Springtime in Reedville

The past couple of months at the Reed hacienda have been full of adventures, starting with a Spring Break road trip. We ended the week prior to the break thinking we were going to spend most of the week at home, but Kevin had some work come up in Houston, so we decided to go with him! Our first stop was the Downtown Aquarium. The kids loved seeing all the fish, but sight seeing after a four hour car ride is asking a little much. Jackson refused to get within five feet of the giant shark, but Sadie thought it was pretty great. This picture is my favorite, but I have one of her giving it a kiss.

We had a great time in Houston. We got to visit with some of Kevin's old friends, and the kids grew pretty fond of staying in a "hotel house". Kevin had to use the car for business, so we didn't get to see as much as we would've liked, but we had a great time at the pool!

At the end of the break, we made the trek to our next hotel house in Austin for the state basketball tournament--a family tradition. (Yes I love going. No I don't watch any games.) The highlight of this part of the journey was at the mall. Not a visit to the Easter bunny...nooo...we don't do six foot faux creatures (although the bunny was awfully cute and we did walk by many, many times to wave--from a reasonable distance, of course), so a picture from the adorable backdrop was as good as it got. But these same children--the very ones that refused to step into the Easter bunny's lair--LOVED the bungee trampoline.

Jackson has jumped at the mall in Tyler a few times, so as soon as he saw the set up, he started begging Nannie to let him jump (yeah, like begging was even remotely necessary). Sadie kept saying, "I jump too!!" So we let Sadie go first. She's jumped before too, but the guy at this particular place was pretty tame. She loved it all the same...until she saw Jackson jump. As soon as Sadie finished the man running the show (who, by the way, spoke very little English and according to Jackson "didn't know how to turn flips.") strapped Jackson into the harness. Keep in mind that Sadie barely went six feet in the air. Jackson told the man he wanted to go high, and he got exactly what he wanted! (That railing is for the second floor of the mall. Please address all the "what kind of mother allows her children to be catapoulted fifteen feet in the air" mail to my mother. I was just the photographer.) Suffice it to say, Jackson had a blast. After seeing Jackson jump, Sadie was not happy at all. Not even a little bit. She wanted to go high too. And she let us know it. For the rest. Of. The. Day.

So I did what all good parents do. I bribed her. If she would be a good girl the rest of the day, we would come back and she could jump high. Jackson was totally bought in because he knew that if Sadie was getting a second round of jumping, so would he. Sadie was a saint for the remainder of our shopping excursion. When we returned to the jumping thing, she told the man herself, "I GO HIGH." And did she ever! People stopped to watch--and maybe call CPS--and she put on quite a show. She laughed and kicked her legs and was NOT ready for the ride to be over. We ended up jumping again the next day. Adrenaline junkies? Maybe. But we still didn't get near the Easter bunny!

Speaking of Easter...our Easter weekend was full of egg hunt after egg hunt, and the kids loved every minute of it! We started with Jackson's egg hunt at Sunshine Friends. It was so much fun getting to watch him have such a great time with his buddies. He loves school and all his teachers--especially Mrs. Kelli!

Saturday we went to the city egg hunt at the Van Oil Museum. The kids made a "fashionable entrance," and attracted the attention of their many admirers (haha)...that kid with his arm around Sadie? She had no idea who he was. (I did, and I figure he will either play professional football or end up a rock star, so I'm okay with her getting acquainted)...

Last year we were a little confused about what "eggs" to pick up (they only put out a few prize eggs...the rest are candy eggs and candy bunnies)...my kids are very literal, so the fact that there weren't any real eggs lying around caused a bit of a slow start. This year, though, was a totally different story! Both kids got a ton of eggage, and Jackson even came in 2nd for his age group (he was robbed in my opinion, but that's another story!). Both kids also enjoyed exploring the grounds of the Oil Museum with their Dado, who had a story about quite a few of the pieces of equipment!

Then came Easter morning. As you can see, Sadie loved her Easter basket! Jackson was equally pleased to find out that the E.B. somehow knew that putting Green Arrow in his basket would be a wonderful surprise!

We spent the afternoon and evening with family. We tried to take family pictures, but all my children were interested in doing was playing. So the more pictures we took, the more disagreeable they got! Finally we waved the flag of surrender and let them have their fun; oddly enough, those turned out to be the best pictures of the day!

We spent the remainder of the day hunting eggs, seesawing, and playing in the sandbox. The game of the day was called "let's see how much sand Sadie's hair will hold." She was as big a fan of the game as the boys, and it turns out her hair will hold a LOT of sand. Like, three days' worth.

But it was still a good, good day.