Spring Break

Spring break is almost over...1/2 an hour left until bedtime!  We had a pretty laid back break this year.  Except for Kylie, who got to go to San Diego with her friend's family.  She'll be back on Tuesday, and from her nightly reports has been having a fabulous time.  The rest of us didn't travel anywhere, in fact, we didn't even leave the Island except on Friday.  I had thought about taking the kids to the Science Center in Seattle, but the day I wanted to go (Tuesday) is their closed day.  So we filled the time with sewing, playing with friends, going to the park, relaxing around the house, working in the yard, and on Friday going to "Glass Beach" in Port Townsend.  We had decent weather: a few days of partly sunny, partly rainy and a few days of warm sun.  

Jillian was bored one day and wanted something to do, and also wanted to go and buy a new church bag, so I suggested we find a pattern and make one instead.  My mom has tons of fabric scraps, so we went to her house and chose some fabric, then I found the pattern for this bag on line:

Jill made this one for herself...

we improvised the pocket inside to fit pens or pencils...

and this one for Kylie!  

They are very simple to make (if you know how to sew...fortunately my mom taught Jillian to sew a few summers ago, so she knows what she's doing) and only took us a few hours.  She did all of the sewing, I did the pinning and explaining of the instructions.  

We also went to the park a few times, once with Mariko!  We got to play with her for a few hours so she wasn't stuck at home with her new baby brother all day.  She wasn't too happy about coming with us at first, but we told her we were going to see Grammie and Papa (my parents) and she said, "OK!" and stopped crying.  We stopped by their house for a minute and fed the ponies some carrots, then went to the park.  Mariko loves to swing!

Ben and Tim love to swing, too!

And so do Kaylin and Jillian!

It was fun to have a two year old to play with at the park again!

She ran around the play structure for a while,

Then wanted to get back in the swing.

On Friday, we drove up to Port Townsend to explore North Beach, a.k.a. Glass Beach.  Apparently, this is one place Martha Stewart recommends for finding great beach glass.  We didn't find as much as I was hoping, but apparently we didn't walk down the beach far enough.  We went probably 1/2 a mile, stopping to dig through the pebbles as we went.  Apparently, you have to go up the beach three or four miles to find the really good stuff.  Maybe on a warm, summer day we'll venture that far!  It was a little cold for an extended outing, but we still enjoyed exploring.  

Jill, Russ, & Ada trying to find the first piece of blue glass...

Ben, Daisy, and Brad, trying to beat them to it...

I walked up this far...maybe another 1/2 mile past everyone else, but not far enough!  Next time!

The kids enjoyed playing on the cliffs, too.

and then we went to the ice cream shop in Port Townsend for a treat. 

Here's what I found...

Mine and Brad's mixed together and sorted by color...blue is rare and highly sought after!

And here's Ben's.

So, that about wraps up our Spring Break week.  The kids are not excited to go back to school tomorrow, but I am ready to get back to the routine, except for the waking up early part!