An Actual Vacation!

Weeks ago Brent pitched the idea of going to my sister's house for an actual vacation and spending all our Christmas money for spring break.  Our whole ward goes there for spring break it seems like so we've wanted to go but didn't want to spend the money.  Brent found a deal where we could spend a set fee and do six different things in her town in three days for a significant discount.  I thought this was craziness and shot down the idea at first.  We have small children and a BABY!  No way could we spend three days on the run having fun without someone getting sick or breaking down from lack of sleep, Brent and I included.  But after a few weeks I decided to stop being a party pooper and give his plan a chance.  

So we went on an actual vacation and spent actual money.  Crazy, I know.  And we all survived.

First off... a picture of MC2 eating grapes.  Apparently he felt the need to horde them like a chipmunk.  

 The baby in her eye patch.

 The baby eating MC1's shirt.

 I don't know how they do it, but every time we have a baby BYU-Idaho somehow knows and sends us something.

 Kids posing for a picture.

 Brent's sister made this awesome present for his grandpa and we did our part.

 The Girl Child wants you to know this is her funny face.

And now to the vacation... Day 1 we drove up to my sister's and survived.  Enough said.

Day 2- The Mall of America.

Aquarium

 So excited!

 We saw the Octonot guy.  The kids have actually seen this show so they were excited.

 Their cousin had not but she loves any character she comes across.  She's hillarious.

 Jelly Fish

 All the cousins... well minus the baby.

 Family picture!  Its a miracle.

 Then for rides at the Mall of America.
The carousel was definitely the most kid friendly.

 The only problem with the whole family doing rides was the baby could not do any of them so one of us had to stay behind.  This is Brent and the kids doing the log ride.

 They loved it.  MC1 got freaked out though and decided he was too scared to do a lot of rides which was a pity because he was the only kid tall enough to do all the rides.

 We rode the carousel again.

 The Girl Child was not afraid of anything.  She did some super scary rides and laughed the entire time.  Especially this one.  We did the swings together and she kept screaming, "This is so great!  This is awesome!  I hope we don't fall!"

 She was pretty proud that she was braver than her brother.  I was too.

 At about this point in the day MC2 got sick of being too short for rides he wanted to go on especially the bumper cars and had a melt down because someone got in the balloon he wanted so the two older kids did this ride alone.

 Then since we could we did the aquarium again.

 On the way home the baby got fussy so I gave her a graham cracker.  She made a mess but loved it.  I don't know if she actually ate any of it.  She's not a big fan of anything but milk.

 Day three will not be shown in picture form because we went to the Water Park of America and I have to say it was my favorite day.  It was so fun.  We stayed from 11:00 til 4:00 and were so exhausted by the end of it.  The kids went on slides and floated a river and all kinds of things.  It was awesome.  At one point the baby pooped ALL over herself thankfully she wasn't in the water at the time.  Then GC1 got a bloody nose and their cousin puked a little bit.  Ah, the joy of having children.  I just took the baby to the shower and showered her off.  She loved it.  We handed out awards for best traveler and surprisingly she won.  I told the other kids that did not say great things for them.  GC1 came in second.  The boys should be ashamed, mostly MC1 because MC2 is three.

After the water park we went back to my sister's and watched Frozen.  MC1 said that was his favorite part of the trip.  I told him that next time we wanted to go on vacation we'd just leave him home.

Day Four started at the zoo.  We saw penguins and then the power went out.  It came back on a few minutes later, but that could have been depressing.

 This was actually GC1's favorite part.  Sitting on a turtle.

 The zoo was great, but by now I was feeling run down from lack of sleep and a cold coming on.  Although I was grateful it was only a cold because my sister and brother-in-law both got a stomach bug while we were there and by a miracle none of us got it.  Seriously, that was amazing.

Then we saw a movie at the IMAX.  I have to say I hate 3-D.  GC1 and MC1 loved it and kept grabbing at the screen, but 3D hurts my eyes.  MC2 didn't like it either.

The rest of the day we went to a science museum.  It was my least favorite part.  I think I was just too tired and it wasn't as kid friendly as the rest of our activities.  We did get to sit on a tug boat.

 MC2 spent the entire time pretending to shoot at bad guys and yelling, "EMERGENCY!"

 He also turned the telescope into a gun.

 The museum did have a mummy.  It was hidden in a corner.

 Then we tried to go the temple.  Thankfully we called before we went and found out it is closed.  Well, we tried.

Then we went home and hopefully we will sleep a lot.