Vacationing in BoyLand

So it's Spring Break for the boys, very late in the season although actually happening in Spring this year. :)
By the time they go back to school they will only have six weeks of school remaining.

This school year has quite literally FLOWN by for all the kids.
Kate has absolutely loved her first year of college. She wanted to stay in the area for the summer and tried to make it happen but it didn't work out. I know she will miss being there and hanging out with her friends immensely. That being said, she scored an awesome job in a field that she wants to hone in on and we are very happy for her about that! There is nothing like day in and day out experience to find out if this is something you might want to pursue for a career.

I can't believe that Chris and Trey are nearly done with their first year of high school and middle school respectively. All three of my kids had pretty big changes this year and they have all navigated them well.

I've taken Chris and Trey to the Shenandoah Valley for Spring Break. I found a great little house to rent for a little over $600 for five nights. Each of us has a bedroom, there are two full baths and a full kitchen for making meals. One of the bedrooms has an old school Game Cube, which I knew the boys would enjoy as well. They are up there right now, playing some Tony Hawk game and wiping out over and over again. There is much hooting and yelling going on!

I've got the week planned out and so far we have had an absolute blast. Yesterday we visited James Madison University, ate lunch at Cook Out (milkshakes! Cheerwine! GO SOUTH!!) and then made our way over to the house by around 4:30 PM. The boys helped me schlep stuff up the hillside (and I mean UP THE HILLSIDE. As in, first gear up and down the driveway, sweating bullets! The house is on stilts on a downward slope!) and then disappeared off to the stocked pond with their fishing poles. I didn't see them again for two hours! We went into town for a meal at a local place and I bought the last few items I would need for meals here at the house.

We were up bright and early this morning- much more so than planned. There are not light blocking shades on the windows! Today it was supposed to be rainy (there's only been mild sprinkles off and on though thus far,) so I planned for the boys to go to the Water Park. We headed over around 10:30, after a breakfast of sausage, cereal and fruit. Oh, and a Krispy Kreme for the boys.. Long Live the South! I dropped them off and headed into town to check out a Craft Market in Shenandoah. I had fun poking around and bought them a cool tube frisbee. Then, I found a wonderful little shop that was a "cannery" and OMG, the best jams, jellies, pie fillings etc! I bought a few things including four little sample jars of jam to play a game with the boys.

I picked them up at 1:30 and they piled in, all pruny and happy and ready for lunch. When we came in, I made two pieces of toast and cut them both into fourths. Then, we had a "name that jam" contest.  The four they had to guess were seedless blackberry, dark sweet cherry, seedless red raspberry and (the ace in the hole!) root beer jelly!! For the last one, they guessed pumpkin and plum. lol After that, I made a simple lunch of hot dogs (choice of plain, cheddar dog or cheddar chili dog), chips, fruit. Now they are happy playing the Game Cube for a while, before they had back for part two of the Water Park.

They don't want to know what we do each day, so I've been enjoying making a plan and plotting our activities for the day. The trick with BoyLand is to make sure that there is fun and active time each day. :)

We are loving Spring Break!