Spring Break

Now that Annaliese goes to school every day, Spring Break actually means something! It took a bit of explaining as to why she didn't get to go to school and at one point she said to me, "Mom, since I haven't been going to school this week, I'm having a hard time knowing what day it is!" So true, Annaliese, so true.

I still had to work Tuesday and Wednesday and Kyle was working the other days, so I knew we would need to be intentional about having fun this week and doing a few special activities to enjoy the time off from school.

Here's a run down of how we filled the time; I think we did a pretty good job coming up with fun things to do!

Saturday: We headed up to Mt. Baker and the Salmon Ridge Sno-Park for some end-of-season cross-country skiing. For more pictures, check out the March Wrap-Up blog post.

Sunday: Sunday was Easter and after church, we celebrated by gathering with Kim and Thane, Thane's sister and brother-in-law, Ben, and some of Kim's friends from their church. For more on that fun day, read here.

Monday: Monday morning was pretty normal, with grocery shopping and laundry on the agenda. We quickly wrapped up those tasks so we could spend the afternoon at the park with our friends! We headed to Lake Padden with Jen, McKinley and Cole Anderson. It was so fun to hang out with them again! We just don't get to see them as much as we would like. 

Tuesday: I had to work and I'm pretty sure Kyle and the girls played at home all day. There was lots of coloring, some reading, and quite a bit of time spent playing outside!

Wednesday: I had to work again, but Kyle took the girls to Lynden to Auntie Kim's house. Kyle took Annaliese and Elias to Berthusen Park on a bike ride while Haleigh and Lydia hung out with Auntie Kim. From what I was told, the bike ride was a bit of an adventure- it was quite muddy, Elias ran into some thorns, and they got lost! 

Thursday: We stayed home Thursday as well, but Auntie Kelsey and Mallory came over so we still had a fun day!

Friday: On Friday, we started out the morning by meeting up with Auntie Kim, Elias, Malachi, Auntie Kelsey and Mallory at Lake Padden. Annaliese and Elias rode their bikes and the other kids rode in the strollers and we ran around the lake. It was another muddy bike ride and there were a few tears from Annaliese about halfway around the lake when she decided she just wanted to be done. But she snapped out it rather quickly and had fun the rest of the time! 

After spending some time playing on the playground, we headed to Auntie Kelsey's house for lunch. The sun came out and we decided we needed to get outside, so we headed to Fairhaven. The Fairhaven Toy Garden (a little toy store) had a scavenger hunt set up where we had to follow the clues to different stores around town; at each store, the kids received a stamp on their paper. If they got all 18 stamps, they could get 3 entries into a drawing for a prize at the end. Annaliese and Elias were adamant that we get to all 18 stores, and we made it! They were a pretty cute little entourage walking through town.  

Malachi and Kim hanging out while Kelsey took the older kids across the street to the bank to get their stamps.

"Look how far I can jump!"

Annaliese knew that they were drawing the winner for the prizes at 6:00 pm; as I was cooking dinner, she was very aware of what time it was and how much longer until they would call us. We had a discussion about the chances of winning and not expecting to win otherwise she would just be disappointed. About 2 minutes later, the phone rang and it was the store saying Annaliese had won the "Toys and Treat's" basket! She was so excited she was screaming and jumping around the house! It was pretty adorable. She wanted to go pick it up right away, but since the store was about to close and she was already in her pj's, we agreed to pick it up the next day. 

Saturday: The weather report on Saturday looked less-than-promising but we knew we needed to get out of the house. There was a break in the rain and the sky looked a little bit brighter, so we headed to the zoo. I was looking forward to it...the others were just humoring me. Even the guy at the border crossing commented on it not being a very good day for the zoo! But it all worked out quite nicely; we didn't get rained on, there were very few other people there, and the animals were all out and about.

Baby bears

Grizzly

Once it started to get windy and we started to get hungry, we decided it was time to leave. We went to Avenue Bread in Lynden for lunch and then headed home. Kyle went and helped some friends move a piano and then Annaliese and I went on a date to pick up her prize basket. 

The last store on our scavenger hunt had been a gelato store and Annaliese had asked if we could go there on our date. We went and got gelato and looked at what fun stuff she had won! (All she knew was that there were purple jelly beans!) Her prize included a new stuffed snow leopard, a Bellingham hat, a few toys, and a gift certificate to the local book store, Village Books. After we finished our gelato, we went to the bookstore and found a new book!

So much gelato...and this was a small!

It was such a fun spring break! I think it was a good combination of getting out and doing things and time spent at home- we ended the break rested and ready to get back into the routine of school!