Memory Makers: Spring Break

I'd been looking forward to the kids' Spring Break from school for a while now. I took most of the week off (I worked one full day on the 1st and then just 1 hour the other days) so I could take the girls out for some fun. I wanted to take Pierce too, but he's in a "it's fun to run away and not listen" stage AND we've found if he skips naps and we have a busy day then he gets VERY grumpy! So I figured this will just be me and the girls this time.

On Monday I booked us time to go to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. I hadn't been to this since Gwen was about a year old so it had been a long time. I was determined to stay and go through the whole thing (something I had never done before). We ended up staying for about 2.5 hours and boy did we do a lot. It was a pretty busy day, but once we got to the last few areas the crowd dimmed down a bit. It was a bit of a chilly day so when we got to the outside/playground area that was the spot we probably spent the least amount of time in. Lucy was having a few meltdowns around that time too, but by bedtime she said she liked it. We also had Pierce's checkup (which he did NOT like at all. He handled it mostly okay with the promise of 2 suckers afterwards, haha. Luckily he didn't need any shots) and my, Lucy's, and Gwen's dentist appointments. All of us got clean bills of health - yay! 

Tuesday was the day I worked. I knew we'd be going out for Pierce's birthday dinner so I figured that was enough fun for a day. See his birthday post for those details.

Wednesday I surprised the girls with an open lab at Little Beakers in Orem. If you haven't been to this place, you should totally go! We did a one hour open lab where they give you a book with about 30 experiments and you just get to do as many as you can in that hour. They have about 6 different areas with all the supplies you need for the experiments, they do all the clean up for you, and if you make something in the experiment, you get to take it home. I wish we had time to do more things there, but we got to do about 6 in the time we were there. I've been trying to convince Cara to do her birthday party there (she's just SO determined to do it at home). I think this was my favorite part of the whole week. Bonus: we didn't a lot of meltdowns this day haha. We also had Pierce, Cara, and Larry do their dentist checkups this day and, somewhat luckily, Larry was the only one with cavities (shocking since he hasn't had one in decades!). Pierce really didn't like it, of course, but he did better than last time, so that's a win!

Thursday was a struggle. I had originally planned to take the girls to the zoo. I was even thinking Pierce might be able to come with (he'd probably sleep in the car, which solves the napping issue). However, as I was watching the weather throughout the week it was just getting colder and colder and I knew it would be miserable. The trick was finding a replacement that wasn't expensive (I got the Connect Pass so the zoo was supposed to be free and I didn't want to spend even more than I had already spent for the week). I looked at so many indoor play places, but just wasn't too excited about any of them. Then I remembered when we went to the Treehouse Museum a while back and how we had to drag Cara out screaming because she liked it so much. It's up in Ogden so it's QUITE the drive, but I figured why not? I had nothing better to do and getting us all in was only about $40 (the cheapest option so far) so I got us tickets to that. That place is SO big and the kids had a lot of fun. They definitely were the appropriate ages, so that worked, although Cara was probably getting a tad too old for it (luckily they had free craft things, she'll do anything if she gets something to take home from it). We spent probably 2 hours there and did pretty much everything, but Lucy (once again) was having a few meltdowns so we were ready to get home. There was a bit of traffic coming home so I was a got a little testy (I absolutely HATE being stuck in traffic), but once we finally got home I just passed out on the couch haha.

Today (Friday) was a nice, relaxing day. I tidied the house in the morning and then took the girls to go see A Minecraft Movie after lunch. We got our popcorn, some waters, and had our candy and I got us the luxury seats so we were all comfortable. I love being able to take them to the movies now! This one was okay, not what I was expecting. The girls really liked it though, so that's all that matters.

Overall, it was a really fun Spring Break week off. I spent WAY too much money, there were quite a few tantrums, I ended each day more exhausted than I've felt in a while. BUT we all had fun, made lots of memories and I heard "best day ever" a ton of times, so that's all that matters, right? Now to get through the very busy weekend to get back into our normal week :)