Fall Break

Rachel has been on fall break for the last 3 weeks. It's been a fun three weeks, but we're all happy that she goes back to school tomorrow. The first day of the break went to the pet store as the first break activity, then on the way home Rachel made a list of things the kids wanted to do over the break:

Bike ride, Jamba juice, park, zoo, cartoons, movies, mountain (have a picnic up there), goats (at Civano Nursery), play date, library, Gramma's house, museum, trip (she wanted to take a trip to Utah, but we settled for a trip to the pumpkin patch), bake cookies, toy store, end, camping.

We accomplished most of the list, while also being able to spend some good quality time at home doing nothing. Or climbing in the cupboards, for Ryan.

Most days we had a job around the house that had to be done before we could leave (pick up the playroom, vacuum downstairs, etc.). Most days it was a great motivator and the kids (mostly Rachel) did their job quickly and without complaining. Some days it was torture and we even had to put off an outing once or twice when the job didn't get done. But mostly it was a win-win situation. Our house got cleaned and we got out of the house to do something fun. 

We made it to the zoo on a beautiful day when the weather finally cooled down a bit. It was 71 when we got there and 75 when we left. Can't get any more perfect than that. And apparently the gibbons liked the weather, too, because they put on an awesome show swinging all around their cage and making tons of noise that Ryan absolutely loved.

Justin and Marie moved a couple of weeks ago, so we were happy to have Peyton and McKenzie come spend the day with us. They are such easy-going kids I barely noticed they were there. They go along with everything my bossy kids dream up without a fight or a complaint. 

We made it down to the Children's Museum downtown one day. There were a few changes since the last time we'd been there. The kids loved it. We could have spent all day there if it weren't for parking meters and naps.

The Wee World Jungle Room for kids 4 and under:

 Shhh. Rachel played on everything, too. We were the only ones there at that point, so if she beat up the little kids they were already used to it. :)

 

Ryan kept poking his head out saying "Peeboo!" (Peek-a-boo!)

 

 

Grocery shopping and picking fruit from the "tree house:"

 

Luckily the train room was kind of a hub with 3 rooms connecting to it that the girls liked. Ryan mostly stayed in the train room walking through the big train and watching the model train they have going around the top of the wall all the way around the room.  I stayed in the train room with Ry-guy and could watch the girls as they went around to the different rooms/activities that they liked.

 

One of the new exhibits was a room of balls. You could build your own roller coaster to send balls along:

Or make ping pong balls float in mid-air (similar to using a hair dryer to hold it in the air stream), or see the sound waves with a bunch of tiny styrofoam balls. But the best one was this big vacuum that you could send big poofy balls or scarfs through. You could watch it go through all the tubes, then it spit them out at you through one of three different outlets.

 There was another 4 and under part that wasn't empty, but as long as Rachel was letting the little kids do whatever they wanted I figured who cares if she's 5.

 And we finished off the Children's museum with a trip in the Ambulance and the Fire Truck. Then Ryan declared it was "oud!" (loud) so we went outside for some snacks, then headed home.

 Not on our list that Rachel did over the break: started piano lessons. Her former preschool teacher that lives one street over agreed to take her on as a student, and having had two lessons Rachel is loving it. She comes home from her lesson and goes to practice and gets very frustrated at not being able to play the new songs well, then by the next day she can play them really well. She's really good about practicing, too, and most days I don't even have to remind her, but when I do she goes right away to practice. Let's hope that keeps up. :)

We went on a short bike ride (in some crazy wind) to the Hendrix's house to see their turtles. Rachel did a really good job riding the whole way on her 2-wheeler without crashing, and all the way back, too. A few weeks ago we got Rachel a 20" bike from a garage sale our neighbor was having. Rachel does a really good job riding it, but it's just a little too high for her to reach the ground while sitting on the seat, so she's having a hard time starting and stopping, but is catching on.

We went to Lakeside Park to feed the ducks, to Civano Nursery and fed the goats, and to the Pumpkin Patch (which will be it's very own post) got to feed the pony and cows. We made it to the library, baked cookies, and the kids got to have a sleepover at Grandma's house (thankfully her one week of break matched up with one of Rachel's 3 weeks). We planned a play date at Purple Heart Park and invited several of Rachel's friends from school, since she was missing them after a couple weeks not seeing them. Only 2 showed up because most of them have both parents working, but it was fun with those two. We even made it to the movie theater to see Monster's University.

The grand finale of our fall break was to go to Disney on Ice yesterday. Jacob stayed home with Ryan and Grandma Knight accompanied us.

 Besides the ridiculously overpriced snacks ($12 for a small thing of cotton candy!) and souvenirs, it was an awesome show. We all loved it and thought Jacob and Ryan should have come because they would have liked it, too. Next time...

This is during Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid:

 And part of the show with Brave:

Overall it was a great break. I think the only things on the list we didn't get to were: Jamba juice, mountain, toy store, and camping. And we had planned on going camping on the mountain, but Jacob ended up having to work that weekend to meet a deadline at work. If the weather holds out we may do that this weekend instead. So far we're enjoying the modified year-round schedule we've got in the school district here. And now back to school. :)