Easter Egg Coloring - 2022

This year, I chuckled to myself admitting that I hope that even when the kids are grown and in college, that they still come home each holiday to continue our family traditions: like Christmas cookie decorating and Easter Egg coloring.  I have the set-up down to a science; the clean-up is a breeze and I absolutely LOVE seeing their creativity and how it changes each year.

A plastic tablecloth is key and I always make sure to hard-boil a full dozen eggs for each kid -- that way no one argues that they had more to color than someone else.

Blue is Jimmy's favorite color, so of course, that was the one that he chose to start with.

Oh, and orange is Jack's favorite color!

Sam made this tie-dyed tee-shirt many years ago and it is one of her favorites.  I told her that it will be time to officially "retire" it soon.  Although -- it does make a great shirt choice is you are coloring eggs and are worried about getting some on your clothes!

Sophia is very meticulous and thoughtful in her designs.  In fact, she is almost always the last one to finish her 12 assigned eggs.

Steve is always in charge of mixing the dyes (using my grandma's old tea cup set):

Making the perfect "blend:"

We tried using a wax crayon on a few of the eggs, and while none of them broke, the technique really didn't work out that well for us.  

Creativity at work!

Some of the final masterpieces:

Spring Break - Part 4

Overall, our Spring Break Trip was 4 days in length.  We left on a Sunday morning and arrived back on Wednesday night.  We managed to fit quite a few things in without feeling like we were "going all the time."  Staying in the hotel was fun for kids.  We did an adjoined suite with kids in one room -- the boys shared a bed and the girls shared a bed -- and us in the other.  Each room had its own bathroom and there was a living room and kitchen between them.  

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then lunch was usually something simple (Pizza Hut, Subway) and dinner was a little nicer.  One night, we went bowling and ordered pizza there for the kids.  We knew that we had a long drive ahead of us on Wednesday because we would lose an hour of time due to the change from CST to EST and it often feels like the drive home is longer anyway.  

But first, we wanted to make one last stop before we left Kentucky to visit the National Corvette Museum.  We got there as soon as they opened and spent an hour touring around inside.  

A far away picture, but I couldn't resist capturing the full background:

The boys were more interested in seeing the cars themselves -- the sleekness, the size, there was even a boat! -- while the girls spent a little more time actually reading the history.

This blue car was a favorite, apparently.

And this one too!

Jack's favorite color is orange, so this one caught his eye.

My favorite exhibit was designed around the huge sinkhole that happened 8 years ago.  Multiple corvettes sunk into the ground in the early morning (luckily no one was in the museum) and security cameras caught the action on film.  Eight corvettes fell 30 feet into the ground and it took years to recover them.  Of the eight that fell, three were eventually restored and five of them were left on display in their damaged state.  There is also a 48" manhole that you can stand on and see just how far down the cars sunk into the earth.

It's an amazing story and the amount of people that flocked to the museum after the event was wonderful for the tourism.  

Standing in front of the 1,000,000th corvette made:

This was a beauty:

One last picture before we headed out through the gift shop -- a Corvette boat:

Everyone used the restroom and then we hit the road for our trip back to Michigan.  The kids did great despite the long travel time.  We hit some traffic (two separate semi truck accidents that had the roadways down to one lane), a time change that threw off our mealtime a little bit, some rain showers along the way and some tired/hungry kids once we got home.  But everyone was abuzz with the excitement of the time away and the incredible memories that we made in just those short four days.

Spring Break - Part 3

The day after we toured Mammoth Caves National Park, we had tickets to travel a little farther north to do some horseback riding.  The kids had never really done this before (unless you count leading them around the orchard on one of our older horses with a lead rope).  We arrived early -- as the place had requested -- but soon learned that the trail guide was running behind and we had almost an hour or time to kill.

Luckily, the weather was beautiful ... high 60s and sunny ... so we spent the time exploring the property.  There was a zip line, a pond, some cornhole boards set up, a sleepy dog and quite a few horses.

We're not sure what the dog's name was, but he was certainly a hit with the kids.

Soon, it was time to mount our horses.  I was a tad bit nervous about Jimmy because they put him on a horse all by himself, leading our group (directly behind the guide), but he had the time of his life and was not intimidated at all.

Jimmy's horse was named "Shorty:"

Jack rode on "Pickle:"

Sophia's horse was named "Whiskey:"

Sam rode "Jack:"

All lined up, ready to lead:

My horse was named "Sleepy" and Steve rode "Charlie."  We also had two other ladies from near Chicago that joined our group and rode along with us.

I was originally picturing riding on flat trails and was quite surprised that we took the horses up a mountain (and then back down again!).  There were rocks, lots of mud, some standing water -- and a few times that I questioned whether the kids would be having fun.  But they loved every second of it.  In fact, they are still talking about how Sophia's horse chose to go 'rogue' and stepped out of line to go around a tree and then the rest of us just followed her.  All in all, it was money well-spent on a true one-hour mountain ride with the horses.

Spring Break 2022 - Part 2

After walking around some of the trails, we loaded back up into our van and headed into the main attraction of the National Park: Mammoth Caves.  I had packed some sandwiches and bottled water but we also found a Subway restaurant so we grabbed some subs and chips too and ate outside on a local picnic bench.  We laughed because, while sitting there looking at our view (and finding a turkey!), we noticed three dollar stores in the same vicinity.  Two were literally right next to one another and the third was across the street!  The kids are STILL talking about how funny that was.

I had made reservations and paid for our tickets online weeks before and we are glad that we did!  All of the tours were sold out while we were there and that would have been a huge disappointment to discover that ...

It was chilly that day -- only a high of about 55 degrees -- so we opted to stand in the sunshine while we waited for our tour to begin.  We purposely parked ourselves at the entrance to insure that we would be able to hear the tour guide clearly.  

It was difficult to take pictures inside the cave because you were not allowed to use the flash on your camera.  That meant that cell phone pictures were blurry for sure, but I was able to get a couple of "decent pictures" with my large camera.  Still, I don't think that these pictures really do the site justice.

The section of the tour that we did had man-made cement walkways throughout it so travel was pretty easy.  There was once leg of the tour called "Fat Man's Misery" though where it was extremely narrow and you had to duck your head to fit through.  

We stopped to look closely at the cave walls here.  There were LOTS of messages, names and drawings here.  Some of them were from the 1800s and others were from the 1980s before the National Park put an end to 'vandalism' inside the caves.

Most of the cave was dark, but as we entered a new section, our tour guide would 'turn on the lights' so that we could see.  The guide at the end of the group would then turn them off as we exited.  It was amazing to look down below and see all of these sink holes.  

Overall, the humidity inside the caves was greater than 90% (the kids even noticed while we were in there just how clammy their hands felt).  Jimmy was a real trooper though for a 6-year-old as it was a lot of walking, especially when we had to climb more than 300 feet of stairs to get back up to land level inside the cave AND then walk up these stairs again (where we had started) to get back up to the entrance.

Back outside in the natural air, resting for a bit before we hit the souvenir shop!

 

Inside, we opted to purchase a magnet for our fridge back home and a Christmas ornament to remember this vacation by.  The kids LOVE decorating the Christmas tree and looking at all of the ornaments that we have collected over the years and I am looking forward to them finding this one in December.

Spring Break 2022 - Part 1

In the past, we have not taken very many "Spring Break" vacations as a family.  The kids were small (lots of things to pack, naps to work around) and my teaching Spring Break never lines up with the kids' school Spring Break.  Last year, we attempted to make some plans but the weather was questionable and a lot of places were closed or had limited occupancy due to COVID.  

This year, because I was still teaching online courses, I had more flexibility to travel and the kids are all old enough to enjoy traveling (and walking!) more.  Steve suggested a trip to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky and we started making plans this last Winter.  

We headed out on Sunday morning for our 7-hour drive knowing that we would be stopping partway for lunch.  We packed games and movies for the ride and the kids did very well!  Really, the ride down there didn't seem to take too long and we checked into our hotel room right on time.

It was amazing to see how much greener the grass was already down there, compared to up in Michigan.  We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the town and showing the kids the damage that a tornado had done back in December.  

We also stopped by the Aviation Heritage Park to see real flight vehicles on display:

The sun was bright, but we weren't complaining one bit because it was actually snowing when we left Michigan ...

The next day was our official day to explore Mammoth Caves.  I bought the tickets ahead of time online and I am sure glad that I did!  Most of the tours were sold out and it would have been disappointing to find that out once we arrived.  

The entrance sign made a great photo opportunity for us before we spent time walking down trails in the National Park:

Part of the trails had hand railings and ramps because it was pretty steep:

Spring vegetation, just starting to come to life:

Kind of a precarious situation, but check out that view!

That is a sink hole in the background, where the earth opened up and sunk many, many years ago.

We walked down the stairs in the background and the walk BACK UP was intense.  

Such a fun picture!

Take note of Samantha's Michigan State sweatshirt, as it will be important soon.

I would love to go back in the summer and see how green the foliage is in the background.

A couple in their travel trailer pulled in right where we were taking pictures and got out to walk around.  The man was wearing an MSU hat and immediately noticed that Sam was wearing an MSU sweatshirt.  We struck up a conversation with them (they are from East Lansing, but were traveling for the summer) and they offered to take a family picture for us.