Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Spring Break 2019 Part 1

Last year during Spring Break, I made plans for every day. We had play dates and lunch dates and hosted lots of friends. As much as we all loved that, this year I decided to take things a little easier. The older the kiddos get, the more I have to be purposeful about having down time at home. It's important to me for my kid to learn to be content at home without all the "stuff" going on, so I made sure to intentionally leave a few days free of plans during this break!

The break began with a casual Saturday playing and cleaning at home, followed by a fairly standard Sunday. Sunday also happened to be St. Patrick's Day, so we began the day with our traditional Lucky Charms and green milk for breakfast :-).

Brecklyn, Brooke

Brianna, Brenson

Enjoying breakfast before church

I also dressed everyone in a bit of green for church services. A fun breakfast and dressing in green is the extent of our St. Patrick's Day celebrations, but we have fun with it.

Brenson, Brooke, Brianna, and Brecklyn

Of course, we had to grab a family photo before heading to church that morning :-).


On Monday of Spring Break, my college friend, Christie, and I planned to get our kiddos together for a play date. Christie, Callie, and Riggins live in Broken Arrow, so they came to our place for the morning. It's always fun to watch our kids play together.

Riggins and Brenson (who are only 6 month apart in age!)

Brianna and Callie are two years apart in age, but they get along just great. 

The whole crew played really well together, 

which was nice because that gave Christie and me a chance to visit and catch up on life. We met in the fall of 1999, so we've been friends for almost 20 years!

We grabbed lunch at our house, then Christie and her crew headed home. That gave us time for a relaxing afternoon before Daddy got home from work. Once he got home, he decided to take us all out for dinner at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. While there, I noticed that one of Bren's top front teeth was really loose. Silly boy didn't want to pull it out!

The next morning, he still didn't want to pull it even though it was barely hanging on (and kinda grossing me out)! 

Brianna helped convince him that it needed to be pulled, and he finally took care of it! At seven years and one month old, Bren finally lost his first tooth (the two he had pulled last fall don't really count in my book)!


He wasn't super thrilled about it at first, but it didn't take him long to get excited.


Yay for a tooth fairy visit!

After another couple relaxing days at home, I had made plans on Thursday for us to go to the zoo with Antha, RyAnn, and Raelyn. We had talked about doing a zoo trip for several years, but hadn't made it happen. I thought it was about time to do it!

Brenson, Brooke, Brianna, Brecklyn, RyAnn, and Raelyn at the elephant exhibit.

Of course, we had to ride the train! The weather was perfect for a zoo visit . . . not too hot, windy, or cold!

Brecklyn and Momma

Brooke and Antha

It's typically pretty warm (or HOT) when we visit the zoo, which sometimes means that the animals are not very active. We saw lots of activity this day!

Love this crew :-)

Antha and her girls wanted to get funnel cakes at the new Lost Kingdom exhibit (this was their first time to see it!) They bought enough to share with my kids, and Brooke maaaay have enjoyed hers a little too much, lol!

Zoo Crew!

We had a fantastic time with Antha and her girls at the zoo, and I was so thankful that we followed through on what we've been saying we would do for some years now!

On Friday, Chris took the day off work to spend with us since the kids were out of school. We had talked about visiting Woolaroc for a while now, so that's what we decided to do with our free day. Chris had visited quite a few times as a kid, but I had never been. We were all excited to go!

Woolaroc is only about an hour an a half drive from our house, but the landscape and scenery made it feel like we were far from home.

Brianna enjoying an up-close view of the bison.

Before we even made it to the main museum and Woolaroc attractions, we stopped at a "camp" area where there were teepees, a tire swing, ax throwing, and archery. 

Brianna trying her hand at ax throwing.

Chris throwing the ax.


Hanging out in a teepee.

Bren was very interested in the archery. 

As was Chris :-)

I love that my kids are generally on board with trying new things.

This really sparked Bren's interest in archery, and it may be something we pursue with him in the future. 

We also went into a teepee that had a fire going and listened to some stories and information while sitting on animal skins.



Then, it was on to the tire swing!

Brecklyn


Brooke

We were having a blast and still hadn't even made it to the main part of the land yet!

Once we got up the hill where the museums are, we decided to have lunch. It was a perfect day for a picnic, so that's just what we did.

The sun was bright, but the temperature was just right!

Quintessential Oklahoma

This photo makes me laugh because the kiddos were very unsure about posing with this stuffed bison for a picture. It's written all over Brianna's face, haha!

We walked through the museums, visited the gift shop, and took a tour of Frank Phillip's house (very unique and interesting!). Then, we hiked around on the land a bit and enjoyed the beautiful views.

After all these years of living in Oklahoma, I'm so grateful that I finally visited Woolaroc. We really enjoyed our time there, and the kids have already asked to go back! We definitely hope to visit again.

Although it was the end of our Spring Break week, the fun was not over. My brother, sister-in-law, and niece had Spring Break the week after we did, so they decided to visit for a few days. I'll write all about their visit in a second Spring Break post. Until then . . . 


No comments: