Ashlyn had only two days off for Fall Break, so we weren't really gonna go anywhere or do anything amazing. But then at the last minute I decided to take the kids up to Big Bear just for one night so that we could at least feel like we did SOMETHING. Paul was on mandatory over time so I knew he wouldn't be able to come, which was sad, but we are always grateful for how hard he works for our family!
It was about a 2 hour drive up there on a pretty windy mountain road and we found out, rather unfortunately, that Leah gets car sick. Luckily I had just told her like two minutes earlier (because she was telling me her stomach hurt) that if she needed to throw up, to do it into her blanket instead of on the floor. So being the smart girl she is, she did just that. A blanket is MUCH easier to clean than the floor of a minivan.
The weather was crisp and very cool especially compared to the high 90's we were still having at home so it was really fun to get to bring jackets and feel ike it was autumn. We first walked all around The Village, taking pictures with every scarecrow we saw, per Carter's request. There were LOTS of them.
We got some duck and bird food and went down to the lake to feed the ducks. No birds actually got any food. There were TONS of ducks and they were very greedy.
This one even knew how to beg at my feet. Hilarious!
We went over to the Alpine Zoo, which is a tiny little zoo up in Big Bear, but we got to see two presentations. One on the bobcat and one on bears. All the animals in this zoo have been rescued from either homes (where people thought they would make good pets) or from roads, accidents, backyards of people's houses when they got to friendly with people, etc. Basically all the animals there would have otherwised died or been killed if they were not at this zoo.
We had fun walking around and seeing different sorts of animals not really found in our own LA zoo.
For dinner we headed back to The Village for some yummy pizza. Even Carter can now enjoy pizza with us. So it's really getting so much more fun and easier to take them all out. Brandon is still working on his manners, but he hasn't embarrassed me TOO bad yet…well actually he has. I'm just forgiving I guess and keep taking him out.
That night the kids played games in the hotel game room and we watched some cartoons and called it a night.
In the morning we hung around the hotel, had breakfast and packed up. Then we headed out for a little more fun. We stopped at a Goldminers place and I let the kids pick out something to "mine" for. They all agreed this was their favorite part, which was good because it was FAR more expensive than it should have been for what we ended up with.
Lunch at Subway where Carter is once again enjoying something other than cookie letters and milk. Yahoo!
And then last on our list was a boat tour around the lake. I might have pushed them a bit too much because a certain 7 year old boy who looks rather cheerful in this picture was basically a HUGE grumpy pants and if it weren't for the fact that the boat wouldn't have gone out unless we were on it (they needed 15 passengers to take it out and it was definitely slow season at Big Bear), I might have bagged it and done something else….like go home. But we got on and while me and the girls enjoyed it, it was a bit too long and not entertaining enough for the boys.
But they did get to take a turn driving the boat and they all thought that was pretty cool!
After our boat tour, I was pretty much exhausted so we headed home and made it back by evening with enough time to shower and relax and then head to bed.
Ashlyn was back at school on Wednesday, so the rest of the week was just me and the three littles. We pretty much just hung around the house on Wednesday and recooped. I was going to take them to Magic Mountain on Thursday, but we got there and realized it was closed except for the weekends. Bummer. So we used our free mini golf passes and still had a fun day.
I even let them do a few arcades and we stopped for ice cream on the way home.
Friday was the hottest day of the week, so we invited some friends over and had lunch and swimming at our pool. Unfortunately, the pool is no longer heated so even though it was almost 100 degrees that day, the pool was pretty chilly and the kids didn't do a ton of swimming. But they still had fun running around and playing together so it was a good day.
And that's a wrap. Until next break…..Now, back to school!
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