Fall Break Memories

I've learned a thing or two in my years of teaching. The Friday afternoon before a Fall Break (or any break), you just need to do something like introduce the kids to Root Beer Floats. The brains are shut down. Make a memory, instead.

So, our Fall Break was kicked off starting Friday evening.

I did not have the most positive attitude going into Fall Break. I knew I would thoroughly enjoy the Purity Overnight with Firstborn, but it was hard to see almost everyone else on staff flying off to Ireland, Romania, Greece for the week. We were staying put. CC needed the week to regroup and work. We'd save the energy and money by just staying here.

Within the first day or so, the Lord took hold of my heart and changed my attitude about the week. Last Spring, I cleaned out many little kid toys from our enclosed terrace with the idea of  making it a teen hangout room. At the start of our Fall Break, I went up and scrubbed windows. I put down a rug. I sewed some pillows. CC got us some used patio furniture. Suddenly, the room that sort of always caused me to sigh became a room that everyone loved! It's warm and sunny and clean. I started going up there for my quiet time. The down time at home provided me the time in the Word and with the Lord to work out some things I'd been stuffing inside. It was wonderful to take my cup of coffee, my Bible, and my improved attitude each morning, with no real deadline for when I needed to come back down.

The funny thing was, the terrace became such an attractive place, everyone wanted to be there. There was almost always a kid or two around while I was up there.

In addition to that, we did some other fun things. One night we played Apples To Apples. I love love love this game and highly recommend it to families with multiple aged children. Big Ben really has no clue the context of his card and what the goal is. He basically just picks his favorite card each time. So, we save all our "Big-Ben-would-love-this" cards and play them on his turn. As you can see, it was a tough choice. (He is supposed to pick the most daring.) Football? Spider-man? Hammerhead Sharks? Wrestling? Buffalo? GI Joe? All of the above?

In addition, CC took the kids to our sporting goods store and bought a retractable ping pong net. My seldom-used, old dining room table became a ping pong table.

I offered each kid the chance to pick one favorite breakfast for me to make. This is something I miss doing now that I am off to school at 7:40 each morning.

I played around on my IPAD (as did every other member of the household). I am trying to win more colors on Draw Something, but my only reliable playing partners are Twinkle Toes (occasionally) and Miss Middler (regularly). I picked "Vegas" to draw for Twinkle Toes, then quickly realized I would never, ever be able to draw a picture that she could guess, especially considering she doesn't even know what Vegas is. So, I recruited CC to help me out. Here is his picture! (Anyone reading this want to play me???? MamaCampbell96!!!)

And we fired up the wii. Twinkle Toes was so dear to play endless games with Big Ben. One morning, he even went up and woke her up to come play with him. She was even sweet then.

And so, the break that began as a little bit of a disappointment turned out to be an absolute highlight for me. My husband and my kids and my God were far more than enough!