In between Aubrey's and Tessa's birthdays we had a Spring Break which included fun activities almost every day while the girls were out of school. The only thing was I didn't take many pictures, so I'll describe our festivities, but include some other things we did (and I took pictures of) during the other weekends of March. However, I have to go back into the final days of February to start. We visited the Exploreum on its free night with our friends, the Billings. It's pretty much like a children's museum with lots of hands-on displays like a general store, a school, a bank; and also other features like a huge bubble maker, a news set, a music recording studio, etc. The kids had a blast and we could have stayed there for longer than it was open. The final room included an entire set-up of airport things, like a luggage tram, real airplane seats, and some airplane-like rocking toys. This is where I took out my camera. The kids had so much fun!
On the 1st of March, which was a Saturday, we took a trip to White Sands National Monument. We went with the Billings again and had a fun time even though it was quite windy. Abby invited our neighbor, Remy, so she had a friend her age too. One of their favorite activities on the sand was somersaulting down the hills. It made me dizzy just watching them.
The sand was pelting us all over from the wind especially when you were at the top, but it didn't stop the kids from trudging back up the hill and sledding down again. You can tell how windy it is just from the pictures.
Everyone had a good time. We brought sand toys for the little ones, but even the 2-year-olds enjoyed riding together down the hill.
For Spring Break week, we went to the zoo where they had just opened their new treehouse play area. The kids had to wait in line to climb up huge tree trunks and slide down the slides, but they said it was worth the wait. With our season pass to the zoo, we'll look forward to going again when the newness wears off and the crowds taper back down. On another day, we went to a park, but we didn't stay long because it was windy, but I did think to take a picture while all four girls were swinging at the same time.
Our one activity with Dad who worked all week was to go bowling one evening. The girls had so much fun and did really well for their first time bowling. Tyler and I used to bowl more often when we were first dating and first married, but we realized we hadn't been in a really long time since it was the first time for all the girls. It was fun. We also spent a morning at an indoor water park. We went during spring break last year and that was the last time we had been. Abby was tall enough to ride down the slide this year, so she spent most of her time doing that. Taryn enjoyed it much more this year and even crawled around in the water all on her own in the very shallow part.
Grandma and Grandpa Black came out to visit us at the end of our spring break since their spring break was the week after ours. They got here Friday morning and they went to our preschool music class with us, which the school aged kids don't normally get to do, but really wanted to see what it was like. They all sang the songs and the preschool aged kids got to show off their stuff. We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, shopping, going to the Lego movie, and getting the backyard ready for Tessa's party which would take place the following weekend. Tyler finally got a chainsaw and he and my dad worked on our tree that had fallen over in a windstorm a couple months ago. They chopped it down and made a very large-sized woodpile.
Abby and Tessa talked Grandpa into playing RockBand on the Wii with them a couple times. Letting Grandpa play the drums made it easier for them to get him to play along. Once school started back up, Grandma and Grandpa spent their time with the two little girls and had fun shopping with them and taking them out to lunch at places like Burger King where they could play. The older girls also got a lunch visit at school one day from Grandma and Grandpa, so they were happy too. We loved having them here even though it went by too fast.
The final activity I wanted to post about was from the very end of March even after Tessa's birthday, but since it was still March, I decided I'd include it here. We went to El Paso's KidPalooza again this year which happens downtown and there are places for the kids to go to do crafts and activities for free. And what do you know, we went with the Billings. :) The kids had fun last year at the Palooza, so we went again this year. We took some pictures at some art stops along our walk between activities.
The kids were able to do a painting craft, make some binoculars and jungle masks, and even some jungle mud (cornstarch, water, and food coloring). We also saw a fire truck and some monster trucks up close again like last year. And we had to take some pictures on those monster truck tires!
As you can probably tell from this post, we are very close with the Billings family. We've been getting all the time in with them that we can because they just found out they're moving to Japan in the next month or so, which we're very sad about. So we've had fun finding things to do with them while they're still here. Lots of fun memories were made this past March while we enjoyed activities in El Paso and the surrounding areas. We'll definitely miss them when they're gone. I finally got some pictures of their family with our family all together and of just us adults.
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