Our spring break happened the beginning of March. We didn't have much planned since Tyler was working so it worked out when my mom called to ask for our help that we were available to help her. My parents are both retiring after this school year. They recently applied and were accepted to teach English in China for a year starting this fall, so they decided they would put their house up for sale. My mom called to ask if the girls and I could come out during our spring break so that I could help her organize and de-clutter her house to prepare it to go on the market. It also happened that the the weekend before our spring break, all my brothers were going to be at my parents as well, so it was fun to have the entire family together even if it was for just a couple of days. Tyler drove out with us to spend the weekend, but then flew back to El Paso Sunday night to work the rest of the week. We had fun playing games with family and going through boxes of stuff from when we were kids. We threw out a lot of stuff, donated a ton, and kept a few things. My girls loved going through Grandma's jewelry and picking out things they wanted to keep. I took home too much stuff and barely fit it all in the van. Some of the bigger things I brought back included my wedding dress, some of my high school formal dresses and my letterman jacket. Not sure what I'll do with any of it, but it wasn't stuff I could just get rid of. Besides all the work, we had to entertain the kids some too, so we did do some fun things. Of course, that's where the pictures are all from, so besides cleaning and organizing, here's what we did in Wichita Falls during Spring Break.
My cousin just bought a ranch with my Aunt and Uncle, so we drove out to their new land and saw their cows and longhorns. The kids thought it was pretty cool and loved riding in the back of the truck as we drove closer to the cows. There were a lot of baby calves too which was awesome. Some of them were really loud as they "mooed." The kids also enjoyed the rides on the four-wheeler with my cousin, Katrina. Her son Bert loved having the girls to show around his new house and new land. It was really cool. I just kept thinking, Tyler would love this!
The girls did get to take their usual trip to Jump for Joy, which is a room full of bounce houses. I didn't get any good pictures there though. We took another night and decided to try roller skating. Because our spring break did not line up with Wichita Falls' spring break, we were practically the only ones skating at the rink because they were all still in school. That made it a lot easier for us since the girls were still learning the basics of balancing and not falling down.
After our somewhat successful attempt at ice skating last Christmas, I thought that roller skating would be easier since it's not as thin of an edge to balance on, but the skates were still pretty tricky for the girls. They did keep trying and never gave up and I think enjoyed it overall. Tessa was funny because she would catch herself from falling and kept her balance pretty well, but she couldn't control her speed. She would get going so fast and then almost fall, but then catch herself which would cause her to go faster still. I would hold her hand and try and keep her from going too fast, but it was like she was pulling me along instead of the other way around. Aubrey got the hang of it too as long as she was holding someone's hand. Luckily Grandma and Grandpa were there to help - Grandpa also in skates but Grandma in her regular shoes which thankfully they allowed on the rink if you were assisting someone else.
That was pretty much our week. The girls and I were able to go eat lunch with my nephew and niece while they were in school. That was fun to see the differences between their school and ours. We met their pet guinea pig named Tex and loved petting him and feeding him carrots. He is way fluffier than our new guinea pig, Oreo, so the girls liked comparing the two and seeing new ways to handle and feed a guinea pig. We also found out that week that my nephew Matthew and Taylor, who got married a couple years ago, are expecting their first baby in October of this year. We are super excited for them. I also liked teasing Paul and Melody because they are going to be grandparents. And also teasing my parents who will become great-grandparents - kind of unbelievable. The day we left to drive home, the girls each had to take a turn on Grandpa's motorcycle. These two looked really cute with his helmet and glasses on too.
Taryn could barely reach the handlebars while sitting on the seat, but she had to have her turn and give it a try.
We took an entire day to drive home, but we met up with the Kasallis family who was driving home from the Fort Worth area too. Since both of our husbands stayed in El Paso to work, we decided it was a smart plan to caravan home so we wouldn't have to make the long drive alone, but we also wouldn't have to pay for the husbands to fly back to drive with us. It was win-win for everyone. The kids took turns rotating between the two cars and riding with their friends, so that kept everyone happy and was less stressful for me and Audrey who had to do all the driving. It actually worked out really well. We met up with the dads for dinner as we pulled into town and that was the end of our successful spring break.
The week following our spring break, the girls were back in school, but our friends, the Cains, from church were leaving to move to Hawaii. We had a couple last game and dinner nights before they left and on our final one, we took some pictures. Here I am with Tovi.
Here are all our girls. Even though none of our girls are the same age (they flip flop every year), they all got along so well and we loved hanging out with them. We're going to miss them a lot while they are enjoying the Hawaiian life.
Their youngest daughter, Lanie, was probably Taryn's best friend that's a girl. She, Lanie, and Elle had a play group every week. Even though Taryn was a year and a half younger than Lanie, and a year younger than Elle, they all loved playing together. This was the last picture I took on their final playdate - sweet girls.
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