Easter 2022

Ahhhh ... Easter Eve.  There is still a sense of anticipation in the air with the kids but without the hustle and bustle that Christmas brings with it.  Jimmy was excited to fix a big plate of snacks for the Easter Bunny and we included something different this year -- some actual rabbit food that we had in the garage.

The next morning, the radishes were eaten and most of the food had disappeared.

There was a note from Peter Cottontail himself, thanking the kids for the thoughtful snack ("no one leaves me rabbit food!") and letting them know that their egg hunt would be INSIDE this year due to the cold temps outside.  

Baskets all set out and waiting for the kids to wake up and discover them!

Annnnddd ... they're up, bright and early but with a little bit of sleepiness still showing on their faces.

The girls read the letter out loud and shared what color eggs were theirs to find:

Sophia was assigned her traditional PINK eggs and some of them were a stretch for her.

Jimmy's egg color was BLUE:

Jack's eggs were YELLOW and he found himself off to a great start and then started to stall out on the last few!

Oooh, that Easter Bunny made sure that Sam's GREEN eggs were hard to find.  She often needed a chair to reach hers.

No area of the main floor was off limits. 

Counting his eggs to make sure that he had all of them:

Candy and money!

Finally, it was time to see what the Easter Bunny had left for everyone.  I feel like sunglasses are a traditional (and important) Easter Basket item:

A new hat for Spring and Summer!  This hat has an American Flag on it, but it is made up of lines of fish.  Jack now has a favorite fishing cap.

For our budding artist!

Sam is really into "plants" right now, so these PJs were perfect for her:

Later, we had family over for dinner, dessert and a few games.  The weather was damp and drizzly but we enjoyed spending time together and showing off the Easter goodies to everyone!

Easter Egg Hunt at the Park - 2022

The day before Easter, we headed down to the park to join in the annual Easter Egg Hunt with neighbors. Samantha decided that she didn't want to participate this year, but offered to help scatter the eggs around (including the valuable golden eggs!) an hour or so prior to the event.   

I had high hopes that it would be much warmer this year because it was a later date than usual (April 17th, to be exact), but one look at the weather app, told me that we would be out of luck.  We bundled in sweatshirts, gloves and warm socks and made the best of it.  

The boys each had their first flag football game later that day, so they were sporting their respective team jerseys:

All lined up and ready to go!

And ... they're off!

Jack ran to the far edge of the park to score those eggs while others were busy picking up eggs near the starting line.  Smart thinking!

There are ALWAYS eggs hidden near and inside the pirate ship, so Sophia started there first.

I love this picture.  It makes it look like James is the only one out hunting for eggs, but he clearly had lots of other competition based on the starting line up.  The others were just preoccupied in other areas of the park.  Ha!

Obligatory picture for Mom by the lake ... freezing their tails off in mid-April:

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.