Sunday, April 10, 2016

Thankful for Boredom, TToT Week 147

Happy Spring?

It's technically spring.

Apparently the weather doesn't understand technicalities.

The weather is the opposite of spring.

It is unspring.

Despite the cold and the rain and the snow and the WIND, we had spring break.

Between the big Disney trip back in October and our need to buy at least one vehicle later this year, a "No Plans" vacation over spring break just wasn't in the budget.

We can't even call what we did a "stay-cation".

Stay-cations involve actually going somewhere and doing things around town.

We didn't even do that most of the days, seeing as how the weather stunk.

Instead, my kids were bored.

I am a big proponent of kids having the opportunity to be bored sometimes. That is when their creativity really comes out. That is when they do things they normally wouldn't do.

Bored kids be like...

Do we have ingredients to bake cookies...


I haven't played the piano in a while...


How hard is it to build with playing cards...


Remember when we used to play with cars all the time...


Hey, let's do an April Fool's prank on Mom and Dad...



I wonder what everyone looked like 4 years ago...


It's time the boys learned about the marvelousness of Anne of Green Gables...


Napping and game playing and walking to the nearby church to play basketball and kickball all happened, too.

On Wednesday, we did go see a movie. (As the kids have been reminding me over and over and over again the past month or so, we hadn't been to a movie theater since we saw Inside Out.) Big boys saw Batman vs. Superman and the rest of us saw Zootopia. We've been quoting that movie ever since (thus the unspring comment from above).

On Thursday at 2:15, chatting with my mom about the terrible weather, the inability to go to any parks to hike, and my promise to take the kids to Skyzone (basically a giant room filled with trampolines and foam moats) on Friday, I discovered that most of my nieces and nephews had spring break this week, too, and none of them were on vacation. At 3:00, the kids and I were packed and in the van driving to Louisville, KY.

We spent 24 hours visiting with family. My sister, my sister-in-law, and I joined the kids at the House of Boom (Same concept as Skyzone but better according to the kids), jumping and flipping and dodgeballing and laughing our full heads off. Seeing my prim and proper professional sister struggling to climb out of a foam moat was worth the price of admission. The only downside of the day was that my other brother's kids were in school and couldn't join us.

All in all, it was a nice, relaxing vacation. Lots of downtime we all needed before the craziness of spring gets underway. The next month and a half will be a flurry of activity, between track (Star), volleyball (Phoenix), baseball (Turken), soccer (Giant and Buttercup), all of the activities that go along with 8th grade graduation, and high school finals. Downtime is exactly what this family needed.

How has your week been? Have any time to simply be bored?

Link up or let me know in the comments!

Have a lovely day!



Ten Things of Thankful


 Your hosts






18 comments:

  1. ok!! cookies books and boys and.... and stickies!!!

    FRIST!!!

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  2. In my humble opinion (imho), all mothers should re-nuture and encourage their roadtrip tendencies, (I suspect that, for most of us, is there when young, but evaporates with the responsibilities of adulthood/motherhood.)

    long way 'round to say, 'excellent' staycation....

    (my compliments to whoever came up with the multiple stickie/streamer notes gag...)

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  3. Love the multiple streamers and stickies, and love even more the sound of Skyzone. If I'd gone with you I would have been in there with the kids :)

    We've had some really crazy weather over here just recently, all four seasons in one day last week, and horrendous hail and rainstorms on Thursday. Today is definitely spring-like though, with warm(ish) sunshine and blue sky so keeping my fingers crossed for more of the same at the end of the month when I'll be going back to the site I just went to for Easter.

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  4. Looks like you made the best out of a week of bad weather. It will change and the house will be quiet because the kids will be outside. I love your family.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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  5. Omgosh. I remember growing up two words you never wanted to say around my dad were, "I'm bored." Especially in Michigan. Especially in the spring and summer. We no sooner got the words out of our mouth than my dad would wave us out to the garage and one by one he'd hand us clippers, a rake, a broom, a shovel. You name it. Lol.. You'd think we'd figure it out but we never did. We uttered those words repeatedly but ya' know what? We had a great looking yard, and actually, a lot of fun just goofing around with each other, and bonus. We usually got a trip to get ice cream after. :)

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  6. This sounds like a great Spring break to me, some downtime for everyone, and some fun time too. A chance to catch up with family, and to reconnect with things that are enjoyed. It had to be refreshing in your very busy lives to not have to be somewhere! I hope true Spring finds you soon!
    Josie
    from Josie's Journal

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  7. nice and relaxing key words - my favorite - having fun with cousins and family always the best. Omg the April Fools priceless your kids do have great imagination.

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  8. What did they? How did they even GET them stuck on the ceilings? Wow! Now THAT is creativity.

    Love that you all got to spend time with family and exercise creativity and have naps and down-time. Sorry it's unspring :( Hope real spring comes soon and you manage to keep up with all the madness you have planned :)

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  9. I don't know...I think ALL of that sounds like a perfectly wonderful time spent together. It's unspring here, too, but I missed most of that being sick, so...no biggie, I guess! Zootopia was great fun - we saw that just before The Big Sick. I'm quite looking forward to introducing Zilla to Anne of Green Gables and the Little House books. This summer, maybe, will be perfect for that.

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  10. What was the premise of the april fools joke??? Ive read everything youve written for weeks btw but couldn't comment for some reason. Hopefully this isnt gonna hang up too but this is the farthest ive gotten to commenting in a while....just your site!???

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  11. We didn't do anything spring break, either, other than to stay at the lake house for a couple of days. And it was kind of nice.

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  12. Anne of Green Gables is fabulous.
    :-)
    Ah, a movie about talking zoo animals. What's not to love about that?
    :-)
    Those indoor play zones sound like loads of fun and a great way to spend a day.
    I don't really get bored anymore. Think that's a kid thing, for the most part.
    Glad you had some down time before a busy flurry of a spring season.

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  13. I adored Anne of Green Gables when I was young!!! I've heard Zootopia is an excellent movie, sounds like you enjoyed it! All in all, lots to be thankful for :)

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  14. Except for the fact that we get pollen I am enjoying the temps of our spring because it doesn't feel like summer. Sorry you had snow! Any parent who has a kid or SIX in sports, definitely needs downtime. The first Saturday I didn't have to get up was so nice, even though I got up anyway.

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  15. Cookies, books, road trips and pranks ... it doesn't get much better than that. We had a relaxing spring break, but it was more the girls needing to stop moving and heal, halfway through the soccer season. Here in the Carolinas, March definitely came in like a lamb and went out like a lion.

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  16. You had me at cookies!! Always a good thing during not-so-good weather :)

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