Spring Break has a certain reputation. Insanity is a word that often comes to mind when discussing this last break before the end of a school year. It’s true. Everything you’ve ever heard about the crazy that accompanies Spring Break is true. I’d like to walk you through some of the events that filled this past week…our Spring Break. And just to give further context, this post isn’t even going to cover Easter stuff or the new counters we put in, or the girls’ Art Adventure. But we managed to cram in all of the following and are ending the week still happy. Maybe I’m more tired after my week off, but it has definitely been a good time.

Saturday

We have a lovely ornamental cherry tree in our front yard. Usually it’s the first to bud and bloom but this year it was the last. Which is completely neither here nor there. I’ve been neglecting it for years now and allowing vines to climb all over the bottom of it and up it. Well no more! I told Corra she could earn some extra money helping me get rid of the vines and weeds so I could re-purpose some bricks from around the yard and build a planter. A friend gave me some daffodils Friday so now I had a deadline. We started working and the whole family joined in and we finished the whole thing. It makes me so happy…especially now when Garyn just mowed the lawn. It looks lovely and was the perfect place to hide Easter eggs this morning.

Sunday

Sunday was Neil’s birthday dinner and he opted to make himself a Tres Leches cake. If you’ve never had one…first, I’m sorry. You should make one and fix that. Second, it is a white cake punched full of holes so it can soak up a decadent mixture of three different milks (hence the name). It turned out amazing and we learned a very important lesson about freeze drying deserts with guacamole. The Tres Leche cake freeze dried beautifully. And it also had a slight guac taste which was sub-optimal. Lesson learned.

Monday

You may recall our first annual Christmas Cookie Bake-Off between Garyn and Naomi back in December. Well, the little girls wanted a go at a baking challenge so I said maybe around Easter. Easter was rude and totally snuck up on me, but Corra remembered so bake-off it was. My mom came over to be a judge along with Garyn and Naomi. I was Corra’s sous chef for the making of the “Bunny Butt” Cookies. Neil was Layna’s sous chef and they made cookie dough roses. Both were amazing but so different there really couldn’t be a winner. They both won in their own rights. We are still working on losing gracefully and I opted to avoid meltdowns at what was otherwise a super fun evening.

Tuesday

In December we went mini-golfing at a cool in-door pirate themed place. That place was attached to an arcade and I promised the kids we would go back and play. I had planned on putting arcade cards in their Easter baskets but Garyn arranged to go there with some friends. So it was easier to take the girls then too. We learned some very important things: Layna loves first person shooter games and is good at Halo. Naomi loves ski-ing games and Corra loves fishing games. $10 is more than enough and I’ve still got it with air hockey, even if I did take it easy on Naomi.

Wednesday

Neil’s Birthday! Yay! He’s 38, going grey and that just makes him sexier. We went to a Brazilian Steakhouse up in Raleigh while the kids had dinner with my mom. It was fantastic and we ate all the meats. I am smitten. This guy is my whole world.

Thursday

This was a working day. Some young men from our church came over and helped us work on the garden wall we are building so I can reclaim our garden and make it workable again. I’m excited to have this space back and they were good workers who helped us make some serious progress.

Then my Dad’s trucks arrived! He is in the process of buying a super cool property down the road from us and will be the perfect place for indulging in his hobbies. Garyn’s already commandeering space for his future welding gear and grease monkey antics. The driver was a super nice guy and the kids had so much fun helping us maneuver these beasties into their temporary places until we can get them into the garage.

Friday

Grocery Shopping, counter work, house cleaning, Easter prep. Busy but nothing photo worthy.

Saturday

And we are ending the week with another day of pure insanity. But today’s madness will be highlighted in posts later on. Right now I want to go lay in a quiet room and think about exactly nothing. We had so much fun and once again I’m honored to be surrounded by this lot of monkeys on this farm with my bestie and soul mate.