Springbreak Vacation

I love Springbreak.  I just love the extra time I get with Emma.  The days can be lazy, and you can have different kinds of adventures than usual.  Or not.  I usually tend to be a stick-to-the-lazy-day-schedule-as-much-as-possible kind of person.  This year though, we decided to take a little trip.  We went down to Nauvoo and Springfield in Illinois.  I was there about 12 years ago, but Eric (and obviously Emma) had never been.  While living so relatively close we couldn't pass this up.  So we left right after church on Sunday.

Since it was Easter Sunday, I'll briefly share our morning with you.  I don't know why I wrote "briefly" because even if I wanted to drag this out I couldn't.  We really didn't do much.  Emma woke up, found her basket, rejoiced in its offerings, and went on an egg hunt.  Done.  We didn't dye eggs this year (this one is always hit and miss, mostly because Eric is the only one who likes hard boiled eggs in our family, and so we don't usually need lots of them).  We always talk with Emma about the true meaning of Easter this time of year, which happily she is old enough to remember from previous years.  That always makes you smile as a parent.  On Saturday we had watched the First Presidency Easter message to get us ready.  They always do such a nice job.  Some of the girls in primary sang at church, including Emma.  They did a great job.  Emma looked amazingly cute, but you'll just have to take my word for it, since I didn't get a single shot of her all dressed up.  Nope.  I didn't even think about it.  Awesome parenting, right?  That's what going out of town will do to you.  Oh well.

I got too much stuff to even fit in her basket, and this is not including the egg hunt finds.

In Nauvoo we stayed in a little cabin.  It was a replica of an actual pioneer cabin.  I think this was Emma's favorite part.  Within about 2 seconds of entering she had claimed the upper bunk as hers.  She had lots of fun playing lava monsters and trying not to touch the floor.  She also enjoyed playing checkers with Eric on her bed.

We did all the typical stuff in Nauvoo.  Toured some homes and saw some demonstrations of pioneer life.  While we were touring the Joseph Smith sites Emma saw a tiny baby snap turtle.  We made sure to not step on it.  I think of everything we did there, seeing the completed temple was my favorite.  The last time I was there, construction had just started.  It was magnificent to see it towering above the bluff from everywhere in town.  Just awesome!

Here is the tiny snap turtle.  This is a crack in between sidewalk squares.   This guy was small!

Emma's favorite thing in Nauvoo was the blacksmith shop where
she got a little horseshoe that you can see him working on.

Emma standing in front of the home of my third great-grandfather (her fourth great-grandfather).

Churning cream into butter.

Pretending she really needs to use the privy.

Awesomeness.

More awesomeness!

And the flowers everywhere were amazing!!

The next day we went to Carthage.  The Spirit is always so amazing there.  There just isn't really anything to say about it that will do it justice.  The word gratitude comes to mind.

On our way to Springfield we stopped at New Salem, which is a little village where Abraham Lincoln lived for about 6 years in his early twenties.  It's a cute little village that you can wander though, looking into the different cabins, seeing how things were in both the residences and businesses that were there.

And of course, it wouldn't be us without a complete breakdown at some point
into sheer sillyness!  Love these two!

This is what Emma was doing almost the entire time we walked around. 

While in Springfield we went to see Lincoln's home, his tomb, the Lincoln library (hardly spent any time there - not really worth mentioning anything about it), and the Lincoln museum.  We saw his home just before they closed the day we arrived.  Our timing was great.  We had just enough time to see it.  I had forgotten from the last time I was there just how high the ceilings inside are.  They throw your perspective of the size of everything way off.  Chairs look way too small even though they are sized to modern standards, and the bed looks too short for Lincoln to have slept comfortably in.

The next morning we went to see the tomb.  It was a little chilly so early, and Emma wanted to bundle up.  Right as we were leaving a worker went inside with a big fan.  Eric joked that he must have needed to clear out the smell of the decaying bodies.  Nice.  Very morbid Eric.

She's so cute all bundled up!  Love the bright colors on her.

On our way to the museum when we stopped for gas I decided to stalk Eric.  He didn't think I was really taking pictures, but ha ha, I was!  I love the look on his face each time he looked at me wondering what I was doing.  Hey, gotta keep myself entertained somehow!  It's okay - you can think I'm weird.  Eric sure does!

And then, while driving down one of the roads, we noticed that the dashed white painted lines in the middle of the street were very crooked.  Actually, they all seemed to go in a slightly different direction.  Maybe someone drunk painted them?

I dont' know if you can see it well enough in this picture, but the white lines really are crooked!

Once we got to the museum, most places inside didn't allow photography, but the entrances to the two exhibits were pretty cool.  The first one was a replica of the cabin where Lincoln was born, and the exhibit took you through his childhood, and young adulthood.  The second was the facade of the White House with the Lincoln family standing out front, and this one took you through his years as President.  There was one other area where kids could play, where pictures were allowed.  And surprise surprise!  Guess what they had in there for the kids to play with?  Yup, Lincoln Logs.  It seemed fairly appropriate.

With her log cabin creation.

Dressed at Lincoln.

Our trip was short, but lots of fun.  We couldn't have asked for better weather, or better company.  I love spending time with my family.  And Emma is such a good traveler that she makes trips easy.  And the nice things is, we still had a few days of Springbreak left to enjoy after we got home!

Tae Kwon Do

I think I've mentioned on here that Emma has been taking some Tae Kwon Do classes.  If not, then let me tell you that Emma has been taking some Tae Kwon Do classes.  =)  She has been asking to do Karate for a couple years now.  And after the Karate Kid came out (which she loved!) she would've been fine with Kung Fu too.  Unfortunately the timing just never seemed to work out, or all the classes met several times a week which was too much for someone her age.

A church friend (seriously Julie, thanks so much for sharing!!) whose son takes TKD had some passes to try it out for 4 weeks and get a free uniform.  The uniform itself is $45 (for her size), so that alone made it an awesome deal.  I thought that since she's been asking for so long, and since this was sort of a non-commitment way to try it out, we would go for the 4 weeks and see how it went.  I figured we could make it work for that long.  Plus it would let us know if 3 times a week was a little too intense for Emma.  So we went.  She loved it from day one.  That didn't really surprise me.  Three times a week did prove to be a little much for Emma (one week she chose to stay home one of the days because she just wanted to have some time at home), so I thought the 4 weeks might be it for her.  A fun class, but now it's over kind of thing.  We were told we could just have her go 2 nights a week instead of 3, but the price wouldn't change.  Call me crazy, but I don't like paying for something that I'm not getting.  So I didn't like that idea.

Luckily the same school (and one of the 2 main instructors) also teaches a couple other places in town, one of which has classes only meet once a week.  Good.  I like once a week.  They meet for twice as long as the other location, so it's the equivalent of 2 of their classes.  But just once a week.  I can't stress how nice that makes it for us and for Emma.  She seems to like it much better this way.  The only downside is that by going longer in between meeting times with the instructor, you run the risk of forgetting or not progressing as fast.  So far this doesn't seem to be an issue for Emma.  She actually seems to be doing better here.  I think the instruction is a little more her style, so she follows it easier.  We practice with her at home during the week so she won't forget and can hopefully continue improving.

When she finally got her uniform, she was so excited!  She absolutely adores class (Can you say that someone adores TKD?  Those words don't seem to go together.) and as long as she's happy and having fun, I'm okay to let her continue.  I do love that she'll have the skills to defend herself as she gets older.  She is dang cute and Eric and I worry about boys (I should say inappropriate boys) in the future.  Eric always jokes that he's building up his baseball bat collection.  Maybe now he won't need to as much.  I just wonder how long before she cans start beating the crap out of us?

I love her face in this one.  It's almost scary enough to negate the need for the kick!

Sorry this one is blurry, and just overall crappy.  I took it with my small crappy camera that I've mentioned loathing on here before.  Anyway, I love how in this picture the other kids aren't very low in their stance and are kind of distracted or goofing off a little, but Emma is working just as she should be.  I love this kid!

This first video is of the class working on part of

their form for the next belt promotions.

This video is Emma practicing with some nunchucks 

(or Ssahng Jeol Bongs as they are called) for the first time.

April Fools Day

This holiday always seems to creep up on me without giving me any notice.  Every year I feel as though I'm rushed to figure out a trick for Emma to play on Eric, and then another (of course more evil and devious) one for me to play on him.  This year I was actually thinking about it several days ahead, but I still just couldn't come up with anything.  Sadly, I didn't play any tricks on Eric (which I'm sure he enjoyed).

Emma played one on him though.  We were having some mashed potatoes with dinner, so I had Emma take Eric an ice cream cone with potatoes instead of ice cream.  He, of course, knew what was coming, but as always, he was a wonderful sport and played along perfectly.  And Emma is so funny when she is going to try to trick someone.  All day long she had been telling him she was going to give him an ice cream cone, and she always seemed to have a wicked little smirk on her face while she said it.  Too funny.

Eric and I played several tricks on Emma too.  Ahhh, it was so great.  I didn't get very many pictures though.  That's the only trouble with pranks.  Having your camera out and ready to capture the moment usually is a dead giveaway that something is about to happen.  Anyway, onto our tricks.  1- Last night after she was asleep we went into her room and flipped her around so her head was where her feet usually are.  We moved her sheets too.  So this morning she was very disoriented.  2- Her bedroom door opens into her room, so we were able to stretch crepe paper back and forth across her doorway blocking her in.  She had to tear her way through to get out.  But first she tried crawling underneath it.  3- When she entered her bathroom and tried to turn on the light she couldn't because we had taped it down.  In the dark she had to try to figure that one out.  4- I drew a funny picture on the toilet paper that I had seen on pinterest (this one was mostly just for her entertainment).  5- Then when she went to go out, we had put a glob of vaseline on the underneath side of the doorknob, so it started smearing and made it impossible for her to get out!  Ha!  6- I had sewn all her panties together too, so that when she went to grab a new pair they would all come out.  7- And then for breakfast, we had filled a bowl part way up with water and frozen it.  We poured a little cereal on top of it.  When she tried to put her spoon in she hit the ice.

8- Later in the day I told her I made some brownies and asked if she wanted one.  She LOVES brownies.  Of course she said yes, while sort of freaking out with excitement.  She came into the kitchen and saw a pan of brown E's.  Her face was awesome.  To be fair I then had her help me make some real brownies for us to enjoy.

Our last prank was right before bed.  9- In a friendlier and cleaner spin on the bucket-of-water-over-the-door trick, Eric had propped up some pillows on her door, so when she went in her room they fell on her head.

I loved today.  I got so many eye-rolls from Emma.  And that's just about my favorite thing.  It lets me know I'm doing my job properly.  She did laugh at all of our jokes.  She seemed to love being on the receiving end.  Nice to know she can take a joke.