College Kids

The weekend after the kids went back to school from spring break/being sick Kelsey took the kids for a dorm party sleepover.  We talked about doing this all year, and with school quickly coming to an end we decided this would be the perfect time.  Her boss was completely on board with the idea, and really helped in spoiling them while they were there.  We dropped them off early Saturday afternoon and Kelsey took them to walk campus just like real college kids.  They spent some time at Manzanita Lake,

She took them each to check out where their classes would be based on what they wanted to be when they grow up.  Chase wants to be a writer so he got to check out the School of Journalism.

Sadi wants to be an artist, so she got to see some campus art/classes.

She took them into a lecture hall and had them pick their seats. Not sure if I should be worried about the kid sitting in the back row :/

One of their favorite things was eating in the cafeteria...all you can eat buffet! They went for dinner and breakfast.

They did a little "homework" in the dorm.

Kelsey's boss invited them to her dorm apartment and they watched movies, she made them cupcakes, and fed them TONS of candy.  Pretty sure the party didn't end till very late when they got back to Kelsey's room.

They had the best time, and I love hearing them talk about what it will be like when they are in college.  They are pretty lucky to have such a cool big sister!

Homeschool

Our spring "break" week continued well into a second week, with Chase still recovering from hand, foot, and mouth.  I spent the first few days home sanitizing the entire house and trying not to loose my mind staying in solitary with him.  He spent many, many hours reading....

I didn't want him to get to far behind in school, so I thought it might be a good time to try my hand at homeschooling.  I picked up some work from school to get started, and made my plans the night before.  I was a little limited to what I had him to do since his hands were the worst, and his blisters were still healing.  I tried to cover all the subjects he had at school.  We had computers,

social studies, reading, language arts, and we hit math pretty hard.  Gotta say math is not my favorite...nor is it Chase's.  I even made him go outside for recess, and made a fun "hot" lunch.  One full day, and I was exhausted!

I decided the next day to take it a little lighter so I could get a few things done at home, BUT that was short lived as the school nurse called to tell me Sadi had some little dots on her hands (turns out her little dots were probably just hives from being outside).  She too came home for a little homeschooling.  I almost completely lost it trying to learn/teach her this common core math.  2 hours to do 3 problems! 

10 days after his symptoms started, they both FINALLY went back to school!  Chase's hands still looked pretty spotty, but he was cleared by the nurse and I was thrilled to be out of the house.  Two things I learned about homeschooling...

1.  I never want to home school

2.  I never want to home school

Vegas or Bust

Day 2 of vacation was the only day we had to spend with Matt before he was off "working" for the week.  The kids could not wait to get to the pool, although it was heated like a hot tub, it was cold outside!  How cold you ask?  Cold enough they had the whole wave pool to themselves.

As I sat freezing on my pool chair I knew that we were going to need an alternate plan of entertainment.  I was correct, the kids lasted 2 hours and were ready to call it quits.  We had planned to see the new Zootopia movie but what do you know, Vegas wasn't playing it!  As far as Vegas goes, there is not much free to do except sight see, everything else is ridiculously expensive, and won't entertain you all day either.  We dragged the kids out for more sight seeing....

I found a show at Caesar's that was pretty cool we went and watched.

We took in Paris,

 and enjoyed looking high and low at all kinds of art.

We went to bed hoping for warmer weather the next day!  Day 3 of vacation was again...cold.  I took the kids to the pool, they lasted only an hour.  Chase began complaining of a sore throat, and so we spent the ENTIRE day cooped up in the room (they loved it, I started to go a bit crazy).  Day 4 was yup, you guessed it....cold again.  I could not spent another day looking at the same walls.  I enticed them to at least go outside by bribing them with hot chocolate. 

We sat outside trying to warm up, and I convinced them we could do just "a little" walking around.  They begrudgingly agreed.  This is how Sadi walks the strip....

We went back to the Bellagio to check out a few things I had read about.  This artistic ceiling...

and the botanical gardens, which were just spectacular!  You could smell the aroma all the way from the lobby.  Sadi couldn't help herself to a closer sniff.

Although Chase still wasn't feeling great, he did humor me with a few pictures.

Some pretty cool flower/art displays.  I highly recommend stopping in (it changes seasonally).

A couple of our favorite displays:

Of course while we were out we stopped at our fair share of fountains, and made sure to throw some coins in (never know when that wish will come true).  Pretty sure I left Vegas penniless...literally.

We also ventured to the Flamingo to see some real life pink birds!

As much as I tried to extend this outing, you really can't spend much time at any of these places, so after just a few hours it was....back to the hotel (to the same boring walls).  The last day of vacation was slightly warmer.  Chase was complaining of his hands hurting, and it looked as though he could have a rash from the pool (or so I thought).  He did not want to go to the pool AT ALL.  We let Sadi swim for about an hour, and I forced them to once again leave the hotel.  I took them to the fun dungeon at the Excalibur.  Chase played a bit of basketball that took his mind off of his hands hurting for a little while.

Sadi had fun playing anything that won her a lot of tickets, but complained "what a rip off" it was when she found all her tickets only bought her a few Tootsie rolls...she was only 990 something away from getting a plastic ball she really wanted. 

We went to the New York and Luxor hotels.

We did a little shopping, and Sadi found the perfect souvenir until she found out it was empty!  She was disappointed it was not real Hershey's syrup.

Again, not enough to do to keep you busy ALL day in Vegas and we were once again sitting in our hotel room.  I have never been so happy for a vacation to be over.  The final morning as we were packing to leave Chase's hands were getting worse, and now he had these red bumps on his feet as well.

Poor kid came home with the worst souvenir ever....hand, foot, and mouth disease.  Sadly there is nothing you can do for it but let in run its course.  Oh and it's highly contagious....so after spending a week in confined quarters in Vegas I'm calling our vacation a BUST.

Easter & Kicking off Spring Break

We started our Easter celebrations a bit earlier in the week since we would be leaving town for spring break.  The kids colored eggs when Kelsey was home, and  I made a delicious Easter dinner one night for everyone.  Sadly only Chase, Sadi, and I ended up enjoying it as everyone else had plans, or had to work late :/

Easter morning we woke to find the Easter bunny had left us some interesting baskets.

They were 100% edible!  Pretty original if you ask me, and nice that the kids could pack the entire basket to take with them on our vacation that we left for that morning.

Matt ended up having a work convention the same week as spring break in  Las Vegas, so we decided to all go along.  I was a bit leery about how the weather would be, since Easter was so early this year...but the forecast looked good so we were excited to soak up some sun.  We arrived in the early afternoon to our hotel, the Monte Carlo.

The kids were excited to get there and jump in the pool(literally before we even checked in).  Because there was a short time until the pool closed, we made them wait until the next day.  We took a walk down the strip and stopped at the Bellagio to watch the fountain show.

I think this may be the first time we have actually seen it, a pretty cool show.

We walked as long as they would tolerate it, and then headed back to the hotel for a "fancy" Easter dinner.  Sadi's choice....

I hate to say how many happy meals that kid ate over the week.  Chase at least changed it up a little bit (Subway).  You'll notice we are eating in the hotel room, this is where they begged us to eat.

A meal to go, and cartoons to watch...apparently our kids dream vacation.