The first year that we homeschooled, I decided to skip spring break. We'd taken off a handful of days here and there through the winter (because of the flexibility of homeschool) but I felt like we should just school through spring break to make up for it. It was a bad decision! I learned that taking a full week break right here in the spring time is needed to give you the energy and motivation to push through the end of the school year! Each year since then, I've made sure to take the whole week off, both for me and for my kids. Even when I think "well, I could have them catch up on this - or I could have them work on that..." I shake my head and insist that one week taken completely has more impact for a successful end of school year than trying to squeeze in other things.
Typically, as homeschoolers we could take spring break at any time. Right now we have rotations with the Youngs in our neighborhood and their dad is a public school teacher, so we were planning to take the regular school spring break with them. When Austin and Caleb's surgeries were moved forward from the beginning of March to the end of March, they ended being scheduled the Thursday before spring break. I felt like that was going to work out fine because then we could take it easy over Spring Break while they recovered. But I woke up the Monday morning and realized that it would be better for us to take our spring break a week early so that we could squeeze in some fun, active things - and then do a simple (but structured) homeschool routine during that first week of recovery. We had a great week! Unfortunately, the boys surgery was canceled (again) due to a small cough that Caleb developed. So when the actual spring break week rolled around, we ended up doing a super simple homeschool routine and taking spring break part 2! All our friends were spring break-ing, and there was just something in their air that said "sprrriiiiiinnnnggggg brrrrreeeeeaaakkkkkkk". It was two weeks packed full of fun activities and now I feel ready to tackle the end of the school year (and feel SO excited for summer!).
Spring Break Part 1
Ogden Nature Center
Hiking the trail to the Timpanogos Cave
The kids want to hike all the way to the very top. It's a long, steep hike - but they are insisting they want to do it so I told them that we could practice. We could hike 1/4 way, then 1/2 way, then 3/4 way then all the way. We went and hiked the first 1/4 and they did great! It was a morning hike, we were there by 8 am and it was SO beautiful. We should do more morning hikes.
Swimming at the Provo Rec Center
I'll just say that this was SUCH a fun rec center and we will absolutely be coming back. The kids loved everything, especially the two water slides. Lucy loved jumping into the lazy river and being swept away while I tried to stay close to her. What a fun afternoon.
Making Homemade Donuts and the Haderlies
Lydia has a goal to make 10 new recipes. She went through her Harry Potter Cookbook and pulled out a bunch of recipes that she really wanted to make. These Jam Donuts were at the top of the list. We couldn't figure out how to cook them enough on the inside without making them too brown on the outside, but she was happy and I love that she loves being in the kitchen so much. (Also, the Haderlies coming to spend the night at our house always makes spring break better.)
Spring Break Part 2
Bean Museum with the Shields and the Perkins
We met up with Karli and Amy and their kids at the BYU Life Science museum and had fun exploring and learning about different animals and about the world. I'm grateful for these two friends, but only got a picture with Amy. It's funny how, even at 34, I sometimes feel like I'm 12 and am trying to figure out where I fit in with the "friend groups" at school. These two women always make me feel accepted just as I am, make me feel like a million bucks, and make me feel valued and appreciated. I love them.
Sewing Projects
We were still doing a simplified homeschool routine, but because we didn't have our rotations on T/Th we had some extra time in the afternoon. I decided to do a little sewing camp where Ava came over for three days in a row to finish their sewing project of making a foldable tic-tac-toe board and bean bags. I'm really enjoying teaching these lessons to Lydia and Ava and it was nice to have three days in a row to work on their projects to finish them out!
Uncle Matt-Matt & Juniper!
My brother Matthew and his sweet daughter Juniper ended up being in Utah this week. They are moving from Texas to California and decided to stay a week in Utah. We were lucky enough to be able to see them a handful of times. We went swimming at the Lehi Rec center with them. We met up with them at Wines Park for playing (and ice cream), and we managed to squeeze in a hike with them to Jungle Trail in Draper. Brooklyn's sister Hannah lives in American Fork, only 15 minutes from us - and she just started homeschooling her middle daughter so we've had her join in on some of our homeschool field trips. I've enjoyed spending time with her, and I feel like it was so nice to have a friendship with her so that while Matt was staying at her house in AF, we were still able to spend time with them all together. (He brought one of the girls swimming, they were all at the park, and we went on the hike together.) Lucy especially loved Juniper and walked around calling her "My Juniper". These sweet cousins are only two months apart and look just like twins.
Children's Museum with the Haderlies
Sneaking in a quick visit to the children's museum with the Haderlies.
Weekend in Morgan
After Matt and Brooklyn were finished visiting her family in Utah County, they came to Morgan to spend a couple of days. Because we wanted to spend as much time with them as we could - we tagged along. We had family dinner in Morgan on Sunday (complete with cousin egg hunt - pictures in the easter post) then stayed until Monday. Matthew did THE best job of making our kids have a great time. He played with them, let them play his Mario video games, AND he did a kid-style Dungeons and Dragons storytelling session and they loved it SO much. They were so engaged in telling the story and making the decisions and the creativity and engagement was almost palpable in the air. You could see their little brains working, learning, growing, and having fun. It was really neat. Also, we did a "magic puzzle" with my mom and uncle who happened to be staying in Morgan that weekend - and it was really fun. You do the whole puzzle, then when you're done - you can slide big sections of the puzzle away from each other creating a hole in the middle, which you then fill in with a last secret bag of puzzle pieces!
Yay for TWO weeks of Spring Break!
