Spring Vacation Part 2

For the first part of spring break we went to Elsinore. We came home Friday afternoon, hurried and unpacked our bags, repacked them with warm snow clothes, and headed up to Duck Creek for Easter weekend. Jacob's dad and his friend, Blake went up Friday morning so by the time we got there they had the cabin nice and toasty warm for us. We had so much fun, we didn't want to come home. One of my favorite things was that I didn't cook a single meal while we were there-Blake did it all. And not just a bowl of cereal or something like that, but really good meals. I guess it's a good thing we did come home though or we would have gained a whole lot of weight!

We took the girls "snowballbilling" as Kelli and Laney call it. The girls loved flying across the snow, especially when they were driving all by themselves (with an adult on the back, of course!). Kelli's favorite was racing across the open meadow-change directions-race back. Laney liked zig zagging in the trees, and Makayla liked doing both. The girls didn't like wearing helmets all that much so the first thing they did whenever we stopped was take off their helmets and their gloves. It wouldn't have been so bad if they could have put them back on by themselves. As it was, I always had to take my gloves off, put their stuff on, then get mine tucked back in so I would stay warm. The picture of Kelli below is with her in the "ghost" mask. For the first few hours she wouldn't wear it because it scared both her and Laney. She finally realized how much warmer it kept her and then she didn't want to take if off. In the late afternoon Laney kept dozing off. At first she was on my snowmobile, but I had a hard time holding her on with one hand and steering through all the trees with the other so Jacob took her to give my arms a break. The snow was perfect for throwing snowballs-which the girls threw a lot of! We found some hills and also went sledding. We would sled to the bottom, then Dad and Blake would give us a lift back up to the top. Gee, I wonder why the girls never got tired of sledding!
On Saturday night we were visited not only by the Easter Bunny, but also the Tooth Fairy. Makayla lost yet another tooth, and the girls found it pretty awesome that both of them knew to look for us at the cabin. The girls were excited to find that several of the eggs that were hidden were filled with money. I think the Easter Bunny had a few extra helpers pitching in when it was time to hide the eggs. Each of the girls ended up with a couple of dollars, but since there were a lot of pennies and nickels, it felt like a fortune to them. It took forever to find all the eggs because there were so many of them, but also because Kelli and Laney didn't quite get that you could shake an egg and hear if there was money inside. Instead they insisted on opening each one they found, then putting them back together. I didn't get any pictures of Makayla searching for eggs because she was always in the other room and running so fast to find different ones I just never got her. Instead, here is a picture of her with her ice cave, as she calls it. Really it was just the side of the porch where snow slid off the roof. She did carve a few chairs, windows, and a slide into it though.



It was so much fun getting away for the weekend. Duck Creek is far enough away you feel like you are on vacation, but close enough it doesn't take forever to get there. This was the first time the girls ever went snowballbilling and my second. Jacob has gone many times in his life, of course, so sometimes while we took rest breaks he would go do his jumping and other crazy things. We can't wait to go again!