Spring Break, Orem! WOOOOO-HOOOO!
Last week was my first Spring Break since High School. That means it's been since 1999, or 12 years. At BYU, my alma mater, they let the kids out early instead of having a Spring Break. That means that BYU has finals this week and is done by Thursday, way ahead of the rest of the country.

With Pumpkin in school this year we had a whole week to fill. I was a little worried that the kids would want to spend the whole time watching TV and being cranky that they couldn't see their friends or learn new stuff. So, I did some research online and found some really fun little projects we could do at home. The kids helped me shop for the supplies we'd need and got really excited about the various activities.

I wanted to try to stay away from expensive and indoor activities, like amusement parks, arcades, and the like. I wanted to get outdoors as much as the weather would allow and do free things like the library or the canyon by our home. 

And I was successful! The weather cooperated all week! We spent hours each day at a different park. Wednesday we spent about 4 hours in the Provo Canyon, even foregoing lunch at home to munch on the clementines and crackers I had packed.

 We had Nature Treasure Hunts, throwing rocks into Bridal Veil Falls, running along the jogging path with my sorely-neglected jogging stroller. We went wherever they wanted and did whatever struck our fancy. It was sunny, cool, and glorious.

 Another day we had some fun with paint-by-numbers. We painted some pre-made pictures from the store, and then made our own. Pumpkin was really into that. Princess needed some help. can you tell whose picture is whose?

I have fond memories of doing block printing in elementary school, and I wanted to try it with the kids. We found some meat-packing foam, ink, carving tools, and bought a "brayer". The pictures weren't quite as crisp as I remember them being in school, but the kids had a fabulous time and made some cute prints-in-series.

We did lots more things I don't have pictures of:
Jelly bean graphing: where we sorted and graphed different colors of jelly beans
Basic piano: where I labeled about 15 keys and wrote down simple songs in terms of letter key. (i.e. Row, row, row your boat is: C,C,C, D, E) Pumpkin had a great time learning those songs and impresses everyone who comes over with his Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Itsy Bitsy Spider prowess.
Cleaning Up the Backyard: which is just what it sounds like, except we also erected Badminton, which the kids call "the birdie game".
Jellybean Names: in which we wrote their names in glue and glued jelly beans to them. After which they were promptly eaten. Good thing glue is non-toxic!

We also picked up a new toy for Mommy and the Kids. We bought one of these from Costco.
 Mommy has been feeling really lazy lately, so we decided to get a bike and bike trailer. I'm picturing biking Pumpkin to school in the mornings and picking him up at lunch, as well as lazy summer bike rides around the neighborhood. His school just over a mile from our house, even though it's just over 400 meters as the crow flies. We have to wind around the cul-de-sac ridden neighborhood to get over there. It takes about 25 minutes to walk (each way) which is just not feasible. But, I'm hoping that with this do-dad we can get there in just 10 minutes.The kids both fit fairly comfortably in it, and it's very well made.

We have just found an adult bike to attach to the front, so when the rain finally stops we're going to take it out for its maiden voyage. Bon Voyage to us!

Aunts, uncles, and grandmas come to visit in the evenings. Date nights and blood donations abounded. Fun was had by all, and I saw TWO movies last week, after a cinematic dry spell since Christmas.

How did you spend your spring break??
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