Whew.
The kids are back in school.
I know it's not PC to admit this, but between you and me, my friends of the interwebs...I'm relieved as hell. My children are awesomely exhausting.
We had a busy Spring Break. We parked it up and hiked it up and movied our butts off and now I'd love nothing more than to park my butt on a beach with a paper-umbrella-embellished-drink. But alas, some things just aren't meant to be.
Here are some highlights of our week:
The girls enjoyed their first tailgate with their Grammy, up on the Rowena Loops. They were searching for the massive fields of wildflowers that are supposed to abound this time of year, but apparently they were a little bit early. Still, sandwiches, pickles, and snacks were enjoyed, and a few nice pictures got taken. As a side bonus, I enjoyed a few hours in a quiet house with my boys and caught up on my sleep after a few busy shifts at work.
Both of the girlies also had a chance to practice their camera skills on a few early spring flowers:
We also braved the zoo - along with every other school-aged child and harried mother in the state of Oregon. We packed a picnic and dragged along some friends and had an awesome time seeing the baby elephant and the smelly penguins and goats and lions... and don't go asking Laura about the little episode in the lion exhibit. Let's just say that I thought there were only two in the enclosure and that when a third sauntered out from around a nearby rock corner licking her chops and eyeballing my slightly more than rounded rear end, I almost peed myself. We aren't going to ever mention this again.
Anyway, here's a few shots - do you know how hard it is to make six kids look at a camera at the same time? Laura got the best shot so I stole it off of her Facebook. The girls especially had fun feeding the lorikeets.
After the zoo, I was honestly pretty exhausted. In fact, it would have been fair to say that I was gratefully looking forward to working all day on Wednesday and Thursday, if only because it would give me a chance to REST. But before that could happen, I soldiered on in the name of fun on Tuesday, taking the kids out for ice cream and for a hike down on the riverfront trail that runs through our scenic little town. I am sorry to say that there aren't any pictures of this - not because I didn't bring the camera, but because it was me against three kids, one dog, dripping ice cream, and the distractions of frogs croaking, joggers, off leash dogs, an airplane flying overhead, the creek, and the great adventure of a five year old that desperately needed to pee behind a bush. Let's face it, pictures were the last thing on my mind - I was just trying to make sure we all made it back to the blissful safety of my minivan before the sun went down and we got lost within 100 yards of the Google complex and the animal shelter.
So yeah. That was fun. WHATEVER.
Wednesday and Thursday I worked. That meant that my dear devoted girlfriend and babysitter Laura had the kids. I would have offered her the chance to blog about the experience, but I doubt the good people at Blogspot would appreciate that many obscenities and f-bombs being dropped in one post.
But once Friday rolled around, we were in the home stretch. We hung out and watched movies. Skippy and I cleaned out half of the garage on Saturday and took everyone out to our favorite Mexican restaurant for the Chunker's third birthday - he loves it whenever anyone gets to wear the big sombrero and all of the servers sing "happy birthday, cha cha cha" -- so what better way to say good bye to the terrible twos than with his own serenade, complete with maracas. On Sunday, we rounded out our Spring break with How To Train Your Dragon in 3D. It was the Chunk's first movie in the theater - aside from the ones when he was a few months old and small enough to nurse under a blanket and fall asleep while his sisters shoveled popcorn into their mouths. He wasn't crazy about the 3D glasses, but liked he liked having his own box of "tandy" and he loved to make his seat go up and down...oh yeah and he even seemed to enjoy intermittedly watching the BIIIIG TEEE VEEEE. But that being said, I think we'll wait before we attempt it again. And after the house lights came back up, we headed home for cake and presents (but that's another blog) and finally we tackled baths and backpacks.
So overall, our Spring Break meshed with my little boy's birthday pretty nicely. That night I peeked in on my sweet munchkins before I collapsed in my own bed, and I thought to myself that our week of freedom and fun had absolutely flown by.
But when Monday rolled around, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wasn't thrilled to see that bright yellow bus pull up.
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