - as D had asserted his opinion loudly about checking out those slides. The girls and I took Hannah while Cheryl worked on her own cool points and took her boys on the big tube thrill ride, the Hurricane. Cooper told me that he though his mom was going to have a heart attack when it was over ... but admitted that she was pretty cool.

The girls figured out how to "surf float" in the waves and had a great time splashing around together. Eventually Mike and Dec rejoined us and Mike and Brad headed off to ride the Hurricane (Cheryl didn't want to go again ... strange). The kids were wiped out, so C and I sustained them with snacks. Then Coop and I got in line for a different tube ride and C eventually got the rest of the group back in the pool.

Once all tube riding was done, we headed back for lunch and a rest. Then Quinn, Fiona, and I met Jack at the arcade for BINGO. The Kids Club room was packed - and I'm pretty sure there were more adults than kids. And definitely adults who took kid Bingo WAY too seriously! I'm not sure any kids actually won a game ... so I really hope those adults enjoyed the ten cent prizes that they got. It was a bit ridiculous - but the bigs and I had fun, nonetheless. 

We gave the kids a hearty snack and then split up for the final pool visit. We almost didn't make a final pool trip as we had some very poor attitudes from the small Vs - but they pulled it together and we had an absolute blast going back across the lake to Cubby's Cove. There were hardly any people there and our kids happily spent almost two hours jumping into the pool, paddling around, getting out, and repeating. We also fit a few water slides in - including several races!

We met back up at the condo for quick showers and pizza dinner. Then we walked over to the ice cream shop in pjs (the kids anyway). Fiona was SO tired from all the walking for three days and all the jumping and swimming we had just done that her legs were killing her. Uncle Brad swooped in and saved the day. Bugs checked her ego at the door and gratefully rode in Hannah's stroller to ice cream while B carried Hannah. Her legs were just too sore to make one more long trek. She also had quite the exasperated face when everyone piled on her bed for story before I tucked them in. She was done for the day!

We were too tired for Fun-Employed that night, so Cheryl sent me to chaperone Brad and Mike at the bar (I think she wanted to get rid of all of us so she could go to bed). I did one round of shots with them and supervised one more. And then made them make good choices to be done - mostly because those shots were CRAZY expensive!

Before the long drive back on Wednesday, we made one final stop at the indoor playground to let all the kids burn off some energy. When we saw Cooper lay down on the ground in exhaustion, Cheryl and I deemed it a great vacation. We made it home before rush hour and the kids and I were thrilled that I had also taken Thursday off for re-entry. We love vacationing with the Ps and can't wait for our Father's Day camping trip!

That Vacation Where Quinn Liked Water

I'm ba-ack! Did you miss me? It has been nuts around here. Our last few weeks have been spring break, Easter/Auntie's birthday, snow day, stomach flu, mom out of town for a week, LOTS and LOTS of snow (it's still coming down) ... and here we are. We're about to rewind all the way back to spring break and see how much I can remember from our super awesome trip.

Monday morning, we headed to the WaterDome. We were thrilled that our room this year was a few hallways closer to the water parks and was a lot easier for our walkers to actually walk. Yay! We splashed around the kid area, the wave pool, and even did a whole family trip down the big tube slide. It was SO fun to all go together - and thanks to Cheryl, we even have photographic evidence!

While Hannah and Dec took an afternoon rest, Mike took the girls down to the arcade. Dec and I wandered down to meet them when he woke up. While he and Mike played games, the big kids and I headed into the Kids Club room and played BINGO. We didn't win, but Quinn and Jack had such a good time that they desperately hoped to go back the next day.

We made an early dinner while the kids watched part of a movie and then went to the Klondike Cavern waterpark. After a brief but terrifying scare where we didn't know where Quinn was (and then a short reminder about making sure Dad hears you before you take off into the kids play area), we settled in. The water was "too cold" for Fiona (she was just tired), which meant Quinn decided it was too cold for her too. That was a bummer because for most of the trip, Q was all in on the water stuff. Such a difference from last year!

The girls and I hit up the lazy river for a while, but some rather drunk and rude adults did their best to ruin that experience. At one point, I had my elbow hooked on Fiona's tube and was running and pushing my way through other tubes to catch up to Q's tube (where she was screaming and sobbing) because a big group holding on to each other had gone by and separated us. Luckily, there was another mom up by Q who at least kept her eye on her and was talking to her and making sure she knew her mom was coming. We decided to walk over to the WaterDome to finish up the night and had a much better time there.

Both Sunday and Monday night, after the kids had gone to bed, the four adults played Fun-Employed. It was as ridiculous as it was at Christmas and there were at least two times where Brad and Mike had tears running down their faces because they were laughing so hard. One of the many of our favorite parts of traveling with the Ps is getting to spend adult time with them! By the end of Monday night, we were celebrating that we weren't as bone tired as the year before.

Vacation in Slow Motion

If the sign of a good vacation is that one week later, you are still trying to catch up on sleep ... then we nailed it! Because of that exhaustion (and a busy day at work), my brain can't string together the words required to do justice to a recap.

The good news for you ... as Mike's phone was the official capturer of memories for the trip, he took the opportunity to play around with his slow motion video. The result is pretty fun!

That Vacation Where I Broke My Phone

SOOOOOOO excited!

Two things you should know before we begin the recap of our Spring Break adventures. They seem random, but are important background for the story.

Item 1: Mobilizing five people is hard work. As much as Mike hates it, we tend to be “just on time” people. Mike would like us to be “five to ten minutes early is on time” people, but we rarely have it in us.

Item 1a: We keep our swim bag packed at all times. So while meeting you at a park could take us 20 minutes or more, we can be out the door with suits, towels, and sand toys in five minutes flat. Real truth.

Item 2: Mike has recently been on a “Sar, you need a new phone” kick. My old iPhone 5 has been on its last legs for a while. As cheap and averse to change as I am, even I was starting to get on board with the new phone plan.

Giant climbing structure

Item 2a: Saturday night, I plugged my phone into our laptop and moved approximately 300 pictures off, leaving 1100 (or so) on the phone … you know, to make sure I had space for trip pictures. I momentarily considered backing up my phone, but got distracted and never did.

If Items 2 and 2a aren’t foreshadowing … well, you should go back to high school English class.

Mike told us all he wanted to leave at 10:00 Sunday morning. I strongly suspect he wanted to leave by 10:15, but because of the issues addressed in Item 1, he was stacking the deck. So at 9:40 when the car was loaded, the house was picked up for the cleaning lady, and the kids were entertaining themselves with a single snap bracelet (because everything else was picked up), we were a bit confused on what to do.

We headed out (see Item 1a ... we can be on time for swimming!) and ended up a bit out of sync for timing with our vacation buddies. Which worked out just fine as it allowed us to leisurely make our way across Wisconsin, including almost an hour at the McDonald’s play place to get all the wiggles out! When we arrived at the Wilderness Resort, our room wasn’t ready yet. So we headed to the big indoor climbing structure and turned the people loose. About 20 minutes later, three friends whom they are rather fond of joined.

Once our room was ready, it was a bit of a wild rush of relocating 10 people, all the things, all the groceries, and making dinner. But thanks to my vacation prep the day before, we had salsa chicken and rice ready in no time. We also used the opportunity to introduce the Ps to "garlic rice" and Cheryl swears they will never go back.

With bellies full of expanding rice, we suited up (didn't think that plan through) and headed to the other side of the lake (via car) to the Cubby's Cove water park. It's the same place we went on the first night last year. With Hannah and Dec a year older and Quinn way more comfortable with water and ancillary spray, we found ourselves all having MUCH more fun.

That is, until I handed my phone (in waterproof case) to Mike to throw in his swimsuit pocket while I helped one of the girls navigate the ropes course across the lily pads. When I got back to him and wanted to take a picture, he handed me my phone and I noticed that my camera was freaking out a bit. Then I realized that there was water IN my case. Either my case leaked or we hadn't snapped it shut all the way ... and my phone was definitely not happy!

We tossed it in our bag, continued enjoying the pool, I worked on not freaking out, and were aided in a tantrum-free departure by some kid puking in the pool. Not one of ours! There was some rice left in the bag from our dinner and Mike popped my phone in for the night. Fun fact ... remember how I didn't back up my phone (Item 2a) ... there were approximately 1,110 photos from the last 9 months of our lives on my phone that exist nowhere else in the universe. That's a lot of hope to pin on a partial bag of rice.

Monday morning, Mike put on his IT hat, said "I hate Apple" approximately 347 times, and managed to get my phone to boot up long enough for him to back it up to his computer. It sputtered along for a few hours and then met its untimely (timely?) end around dinner time.

The lovely part: I was completely off the grid for vacation and that was not awful. The funny part: Mike got to share his phone (and its waterproof case) with me for the rest of the vacation. He was completely overwhelmed by the number of photos on it at the end.

The not lovely parts: I missed my on-going text conversation with my sister. Apparently I'm very dependent on her as an outlet for my snark. And, since Mike restored my phone when we got home (the new one was here waiting for us), if you sent me a text between Sunday night and Wednesday night, I most definitely did not get it and its somewhere in the Apple void (cue Mike saying "I hate Apple') ... maybe try me again if you are waiting for an answer.

PSA: before bringing your already dying phone to a waterpark, do not forget to back it up. OR ... marry IT.