Spring break was only a week ago, but it already feels like a distant speck in the rearview mirror. As a teacher-family, we are always on the school schedule, and once spring break ends, we enter the long, almost unbroken 2 month homestretch of the school year. It is also the "meat" of track season, which ramps up the intensity of that homestretch! Before I go on about all of THAT, let's drift back in time a few days to the blissful week of semi-relaxation we enjoyed during spring break during the first week of April.
I went to a chiropractor appointment and a physical therapy appointment during spring break. Jeff and I also coached a combined middle school-high school track practice at 10am every weekday morning of spring break, so it wasn't all complete relaxation.
We made a family goal/plan to play a game or do an activity together every single day of spring break, and it was just right for our needs and energy levels. Family time is always at a premium during track season, so it felt extra special and decadent to just BE together in a leisurely way, playing silly games or doing other activities.
The canals are full and life is returning to our valley. Yay for springtime!
Saturday & Sunday, April 1-2: General Conference Weekend. I started Saturday off with a glorious sunny run down the canal road, and felt very invigorated when I got home just in time to tune into General Conference. Rose had actually turned conference on and was snuggled up with Amber listening to the opening hymn when I walked in the door from my run. It makes me so HAPPY when my kids take ownership of their gospel learning! We did all of our usual General Conference mini-traditions: the girls built a massive nest-fort out of boxes and blankets. Rose did my hair into a dozen intricate hairstyles. We snoozed a bit here and there. Jeff's mom was sick on Sunday, so we had delayed Grampa Dan's conference waffles on Tuesday for lunch. Homemade waffles are worth the wait!
On Sunday night for our game we had a family jam session: we got out all of the instruments and played them in a glorious cacophony: violin, piano, trumpet, cello, and clarinet. Jay forgot to bring his tuba home so I taught him one had of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the piano and we all played it together. Even Amber squeaked out a few honks on Rose's clarinet. It was silly and kind of awful but also fun! Jeff and I played Eidelweiss on trumpet and violin, which was new for us. He has sung while I played piano, but we've never played a musical duet before with both of us on instruments. It was fun, even though we both played the melody and since it was trumpet music I had to transpose the notes one step lower as we played because violins and trumpets are in different keys. Jeff took a turn transposing another song on the spot.
At the end of our jam sesh, we had a mini family recital, where everyone performed something of their choice on the instrument of their choice. Jay played a few chords on the piano. Amber and Jeff played the trumpet. Rose played a little something on all five instruments: the cello, clarinet, piano, trumpet, and violin. I played a simple Suzuki song on the violin. We all clapped and cheered for each musical offering, no matter how short and/or unpolished the playing was. It was a loud happy memorable family moment.
Gorgeous April Zen run!
Rose, in her conference box-nest. Amber is hidden inside the box, invisible in this picture.
Rose the hairdresser.
The girls' box fort-nest morphed over the two days of conference.
Jeff had a track meet on Saturday, so it was extra nice to have him sit with me during the Sunday conference sessions. We all felt a tad drowsy by the end.
I gave Amber a cute short haircut between sessions of conference. Short hair suits both of my daughters. They don't like tangles or high maintenance, and I don't blame them!
FAMILY JAM SESH!
Monday, April 3rd: We played a family card game of Cover Your Assets after dinner. It was our first ever family game of CYA with zero tears or anger! We all joked and teased and stole money cards from each other the whole game, but nobody got mad and Amber didn't cry at the end, even when she came in last place. The kids wanted to play again, but Jeff and I decided it would be best to stop while we were ahead of the negative emotions. We had family scripture and prayer instead. It was a good family night.
Legos are the main toy that still gets played with regularly in our house.
I took a commemorative blurry family selfie after our successful conflict-free card game!
Tuesday, April 4th: After morning track practice, we drove straight to Grandview for a delayed general conference waffle lunch. The kids played with their cousins and the adults talked while waffles were made one by one. The kids ate all but one of the strawberries before the adults got to them, so I split a strawberry with Jeff, haha. We stayed there for almost 2 hours, then drove home.
For our daily family spring break game on Tuesday, we had a sing-along. I got out our Family Songbook full of random folk songs, and stumble-played through five or six songs while the family sang along. O, Susannah, Oh, Shenandoah, Old Macdonald had a Farm, etc. It was silly and weird and hilarious. I loved our spring break nightly family time. After the kids were in bed on Tuesday, though, I realized that we forgot to have family scripture afterwards!
The grandkids enjoying Grampa Dan's waffles!
Wednesday, April 5th was get the keys day for our new house. We waited all morning after track practice, and then got the text saying the keys were ready for pickup after lunch. Woot! We stayed at the new house exploring and dreaming for a few hours, then went home for screen-veg-time. Jay made mac and cheese for dinner. Jeff went to the store and got fancy cheese to add to the mac. We even remembered to have family scripture. Success!
Jeff played a computer game with the kids.
First selfie in the new house!
We joked that our days of all sharing one small bathroom were numbered--once we move in to the new house, everyone will have their own sink for teeth brushing. Hopefully we will love each other more at that time instead of missing this nightly crammed-together-time in the bathroom, haha.
Thursday, April 6th was the day that my Dad came to visit and see the house and meet with the contractor and eat tacos. It was a very busy day, documented in a separate blog post.
Back view of the house.
Friday, April 7th we held a one mile time trial at track practice. Jay and Rose both ran it, and they both got PRs! Jay ran a 6:10, and Rose ran a 6:55--her first time under 7 minutes! It was exciting and fun. And a bit rainy.
Saturday, April 8th we went to Seattle to visit Mel and Braxton (my sister and brother-in-law) in their new house. That day will be documented separately because I took 20 pictures and that seems worthy of its own post.
Sunday, April 9th was Easter! While I was washing Amber's hair before church, I accidentally dropped the shower hose. It whipped around and soaked the bottom 12 inches of my dress. I got it partly dry with the blow dryer, but it took forever to dry completely. I went to church with a wet hem. Our one hour of Easter church was good. We drove straight from church to Grandview for Easter lunch with the family (and 3 missionaries). I brought salad and store bought rolls because we were gone all day yesterday and I didn't have time to make homemade rolls. My peace offering was a bouquet from Pike's Place Market, which was well-received.
I managed to get a cute cousin Easter picture before we went home. At home, we rested (screen time for everyone else, naptime, reading, and drawing time for me) for 2 hours before getting ready for our Easter egg hunt. Jeff, Jay, and Rose brought our ping pong table across the street to the barn. It started to rain before we hid the Easter eggs in the new yard, so we hid them in the barn, upstairs and downstairs. It was a great egg hunt, with rain pattering on the metal roof. The kids ate all of their egg fillings. 19 eggs per kid, filled with Trix cereal, mini marshmallows, gummy bears, and Dove chocolates. All but 3 were gobbled up within half an hour. Jeff and I played ping pong in the upstairs of the barn (he won by 2), then went into the house for a little floorplan brainstorming session. Later, after dinner, we read 3 Nephi 11:1-17 for our Easter family scripture.
Amber with the bouquet. This was the most docile she got on Easter. The rest of the day, she was wild and contrary and I had flashbacks to 3 year old Amber.
Easter-ific cousins.
Cole did NOT want to do a group hug.
We took two family easter pictures: one in front of the barn, and one in front of the house. Amber did not want anything to do with pictures at all.
We all pointed at Amber, who made our photo session take way longer than our usual 3 minutes due to her uncooperativeness.
Rainy day egg hunt in the barn!
Barn ping pong: we reveled in the SPACE to move and swing the paddles freely without clipping elbows or stepping off a ledge.
Spring break was good to us.
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