Spring Break

 We had a couple days eaten off of our spring break because of snow days.  So we had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday off.  Explain to me that reasoning!  To protest, I did not have them go to school on Thursday.  It was kind of fun to say, "okay, I'll take you to school" any time they  were whiny or told me they were bored.  Worked like a charm. 

Instead of going on a big trip, we did a few day trips.  First one being to the Battleship in Camden, NJ.  Our library has museum passes you can check out for the day that gets you into a bunch of cool places like this.  This has been on my to do for a while now, especially with how much Tommy loves the game and soldiers and battles.  (Gotta love that little spunky brewster hanging on the rail)

 Running to the ship...they were so excited! 
(Informational tidbits- it's the longest battleship ever built and the most decorated surviving warship in US history serving in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam)

 Big guns!!! :)

 Inside the gun turret

It was crazy learning about some of the missiles and how far they can go...scary!

 Nice view of Philly

 Mommy take my picture

 The prison down in the basement...Tommy's favorite part of the whole experience

 Seriously a fun and fascinating tour of the ship.  I asked the kids to put up two thumbs up if they thought it was awesome and Tommy says, "I wish I had three thumbs."
 

The next trip was to the Crayola Factory.  Or Crayola Experience as they now call it, since they have redone and added a couple levels to it (and a couple dollars too, geesh!)

 One of their new things was designing something on the iPad and seeing it pop up on the wall.  Little too digital for me...give me the raw stuff, the crayons, the paint, the mess.

 This was right up Kate's alley.  She is following in Rachel's footsteps and LOVES to color.  She's getting pretty good at coloring in the lines and even colors the entire background of every picture.  I never had the patience for that.

 Naming and labeling your own crayon station.

 So close...

 Nailed it!

 An entire floor dedicated to melting crayons

 Here are all the crayons we named.  Can you guess who named what?  My favorite is Jake's down at the bottom.  Clever name and a fantastic wrapping job :)

 On Wednesday we hung out at home and I watched these two cute girls.  I watched them a couple of times we had snow days as well.  They all play really great together, which makes things easy.  Plus I bribe them with a fun treat at the end of the day if everyone cleans up the messy house.

 I like this one because of Lily smiling at me back there

 On Friday we visited a mine...this has also been on my to do list, but I didn't know if we had one nearby until a friend of mine told me about it.

 It was a two hour tour, and a little chilly, which was a little too much for Kate.  The others did great!

 At one point the tour guide asked a question, what we think we should do if we were a miner back in the old days and we lost our light source (if the candle burned out).  Everyone raised their hand to "feel your way out" and Jake was the only one to raise his hand to "stay where you are."  He was correct :)

 The florescent rocks were really cool

 They had a full room full of these things

 Our tour guide, a real miner.

 Kids with cool rocks

 Not sure what they call this...cleaning the dirt off of minerals.  The kids LOVED this and Rachel and Tommy have both taken theirs in for show and tell and gotten great feedback.

Spring break was a great success!  Especially with how well this little gem did in the car rides and missing naps.