Epic Spring Break Recap

I figure I should blog about the last week and a half since it went by so fast, I’m not likely to remember it a couple of days from now. Thanks to the Williamson County school schedule and my parenting plan, Hannah and Lily were with me for 10 straight days, from Thursday, March 29th, through yesterday, April 8th. As I mentioned in my last post, juggling time with the girls and time for work was a challenge, but, on the whole, the girls’ spring this year was a lot of fun. Some highlights:

Riding Bikes – As of Sunday, April 1st, my girls were terrible bike riders. Hannah wouldn’t go anywhere with my hand keeping her no-training-wheels bike steady, and Lily pitched a fit anytime I left her side to go help Hannah. Something happened overnight, however, because by Monday afternoon, they were zipping around an empty parking lot like old pros.

I was amazed at how confident Hannah became, speeding along without any training wheels or help from me. Sure, she’s still not great at making turns, but on a straightaway, she’s like lightning. That picture up above? That’s her getting ready for another ride. (Aside: I’ve decided to alter my no-online-photos-of-the-girls policy. I’m calling my new approach the Inception policy: You can only ever see the kids from behind and from far away. Here’s an example.)

Lily was confident, too–until she took a tumble late in the evening Monday and scraped up her knee. That set her back a bit, and meant that when we returned to the parking lot on Tuesday, she spent most of her time refusing to get on her bike while Hannah did laps. But with the help of a couple of new knee pads (princess-themed, of course), when we tried again on Thursday, she was back on her A-game, pedaling furiously around the parking lot like a cute, pink comet.

I’m so proud of my girls for learning to ride their bikes!

Radnor Lake – Spring is a great time of year to visit Radnor Lake, 747 acres of protected eco-system just within the Nashville city limits. Last Friday, I left work a bit early and took the girls there to get some more bike riding in. (The empty parking lot, while convenient to my condo, was getting a bit boring.) Bikes aren’t allowed on the unpaved trails at Radnor, but there’s a long enough paved trail that we had plenty to see.

The girls had a great time riding their bikes there, Hannah ranging far ahead (but usually in sight) and Lily sticking close by me as I walked. I had a great time with my camera, taking photos of all the spring foliage and the random deer that we spotted. Radnor Lake’s a great place to see animals, particularly deer. We saw several groups of deer at the edge of the lake and one deer only about 30 feet away.

We went back to Radnor Lake on Easter Sunday after lunch. I was hoping we would see some different sights by walking along the unpaved trails, but the girls wanted to ride their bikes again, so we stuck to the same paved trail. We went a bit farther this time, however, so it wasn’t a total rerun.

Both girls took tumbles this time, however, Hannah crashing in slow motion while trying to execute a u-turn and Lily running off the side of the road because she started having so much fun she forgot to steer. Lily’s brush with disaster was a bit closer, since the side of the road she tumbled off was the one that led to the lake. She was able to stop herself from going too far down the shoulder, so she stayed dry. The kid’s got good reflexes.

Dying Easter Eggs – I have to admit, last Tuesday was a pretty lousy day, right up until dinner. We went geocaching in the morning, but were 0 for 3 on finding caches, which was depressing. As noted above, when we hit our new favorite parking lot, Lily spend more time pitching fits than riding her bike. Plus it was in the mid-80s, which made for a hot day for both activities. I figured an ice cream treat was in order.

The girls vetoed Sweet CeCe’s, having figured out that store’s scam. (“It’s just frozen yogurt!”) However, we soon discovered that it was too late–Sweet CeCe’s had already put every ice cream store out of business. Seriously, Ben & Jerry’s, Marble Slab, Maggie Moo’s, and Coldstone Creamery are all gone. (A moment of silence, please. Or perhaps four moments.) I had heard about Ben & Jerry’s, but driving around and seeing the “For Lease” signs on the other three? That was painful. Not so painful that an Oreo-topped chocolate lava cake from Chili’s couldn’t help, but still pretty frustrating.

We were all grumpy for the rest of the day. (Looking forward to staying up late grading midterms certainly didn’t help my mood.) After dinner, however, we went about dying Easter eggs. As you might expect, this isn’t my first time doing this, and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. But Hannah had talked me into getting a tie-dye Easter egg kit this year, and, I’ll have to admit, it was kind of awesome.

You wrap a hard-boiled egg in a thin wet cloth, insert this combo in a plastic casing with holes in the side, then squirt the usual Easter egg dye into the holes using the provided dropper. The dye runs all over the wet cloth, resulting in really nice color patterns on the egg. I loved it, the girls loved it, and it made for a wonderfully relaxing end to an otherwise unpleasant day.

More Easter Fun – Saturday morning we went to my church’s “Eggspedition” Easter shindig for families. I got pulled up on stage during the program and competed in a not-so-challenging game show, winning a perky pink sunhat. The girls loved that.

What they didn’t love was the spiritually rich but candy poor egg hunt at the church. All the kids were invited to find one egg of each of five different colors. Eggs of all five colors were scattered all over the church. Inside the eggs were little objects that helped tell the Easter story. This would have been fine, except that at the event last year, the egg hunt involved a mad rush to find as many eggs as you could, with all eggs filled with candy. Egg hunts, like presidential primaries, are all about the expectations game, and this hunt failed.

I had tickets to take the girls to see Juggleville at Vanderbilt later in the day, but it was clear that I had a growing emergency situation on my hands. I needed to find a proper egg hunt, stat. I remembered that the Nashville Zoo was having an Easter event (one they dubbed the EggstravaganZOO, raising the bar on egg-themed event names for everyone else) and, luckily, we had just enough time to make the egg hunts for the girls’ ages. So we booked it over to the zoo, waited in traffic for 25 minutes since everyone else was apparently heading there, too, and made it to the egg hunt with just three minutes to spare.

I have a few shots of Lily’s expression as she looked over the zoo’s main field covered in thousands of Easter eggs. I can’t show them to you because they violate the Inception policy, but take my word for it, she was ecstatic. Both girls had a great time scooping up egg, and an even better time getting their faces painted after the egg hunts. We waited in line for 65 minutes (65!) to get their faces painted.  In that entire time, I heard just one complaint from them about the wait, so the butterflies they had painted on their faces were clearly worth it to them.

Sunday morning brought a visit from the Easter Bunny who, as requested by Hannah and Lily, hid candy-filled eggs around the condo. Then new dresses and off to church, like everyone else. This was followed by a simple lunch (just sandwiches at home) and an afternoon riding bikes at Radnor Lake.

More happened last week–including Lily’s trip to work with her daddy on Friday–but those were the highlights! It was an exhausting week (I fell asleep at 8:30 last night after the girls went to their mom’s), but a fun one, too. I’m so blessed to have had the chance to spend this time with my girls.

Image: “Open Road,” “Radnor Flowers,” “The Whole World in Her Hands,” and “On the Hunt,” all by me, Flickr (CC)