Spring Break 2014

Spring Break snuck up on me this year! We did not have any crazy plans made, so we decided to stay in, lay-low and try to do as much as we could in town away from SXSW.
We kicked off our spring break with dinner with our family.  Growing up, Sunday nights we often all met at Maw's house for dinner.  We were all there two weeks ago starting to go through her stuff and we decided to plan one last Sunday night dinner at her house.  We all (all 45 or so of us) gathered at her house Sunday evening to be together in her honor.  It was so wonderful to all be there together at her house, a little sad that she was not there. I know she was there in spirit and she was smiling at all of us there.  I know it made her very happy to have us all together like that at her house.

Cousins Jared with baby Ari and Adam

Cousin Zach with my dad looking at old books

Aunt Chaddie, my Mom, Aunt Kathy, Cousin Matt and Sara and Uncle Danny

Cousin Matt and Ari

Daddy is here!!!!

Cousins Isaac, Max and Sam

Chowing on some BBQ

Kim and Rachel

Matt wrestling with all the boys

Great-Grandkids, minus Nate and Andrew

Lola's first dinner at Maw's

My mom and cousin Penny

Cousin Brian and Eitan

Everyone!!!!

We started the week off with our first trip to the Texas Memorial Museum.  Eli is really into dinosaurs these days and a friend mentioned to me Monday morning on our run that this museum has a whole floor dedicated to dinosaur artifacts.  What made this an even better outing is that it was free!

They really, really enjoyed themselves and Eli was totally into each of the dinosaurs and had fun identifying them as we saw them.

We met up with my friend Kara and her kids while we were there and set-up a little picnic snack outside the museum when we were done.

Tuesday morning we headed over to my friend Traci's "house"....well, they tore down their house and are currently living in an airstream trailer on their lot.  So we went to where her house used to be, and played on the big rocks, and huge dirt pile they have there.

Its crazy to think that Traci and I have been friends for almost 14 years!  She has one adorable daughter named Tessa and has a little boy on the way.
Later that day it was beautiful and we met up with my friend Marisa who has Ty and Savannah.

We thought we would foster Eli's dinosaur obsession by taking them to the Dino Park in Cedar Creek.  We have been talking about it for awhile now, but since they usually only open on the weekends, we had been having a hard time finding a good time to go.  Wednesday was Blaine's full day off, so we headed off to the park around 9:15 am.  It was a particularly windy and cold day, especially considering how warm is was the day before.  Like, the wind blew over our stroller and almost blew off our car door when we got there!  But we bundled everyone up and we headed off to explore.

It was a pretty cool place!!!!  They placed these gigantic dinosaurs so meticulously that you would be walking down this path and come around the corner and see this HUUUUGE dinosaur that you did not even see coming! The squeals and the jumps of excitement from the boys were so fun to watch!

We took advantage of the windy day and flew kites at Circle C park with Jonah that afternoon..

Thursday we laid low.  In fact, I never got out of my pajamas! Love those days every now and then!
We hung around the house and in the backyard and then Rachel and Lola came over to hang out with us.

Friday morning we headed to The Nature and Science Center.  We go there a lot, but it was a beautiful day and we were all ready to get out of the house and do something fun!

The weekend was full of birthday parties and too much pizza for the boys.  We celebrated our friend Ty's birthday with a karate party and Dylan's birthday at Chuck E. Cheese and then ended the weekend off celebrating my Aunt Carols birthday at my parents house with pasta!  Someone went to town with the noodles!

Spring break gave me hope that I will be able to get through the summer without going crazy.  They are all at ages where we can go out and do fun things together and they all enjoy it.  Hopefully by the time summer rolls around things will be even easier.

  Ok, who am I kidding? I am dreading this summer!