"balmy" spring break

Jed had spring break the week after Easter. The weather turned somewhat rainy and cold, so we had to keep busy inside. We did some reading, some tv watching, some playing in the basement, some jumping on the bed, some playing/swordfighting with friends, and a few crafts to keep busy. The boys' favorite craft was painting little birdhouses we bought from JoAnn's. Jed discovered them the last time we were there and he was so excited to paint them. 

I love watching the boys when they're so intent on something. They're so cute in their painting shirts, concentrating on having fun.

Jed painted his whole birdhouse silver, added a few red and green dots and his name. He did such a great job and wasn't bothered at all when he got some paint on his fingers.

Hank totally surprised me with how much he liked this little craft. He was totally into it, asking for a new color every few minutes. I helped him tilt the birdhouse different ways so he could get paint in all the little nooks and crannies, but he did all the painting himself. It was great. He worked for about 15 minutes and then was DONE. He wouldn't even pause long enough to let me get a picture of him with the finished product.

Here's cute Jed with his finished birdhouse. He loved it so much and was excited to hang it outside so a little bird could move in. Then he decided that since it was raining at the moment, he should wait til the paint was dry before hanging it out.

Later during the week, we took an impromptu overnight trip to Lansing. Dave has been wanting to find new seats for the truck for a while, and he found a salvage yard downstate that lets you go in and pull whatever you need out of the wrecked vehicles. It's only $1 to get in, and they have insanely cheap prices on the parts you can pull. So, we decided to make a fun little trip out of it. We started out late Thursday morning and drove down in a rainstorm and got checked into our hotel.

The boys had lots of fun playing and wrestling on the beds while I did some finagling on the phone to meet up with some friends from church for dinner and swimming. And then I realized we had forgotten our swimsuits. Sooo, we had to go shopping before we could enjoy the pool.

After lots of fun swimming and a yummy dinner with good friends, we spent a mostly restful night at the hotel and enjoyed breakfast there. Jed told a fellow hotel guest that I was pregnant. I was thoroughly embarrassed, because I am definitely not pregnant. AWKWARD! I took the boys swimming again while Dave went to the salvage yard. We had a good time at the pool and I had just put the boys in the tub afterward when Dave got back, having found two seats in good condition for only $30. After we all got cleaned up and everything packed, we weren't quite ready to head home, so we decided to visit the zoo! Jed was heartbroken to leave the hotel (he LOVES hotels and wishes we could live in one) but as soon as we saw the zoo sign, he cheered right up.

It was pretty windy but the rain had mostly stopped, so we decided to be brave. It turned out great--the unfavorable weather kept the crowds away and we were able to have the place pretty much to ourselves.

the Arctic fox, snuggling in his warm log

The otters! This was such a great exhibit--there was a plexiglass wall between us and the otters, so you could (well, in theory--the water was pretty murky) see them swimming. They were super active and it was so fun to watch them.

Jed was having so much fun at the zoo, even with the cold weather. He loved pretending to be a tiger!

Hank was totally taken with the big cats. He loved watching both the snow leopard and the tiger.

The boys found the monkeys to be interesting and totally disgusting at the same time. Jed was so disturbed that there was monkey poop on the floor of the spider monkey cage. He told me "it stinks! Let's get OUT of here!"

Two cute baby kangaroos!

We stayed and watched the lions for quite a while, since it was kind-of protected from the wind there. We all really liked watching them climbing around on the rocks.

After the lions, we went into the reptile/bird house. It was nice and warm, so a school group on a field trip had taken refuge there. Jed had fun bonding with several boys who were as enamored with the turtles as he was, and Hank loved running around among all the other kids. Jed said his favorite things in the zoo were in the reptile house--he liked the turtles and a green tree snake the best.

This guy was my favorite--he had a beautiful iridescent blue patch on his wings. So pretty!

Hank loved the rhino. He really wanted it to make noise. So did I, frankly :)

We had fun watching these penguins, although they were mostly hunkered down. I'm not sure why penguins would mind the cold weather, but they certainly seemed to.

Last, but not least, we got to see some camels. The boys really wanted them to make some noise. We bid them farewell and went back to see the otters. They were by far our favorites. Well, them and the meerkats. 

After the zoo, we headed home. It was a long drive but we saw some new country and had fun. We spent the rest of spring break cleaning out the cars, doing chores around the house, dealing with our recycling, and relaxing. The weather even improved a tiny bit! It was a nice, low-key week.