Spring Break 2010-Home Base

Since Jack was off track for the month of March, we decided to spend the last week of it up in Washington. Of course we made sure Deb and the kids would be on their Spring Break during the same time. Since it was the week before Easter we had to go without Eric :( We missed him and he missed us but he was working lots of hours at the store so it worked out well.

It made perfect sense. Last week of four spent with cousins...genius!

Debbie had lots of fun things planned to keep the kids busy and we always have our traditions to add to the mix! Since the weather was going to be yucky we had lots of indoor things planned. This post is in two parts, home base and out and about. We realized real quick that they really don't care what we do, just as long as they're together! These kids LOVE each other deeply!

The first full day we were there Kendall played school with the littles for several hours! They loved it and totally listened to her. She was completely drained by the end and Abby kept wanting to be the "teacher" the rest of the week.

Jack was really excited to play LIFE with them since he learned how with Der Der and Aunty Krista a few weeks ago. It's something I usually play with Ally and Kendall too!

The kids played A LOT of Super Mario Brothers on the Wii!!!

I mean A LOT!!! They were always very focused and very loud!

So much so they ran themselves ragged playing so much! This is classic!

They also played a lot of Rock Band 2! And by "they" I mean "we!" I brought it with me as checked luggage. Belated Santa gift that arrived at the end of January to our house, long after they all went home. We also played Beatles for the Wii and made a chart of all the songs we liked for various instruments. Nerds!

We spent many hours singing and playing our little hearts out!

Abby even got in on the action!

One of our traditions is to make and decorate sugar cookies. Grammy made 2 batches of cookie dough ahead of time and brought it over with a bunch of cookie cutters. We all get into it!

Dad got creative and made a few without cookie cutters. A cross and a Closet Tailors truck!

There was some random pull up bar of Ryan's that provided lots of entertainment!

And of course lots of hot tubbing! Thanks to Nana giving her hot tub to the Bromes :) Thanks Nana, we all enjoyed it!

We also had the tradition of dyeing Easter eggs. Again, thanks to Grammy hard boiling something like 6 dozen eggs!

Abby even tried to dye her egg yolks! Killing me....

She was a disaster by the end! Maybe next year will go smoother...

Because we were going all over the place, we didn't get to frost and decorate our cookies for several days after we made them! Sheesh! It almost didn't happen we were so busy!

The beautiful finished product! Lots of eggs, bunnies, butterflies and flowers :)

Aunt Debbie treated Abby to a manicure. The fine art of distraction that she's so good at!

We shared many meals in both kitchens and just lots of fun hanging out time together. The boys always slept in the playroom and Abby bounced between Ally's room, with Kendall in the basement or with the boys! She played musical beds! I stole Kendalls room so thanks Kendall!

On our last night there we had a fun campfire in the backyard and made smores! So fun and so yummy!
We're always sad to leave and think the time goes by way too fast!