"Spring" Break!

For Spring Break in March, we went up to Chicago to visit Poppa, where we found Winter! Grandma and Grandpa came over from Michigan to see us too.

Despite traveling alone with 3 kids, electronics made it an easy flight!

We celebrated Poppa's birthday a couple of weeks early...

He was surprised! 

On our last morning there, we woke up to snow! Luckily it ended early, so we had plenty of time to play and clear it before we had to fly out that night!

And of course, the requisite picture on the couch before we left! 

August 2013: CA Vacation

On the very last week before school started, we headed to northern California for vacation. We visited Dave's grandparents in Sacramento and then went up to Lake Tahoe with Dave's parents.

Andrew was so excited to carry his backpack.

We are unabashed about technology use while traveling.

This kid gets extra screen time so he won't destroy his great-grandparents' house.

The girl in the yellow shirt is Maddie's future BYU roommate!

My former BYU roommate

North Star Resort at Tahoe

We went kayaking. So gorgeous!

The kids' favorite was rafting on the Truckee River. Even Andrew could come!

I love these trees! 

Why do they always pick the blue ice cream???

We hit up the Jelly Belly Factory on our way back to the airport!

April 2013: Disney, Monday

We started the day bright and early with a character breakfast at the Polynesian Resort. The kids had fun, and the food was delicious! They had a little parade and then the characters came around to each table. We will definitely do this breakfast again.

After breakfast, we hit up our favorite park: the Magic Kingdom! (Warning: picture overload!)

Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride

Swiss Family Robinson treehouse

Be Our Guest Restaurant

The evil emperor Zurg! at Buzz Lightyear

April 2013: Disney World! Day 1

So, Mumma died 5 days before a previously planned vacation to Disney World in Orlando. We shuffled a couple of flights and flew from Chicago to Florida on Sunday, April 21st. (Talk about an emotional roller coaster! From a funeral to the happiest place on earth in a few hours). That evening we met up with Grandpoppy, who happened to be at Disney for a cardiology conference. Since we arrived pretty late in the afternoon, we skipped the parks and went to Downtown Disney for dinner.

I can't remember what we had for dinner,but we had dessert at Ghirardelli, where I ate my feelings. They were certainly more delicious in ice cream form.

April 2013: What you do when your plane is delayed 5 hours.

The week Mumma died also happened to be record-setting rainfall and flooding in the Chicago area. It was also the week a friend of mine (who was in his late 30s) had a stroke, and there was an explosion at a fertilizer plant that took out most of a small town about 2 hours south of us. Yeah, it was a pretty crappy week all around.

From March: Galveston

During Spring break in the middle of March, we went down to Houston to NASA. NASA is located just a half hour away from Galveston, and my aunt and uncle took us on a tour. We stopped at the beach for a half hour, then went on a ferry boat and fed the seagulls. The kids loved it, of course.