Kids had two weeks off for spring break.
Almost 3 weeks. Before spring break they had a week of short days for the end of trimester and conferences. I took the gas sipper and picked them up every day on my lunch break.
First week of spring break we sent them off with our parents. Dh's parents had come up for St. Patty's day dinner. So we sent the kids home with them. We picked them up on Easter. Their summer is so short and everyone's always made other plans by then anyway. It's been good to have some forced time with grandparents and cousins. My dad took BM camping for a few days.
I barely saw dh. (Though we did have one nice date night). He just had his own things. After we made arrangements for kids, like the Friday before break, his work said he could/should take time off to be with his kids. I am sure if they were younger he could have just taken the time off. Plus it was really slow. As is, dh told them that he didn't have the kids and he did go to work. I think that week they just told him to take Friday off and he might have left early one day for a free movie. But the following week was really slow (though it was supposed to be busy?) It worked out since the kids were home. Monday through Wednesday I just drove home at lunch time to break up their day a bit and check on things. The kids can mostly take care of themselves. Thursday dh left work super early and I just happened to be having a crazy day at work and so I told him I'd just work through lunch. Then they were invited to a sleepover near my work so their friend dropped them off with me around noon on Friday and I drove them home. Dh was already home from work that day, by noon. They probably should have just told him to stay home another Friday.
It was nice the kids had the sleepover to break up the long week. We've never left them home quite that much before but it worked out to not being as much as we planned. OF course they were totally fine. It was good easing us parents into it. I don't even think we would ask our parents for help next time they have a week off. (Then again, mostly that is MIL begging to take them, since we don't need enough babysitting for her tastes. So she gets her wish for a bit).
One of the kids asked me what we were going to do for summer. They forgot dh has the summer off.
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Speaking of summer. I was technologically challenged and accidentally deleted my last post.
I think the jist of that post was that we were unable to get a free stay in D.C. this summer. Since this is the last family trip we are planning for the foreseeable future and I also don't remember the last time we paid for a hotel, we will just go with the flow.
Other than the big D.C. vacation, we are going for a very low key summer. BM had been taking summer programs at the college, but it's somewhat pricey and has always sounded way better on paper than the reality. I think he couldn't take any classes the year before last because of his Europe trip, but last year we tried again and it was pretty "meh". We did leave it that we would review the course catalog (for both kids) when it comes out, but unless something really *perfect* is offered we will just skip it.
I personally think summer should just be time to be a kid. Maybe especially because we expect our kids to be working in a couple of more years. & if we try to plan anything their short summer fill up pretty fast. So I am very happy for them to have a slow summer this year. It's something we have not achieved at all in recent years. Too many opportunities to take advantage of, usually. The year is young, so will see...
LM did love his drama camp and does want to do that again. $400 for early bird sign up. I expect extra-curricular expenses like this to dry up (or shift) as he will most likely be accepted to art/drama school. It will be interesting to see if he even wants to do drama camp next year. Hoping he can scratch more of that itch while at school anyway.
So those are summer plans.
I expect in the future summers we will try to work in some lower key vacations. Since summer will be the only time we can all co-ordinate. It would be a good time to do a Northwest road trip. & one thing I want to do is just rent a beach house or a house by Tahoe for the week. Something like that that I would rather do anyway but has been pushed aside by bigger plans. That's probably more fun to do anyway now that the kids are getting old enough to bring a friend along.
Dh and I want to do some road trips and hit the National Parks on our own. We will continue our fall break tradition without the kids. I am starting to consider the possibility that maybe we can even do some of this during this calendar year. Will see how the year shakes out. Right now it sounds pretty excessive with D.C. being way more expensive than we planned. But... I am very open to it if things go well financially this year. I can't imagine that a drive to the Grand Canyon costs that much, so I guess is why I am open to it. It just depends if we want to put it off one more year so we can do the whole big trip that we had planned to do initially. Or if I just want to get to the Grand Canyon once before I turn 40. (We had a big National Park trip planned in Fall 2013 but it got canceled with the government shutdown. Yosemite is the only National Park that I have been to).
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One more crazy thing about this summer. My eldest turns 13! I have been so future focused, thinking more about 16 or 18... It kind of took me by surprise to realize. 13!
What's crazy is that my MIL turns 70 the day after BM turns 13. It's going to take some time for me to wrap my brain around all that. I think this kind of freaks out dh and I because we both lost a grandparents around age 69. Just another reminder that our parents are getting to that age. The rest of our parents are a few years younger, but not by a lot.
Oh, that also reminds me. I really thought SIL would really want to go all out for the in-law's 40th anniversary, which is more the tradition in dh's family. We spent some years prepping financially for that and trying do plan ahead for our perceived income/taste inequality. In the end, SIL bought a $1.5 mil house just before the in-law's anniversary and couldn't be bothered to contribute one penny to that. Went the complete opposite way that I expected!! They've been pretty much "dirt broke" since. I felt kind of silly after all that. Well anyway, SIL did bring up (recently) wanting to do something big for MIL's 70th. Which I do not believe is a tradition in dh's family and threw me off. But... I also feel like that we will probably be more on the same financial page and so won't worry about it. I do think it's a good idea. Something we should probably think about more and plan more for as parents and kids get older. Probably more party throwing in our future.
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Edited to add: Kind of exhausted from the last few weeks. Probably especially since we spent all day driving and doing Easter festivities last Sunday. So not a single day off at home since the prior Sunday.
I so looked forward to a quiet day at home, but woke up with so much energy after having a really good night's rest and nothing on my plate for the day. So I asked dh to give me *5 minutes* to go through his clothes in our closet. It's mostly his professional stuff that he hasn't worn in 13 years. (& his wish is to never have to wear a tie again). But he also has piles of clothes from his mom that I know he will never wear. I don't remember what his excuse was, 10 years ago, for keeping all of it. But today he let it go very easily. He had no idea he had it or where it came from. Which is why I Wanted to be rid of it. Though the clothes were brand new and much nicer than the stuff I Remember him buying from the thrift shop 16 years ago... None of the gifted clothing were his style and clearly he never wore it. I am glad to let it go. We left it that since we have the space and he barely has any clothes otherwise, that we can just keep all of his professional clothing. But I said, "I am not keeping that if we move." He said, "Fair enough." (I suppose I should try to get him to purge some ties though, if he hates them so much).
Purged (all new with tags):
3 casual shirts (long sleeved, BM's size. But neither kid will wear long sleeves). I'd keep them for myself but I have enough clothes.
2 ties
3 work/button up shirts
6 pairs pants
Plus an old jacket. Dh made a comment a few weeks ago he didn't know he had that jacket, which is why I Wanted to go through his stuff.
P.S. We have since discussed the ties. He has maybe 6-8 ties hanging from one tie hanger. We decided to just leave it be until we are financially independent. (He'd maybe have to take a job with a nicer dress code if something happened to me, that kind of thing).
Spring Break/Summer Break
April 3rd, 2016 at 06:55 pm
April 6th, 2016 at 02:42 am 1459906967