Spring is Sprunging

Adrian

While the girls are at school, Adrian has been learning to walk here at home! I was trying to catch him practicing, standing on Marco Polo with Chris, and caught his first steps out of nowhere! He was getting mad at not staying up, but kept trying and was able to start. He loves to be outside and will complain about not going if I let Buttercup out there and not him. He will bang on our sliding window and argue even when I tell him it's too cold or rainy, which was only yesterday, luckily. I'm going to have to accept his adventurous side and get used to changing him into clean clothes after he is done having fun. There were a few days early this week that we got the water table out, and he splashed and had a blast. I also finally set up my bike seat for him so we can ride our bike to the bus stop!

Claire

The girls are back at school, and this last stretch we don't have many days off from school until summer, so it will feel long! I can tell when Claire doesn't get enough practice with homework because she comes home with a bad score on her spelling test, so I need to get better at going over her spelling every day. We went a little lax on it because I keep getting myself distracted with projects in the yard now that it is warmer, and now cross-stitching! I've been making her a bookmark for her scriptures to give as a present when she gets baptised. She has a flower that is growing along with all the other bulbs I planted in the fall, and she is excited that it is in its own special spot, so she knows it is hers. I don't even know what flower it is because when she got it, I was told that it was either a tulip or a daffodil, so we have both on either side, so it fits right in. Every time we go to the bus stop and come home, we get to see the progress of our garden.

Shay

Shay had a hard few days and started acting up on the bus, but after talking to her about it, she seems to understand she needs to behave again. She even wrote an apology note to the bus driver and promised to be good after we had a good cuddle and talk in her bed about how to ignore people who are mean to her. Claire was trying to help, and it is wonderful to see how much they love each other, even when they fight in the middle of their games all the time, too. Shay had a birthday party on Saturday, and the weather turned cold and rainy at the last minute, so we were mostly stuck under the structure. I tried to encourage her to go play at the playground while the rain stopped, but she didn't and just enjoyed the crafts, chalk, and snacks.

Spring Break

 Adrian

He is starting to love being outside, but he seems to find a lot of bad things to put in his mouth, like rocks, dirt clumps, ash from our fireplace, and grass. Hopefully, he will learn that nothing outside tastes good and stop doing that really soon, because he asks to go outside all the time. I have projects I want to do outside, so it will be nice for him to have things to play with out there soon in the nice weather. I have a water table, I know he will love it because he is obsessed with bath time and was mad when the girls were taking a bath. I got him ready for his own, but had to take him away from theirs. He threw a tantrum until he saw we were going straight for the other bathtub! He also had a lot of fun in the swimming pool this week during the girls' swim class and kept practicing standing on the stairs of the kiddie pool. I wish I had gotten some pictures, but I would rather have a working phone.

Spring Break

This spring break was not very exciting because I didn't plan anything out of town or anything. I was busy trying to get my house back to a normal schedule while also getting homework and reading for the girls every day. I caught up on all the cleaning and chores with help from the girls most the days, and we were able to do some projects outside. I finally finished the dog house, and now Buttercup gets to be outside when we are gone instead of in our garage. The weather was wonderful this weekend, and we were going to go hang out as a family at a park, but Claire and Shay took 6 hours to get their two chores done for the day. It drove me crazy, and we missed out on the park, going swimming, or having a date night! Chris and I at least played outside with Adrian and set up a swing for him that he liked. The girls had a lot of fun pretending to be parents, making babies out of the Legos we had, and even putting them down for naps sometimes.

More Vacation and Home

 Zipline

On Tuesday, we signed up for a Zipline and UTV adventure that was deeper inland in some more mountain area. They provided a shuttle for us to get there because it was about an hour long drive and there was another small group with us. The guides were great and had a good sense of humor to distract people from being scared. It was a lot of fun and had more than just simple ziplines, they let us ride one upside down, there was some rock climbing, repelling, a swing, and their huge Superman line. The ride back to the main camp was in some dusty trails and Chris had fun getting the speed up on our UTV and now wants another toy. Our 4-wheeler doesn't go fast enough apparently. They provided a tasty, authentic Mexican meal, and we were back to the resort by 2pm so we could go to our workout at the best time of the day again!

Hiking

On Monday, we hiked through the hilly streets of a nice residential area all the way to the marina to have lunch with the rest of our fish from Saturday. We went early enough that it didn't get too hot, but on the way back it was! Luckily we didn't have any other plans for the day and did some relaxing in the pool after our workout, and found a semi peaceful hot tub that we could take over. We did another shorter hike on Wednesday too, but first got a shuttle to the closer sister resorts and only had a 30 minute walk to town where we could go souvenir shopping. On our last night, Chris and I walked the beach collecting shells so I could make a wind chime and then sat listening to the waves while we watched the sunset. It is called Sunset Beach, so it was fitting, and most of the pools have buildings in the way on all the other nights we were going to watch! One last visit to a hot tub and then our trip was over!

Home

We had a full day of traveling on Thursday because we left at 9am and didn't get into our beds until past midnight. It was because our last flight was delayed by a few hours, which was a lot better than what happened to my parents on their trip home. Their entire flight was canceled because of storms that were coming in, and they had to rent a car to drive to Salt Lake to catch a flight so they could beat the storm. It all worked out and now we are settled and they are safe. We took the girls out to ice cream as a date since they needed extra extra love now that we are home. They liked the souvenirs we got them because they attach to their backpacks! Now we get to spend their spring break together and it's a bummer it's a little cold and overcast because it would be fun to play in some water.

Vacation in Mexico

At home

Earlier this week we were preparing for our vacation and I was teaching my parents how to take care of the kids. I made sure they knew the schedule for getting the girls to the bus and picking them up, and understanding Adrian's changing sleep schedule because he is just starting to switch it up to sometimes stay up past his first nap. We also went grocery shopping so they would have food for most of the week, taught them how to take care of Buttercup, and tried to prepare them as much as possible while packing and not forgetting anything. The girls didn't have school on Wednesday, so I took them to their swim class earlier than normal, so they had time to play before and between the 2nd one I added. I didn't want to chance my parents missing the swim class because it is a tight schedule to come home from school and go to the pool. We have called back every night to say hello and pray, but it is so much harder to talk to them on the phone when they are distracted playing for the night. They say they miss us, but they don't want to talk on the video call! Now my brother and his family are in town and they are even more distracted on last night's call so I'm happy they aren't constantly feeling sad that we are gone.

Arriving and Mapping

We left in the morning for the airport at the same time as the girls left for school and had a full day of airport fun, finally making it to our resort and getting to our room in time for our call home to put them to bed! We walked around the resort a little to figure out where directionally things were with the provided map, and settled in so we could sleep for the night. On Friday, we did some exploring around the resort in the morning before going downtown for lunch and a Walmart trip for food and water to keep in our room. Chris and I hit the completely empty gym at midday and enjoyed all the machines to ourselves! A perfect time to work out is when everyone else is away. We visited one of the 4 pools in the afternoon, and realized how cold the water in most pools are right now, meaning most of the hot tubs are crowded. There are at least 4 hot tubs and so far they are been too crowded every time we try to go, but one pool close to the beach was warm enough to enjoy last night after wandering around to a different way to the beach on our evening walk.

Fishing and Boating

On Saturday, we all woke up at 5am to get to the docks on time to be on our boat and out in the water before sunrise. It was so beautiful and we passed by the El Arco de Cabo San Lucas with the perfect amount of light and no boats crowding around. It was gorgeous! We also saw a lot of sea animal life through the 8 hours of the tour with whales spouting and waving with their fins, a sting ray jumping out of the water next to the boat, birds flying in our wake, and seals and pelicans begging for our fish when we came back to the marina. We caught our only 3 fish of the day all before 8:30am and spent the rest of the time cruising around trying to get bigger fish, talking and laying down to nap for short periods of time. They provided snacks, drinks, and lunch for us that we didn't even finish because the waves of the sea didn't always sit well with my stomach. They cut our fish for us right there on the boat, and the extra bait became a fun party trick feeding the seals that come up to the back of the boat. Chris held the bait fish in his mouth just like the crew member, but I just held it with my hand, crazy boy. We then went to a restaurant right on the dock that cooked our fish for us in 3 different ways and it was delicious.

Relaxing and Enjoying

Another empty gym on Saturday evening after a nap was a pleasant surprise, when we had initially found the fitness center, it was pretty full, but both times we visited later in the day, it was empty. Our search to find a hot tub was a struggle because while we were gone fishing, crowds of college-aged spring breakers had descended upon the resort, and we were surrounded by bros that took over all the hot tub areas. I don't even think I would have liked to be around them in my college days, but we found a quiet spot in a warm pool actually. Sunday has been peaceful, despite the groups of people waking up at 10am after their first night of partying and being loud next door. We are going to listen to a church service from back home, take a long nature walk along the beach and over some rocks that was suggested to us. We are looking forward to the next few things planned for this week, so come back for more!

Happy Birthday Shay!

 Shay's Birthday

We had an amazing birthday for my special little Shay and I'm glad I could make it such a great day, it all started when they came home on Friday to a mostly decorated house. Per her request, she woke up and we made pancakes with chocolate and butterscotch chips covered in peanut butter, nutella, and powdered sugar snow. Then I convinced her to do her chores even though it was her birthday and she complained about it, and then we read some books. I gave her a Moana dress to wear for her party and we watched the first movie so she could act out Moana while they watched. They had lunch during the movie, and I left to get my parents from the airport in perfect time to come home and finish decorating. We had around 15 kids come, from her school, our neighbors, and church friends, and some parents stayed to chat and hang out too. 

It was a full house and luckily the day outside was nice and we were able to use the outside for after the movie. Each kid got a drink and filled up their tray with candy and popcorn, and plenty of kids got distracted and started playing with the baby toys in the next room that I didn't think to hide. By the end of opening presents, Shay was overwhelmed with all the kids trying to help her, so we moved onto cupcakes and ended up putting the toys upstairs and letting the kids blow bubbles outside. She even asked when everyone was going to leave so I'll know for the future to only do a two hour party instead. Afterward, even though I asked her where she wanted to go for dinner, she was more interested in playing with her toys and we had to convince her to leave. 

Claire

She was just as excited as Shay for the decorations on Friday, and to give her a present and watch the movie. Letting Shay open all the presents and play with them first was hard because she was really jealous of a lot of the toys. They are both interested in the same kind of cute girly things, so Claire wanted to open and play with them, and I had to remind her so many times that Shay gets them and will share when she is ready. There was one friend from her class, who is an older sibling of someone from Shay's class, that was there as well, so it was nice she had someone she knew. Luckily, Shay is good at sharing and has been able to share since there are some toys she is slightly less interested in.

Adrian

He is getting cuddly which is weird! I think it was because he was teething a little and feeling under the weather, but he was all over me and mad if I wasn't lying down to be crawled on one day. He only did one nap the day of the party, it was long, but by the end of the day he was extra tired and went to bed early, which means he didn't sleep in on Sunday and got tired at church...yay. My mom is trying to take in all the ways to take care of him since she is going to take on the responsibility to do that more while we are gone. I am a little worried he will be sad when I'm gone, but it's only a week and he is a happy boy, and whatever is wrong my parents can make him feel better. Luckily he has his sisters who love him so much and will play and keep him happy.