Spring Break 2009

Spring break this year of course landed on the very same week that Ben had to go to Chicago for a week for yet more job training. So, to avoid killing anyone this week, I decided that we'd better try to stay busy. Here is how our week went:

Monday: Cypress Grove Nature Walk
We walked about 4 miles on boardwalk through a lot of marsh and trees. We saw two ponds, lots of bugs and birds, and no matter how hard we looked, we never did see a crocodile. (Bummer!) I wasn't a very smart mommy and didn't bring the stroller, so Jarom only walked 3 miles out of the 4, and mommy was punished for her stupidity by having to carry the kid the rest of the way. Good times.

Tuesday: Pinson Mounds State Park
We went to the state park that is full of man built mounds. Exciting you say? Well not really. We had fun climbing 72 feet of stairs to see what seemed like the top of Tennessee as you can see from the picture, but the museum was pretty lame. We had a picnic at the playground there, and I think that was the highlight of the day. The playground was in a wooded area that smelled like we were camping so that helped salvage the trip.

Wednesday: Memphis Temple Day
To me, the most unbelievable temple experience I have ever had. The stake R.S. provided a daycare at the stake center (in the same parking lot as the temple) so the moms could go. It was awesome to just drive up and see MY temple after passing by so many other churches. I am telling you, Utah gets a lot of flak for having so many Mormon churches everywhere, but there is at least 1 church of some sort on every block here. It was a fantastic experience, and DB had a good time, but JT did not. Momma's boy. BTW, the temple is 1 hour 15 minutes away.

Thursday: Jammy Day
We had every intention of going to the train museum on this day, but decided that JT needed a nap before we went. So, he went down and DB and I stayed in our jammies and watched a movie and hung out, and then JT woke up and we just never got around to it. At about 4:00 DB noticed that we were all still in our jammies and couldn't believe that we hadn't even gotten dressed yet! It was a nice day of lounging around with my babies.

Friday: N.C & St.L Train Depot
A very cool train museum that had WAY more information than DB ever expected to get on trains. The tour guide there was on fire with the spirit of trains and was talking so fast an animated that I could hardly keep up with what he was saying. I learned that Albert Einstein lived in Jackson for a while, along with Elvis and Casey Jones. DB absolutely loved the model room where he got to go behind the scenes and be the "conductor" of all these trains. There was also a train whistle attached to the flagpole outside, and he stood there and blew that horn over and over again. We are definitely going to go back.

Saturday: Dad got home!
DB's soccer game got rained out (again) so we stayed home and cleaned up after a week of NO CLEANING! We were all very glad to have our Dad home, we sure missed him! He went out the door to get something from the car, and JT about had a fit.

The best part was that all of these activities were free! We had a great week apparently because DB REALLY did not want to go to school this morning. Back to the real life, kid.