Spring Break wrap-up...

This morning I woke up with a smile. Not just your run-of-the-mill, ordinary smile. Oh no, my friends… this morning’s smile was a “Thank God that Spring Break is finally over, and it’s the kids’ first day back at school!” smile.

Don’t get me wrong… we had a great Spring Break. We had a blast. We took loads of pictures. We started off the first weekend of our break with packed suitcases, with excitement, and looking forward to spending time together as a family. But by yesterday afternoon, we’d had about nine days of almost uninterrupted ‘togetherness’. That was plenty. ;)

We left last Saturday for New Orleans, and didn’t get home until Wednesday. While we were there, we went to a crawfish boil, hosted by my sister-in-law’s family. Davis was in heaven and had a great time playing with the live crawfish beforehand (and I had a fun time snapping pictures of him), and then had no problem eating his new little friends after they were boiled (he is soooo his daddy’s boy!) It took the girls a little longer to warm up to the idea of picking up a ‘mudbug’, but even they worked up the nerve, being mindful of the pinchy little claws. However, they had to draw the line somewhere, and both stuck to eating fried chicken.

Afterwards, we went to a great St. Patrick’s day parade in Metairie, saw dozens of cool parade floats, caught hundreds of strands of beads (no exaggeration), a ton of stuffed animals, and enough heads of cabbage to make cabbage soup for a year (gee…don’t you want to come over for dinner?!)

We, of course, ate waaay too much while we were there (just about impossible not to whilst in New Orleans), but had a great time introducing the kids to some of our favorite eating spots. It took a little convincing, but I think they discovered that there was other food out in the world, other than pizza and Tex-Mex. ;) They tried out shrimp, fried oysters, crab, super delish po-boys from Mother’s, and their new favorite food… beignets with powdered sugar at Café Du Monde. ;)

And then once we got home, we spent the rest of the week playing at the park, going to the movies, hanging out outside, making a trip to San Antonio for Josie’s twirling competition…and yes, listening to the kids bicker in the van. A lot.

All in all, it was a fun spring break. We spent almost the entire week together, just the five of us. It was a good break from school and work and scouts and lessons and homework and all the ‘busy-ness’ of our everyday lives. But, like all vacations and breaks, it was time for it be over, and to get back on our schedule. Back to normal.

So maybe this morning’s smile was also a ‘What a great week of reconnecting with my family!’ smile. Well… maybe a little.

But for now? Well, now it’s time for ME to reconnect…with my nice, quiet house. ;-)