Spring Break '12

It's time for Spring Break! It came early this year, the first time our school district has scheduled it not near Easter. We have no plans, which makes for a nice, relaxing time where we can unwind and play and play and play. In this case, bake and bake and bake.

Brooke has been on a baking spree. She made mock Reese's peanut butter bars (9x13), two cherry cream cheese pies (one for Shaun's birthday - his favorite), and cookie cakes:

Brooke and Monroe wanted to get creative and expressed it using stuff they found in my cake decorating box.

Cute girls.

Madison and I spent a morning at the Bishop's Storehouse filling orders. It was really fun and a great way to get some service hours. Unfortunately, she has several (like 6!) projects that are due the week after break. Ridiculous! So she's been spending a lot of time on those while Brooke works on a video presentation she's doing for school.

Thursday was a totally awesome day. It was sunny, a perfect temperature with clear skies that begged to have the books put away and to be played under.

First up, we went on a bike ride in the morning, found a neighborhood that had a very steep and quiet street and enjoyed flying down it at top speed.

Then John and I had a golf date that was his birthday present (3 months ago). It was for an hour-long lesson for the both of us at Malibu Golf Course by golf pro Rusty Tucker.

It was super fun, especially because we got to ride around in our own golf cart.

This makes us want to play golf for real.

Too bad we don't have the time at this point, but it was fun nonetheless.

While I was away, the kids had made a cooking show, filming how to make lunch which consisted of mac-n-cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, ants on log, and chocolate milk. Brooke has been having fun all week making a movie for her class about the state of Iowa and is now using her newly-acquired filming and editing skills to become the next Rachel Ray.

It was 3:00 in the afternoon and they mentioned how we still hadn't gone to the beach yet during Break. Why not go now? We got to the beach after 4:00 and someone told us the fog just burned off. It was clear, beautiful and pleasant.

Christian drew in the sand. I texted it to John and he said that right there is worth the price of gas to drive to get to the beach. (Gas is crazy $4.35 now. GEESH)

why is this underlining??
They immediately ran all over the place, loving that the tide was way out and nobody was on the beach. It was perfect.
Draw 2 lines in the sand and have a leaping contest. Why not?

Since we are missing track practice, why not have our own sprints?

Christian found a piece of wood, made a see-saw and used it to catapult a broken shovel several yards in the air. Such a boy.

I'm so glad that we decided at the last minute to go to the beach. It was perfect and we stayed until after 6:00. Then drove through Chick Fil A on the way home. I've never been there, but heard it was decent for fast food and always wanted to try it. (This area only recently got this eatery). The only drive through we EVER do is In-n-Out, so we are really branching out here and found that we may now have a 2nd fast food option to add to our short list.

We got home, ate, the kids took showers and John and I went for a walk. It was such a beautiful night with bright clear stars and I wanted to still enjoy the great day, not let it end. We took Cole and walked to our Bishop's house who lives about a mile away and returned some books his daughter needed (Hunger Games). Walking hand in hand, chatting away, walking the dog, looking at the constellations.

It doesn't get much better than that.

However, it would be much better if I could figure out how to get rid of this underlining, and find out why it randomly shows up. Annoying!

Friday is supposed to be snow day, but I think it might be all gone (at least for the hour-long-drive locations). We couldn't go earlier in the week when there was some because Ashlyn was sick with the flu. Poor girl.

I love how Spring Break gives us a taste of summer. Now if we could just get our heads back in the game for 2 1/2 more months, we'll survive, knowing we have this and more (like Hawaii!) in store.