Our Spring Break 2013

We had an awesome spring break this year.  It was 10 days long and we loved every minute of it.  I was dreading the first few days of having all of the kids home with me while I was trying to clean up the house for our visitors to come, but they were all so helpful and it made me miss them this week when I took them back to school.  

Our visitors were my mom, dad & Talon.  They flew over Wednesday afternoon and it was so great to see them.  It seems like forever since we were with them for Christmas.  When they got here we went straight to Bass Pro Shops where Talon shopped for the perfect lures to use for fishing.  Not that he really needed any,  He brought enough for all of us to use for a year!  Rich and my dad shopped for a turkey call so that they could get us some food for our freezer and some feathers for our wall... garage wall! 

Then we went to The Dog to get some food.  We had never been there before, but were told that it was a great place to get a hot dog.  It really was pretty darn good and the corn dogs were beyond fantabulouso.  I will definitely get another corn dog someday, maybe after I have this baby, since the Baptist hospital (where I am delivering) is fairly close The Dog.  Then we drove to the Nashville LDS Temple to drop Rich off at his truck that he had left there because that's where he was working earlier in the day. My Dad and Jailyn rode home with Rich and everyone else came with me to the River behind the temple to see if the water level had went down enough to play in.  It is about 6 feet lower than last time we checked so it should be ready to go soon! YAYA!

On Thursday Rich, my dad and Talon left at 5:30 to turkey hunt.  The rest of us slept in until about 9!  It was awesome! We never sleep in that late and it was a great way to start off the vacation.  Then we got ready for the day.  It was raining all day so we decided to go to lunch at a mexican restaurant in Franklin called "Chuy's."  It was delicious then we headed back to our house so that Rich, my dad and Jailyn could go out for a night hunt.  Right before they left we heard a thump in the living room, my dad came back in with Braken who had some blood on the side of his head.  We checked out the cut and decided we needed to take him to the DR for some staples.  We headed in and they told us they wanted to do 2 staples but that they didn't have any medicine to numb the pain.  I was really nervous but Braken didn't even jump, cry or wiggle while they put the first staple in.  After they had the first staple in they decided they didn't need the other staple!  

My mom, Lauren and I went shopping for some pants for my mom and some Maxi skirts for me since my regular pants are starting to get uncomfortable when I sit down and I don't like maternity pants.  My mom was successful and I got some great ideas.  Then we made some really good Buffalo chicken sandwiches.  They needed more spice, but they were still good.  

On Friday Rich and my dad got up at 5:30 again while the rest of us slept in, got ready and headed to the river walk.  This is where the kids practiced their mile run for cross country and where we like to play in the River.  The kids caught minnows and crayfish to use as bait later in the day when we went fishing at our Bishops pond.  

Here are some pictures from the River walk:

    

 On our way to the Bishops pond we stopped at the Jackson Falls on Natchez Trace Parkway so we could show Grandpa the awesome water slide and let the kids have a little fun!

 Then we headed to the pond.  My dad found a fishing pole on the side of the lake that had been left in the water from someone else.  He was going to just leave it alone but then the fishing pole was got a bite that pulled it almost all the way into the water.  This huge catfish is what was on the other end of the pole!

 Then we didn't catch anything for a couple hours.  My kids were all playing in a little stream when Andi started crying.  Rich went over to check on her.  She had smashed her hand with a rock and her finger was broken really badly.  The bone in her finger was moved clear over to the side.  I was about to load everything  up when Dr. Grandpa Jim came over and had her move her hand and felt around the bone.  What appeared to be a broken finger was just a huge bruise on the side of her finger.

 (The picture honestly doesn't do it justice)

After that Talon started to catch some bass which was awesome!!

 On Saturday the boys headed out to hunt for their final time during this trip.  And they got one!!! YAY 

I don't have a picture of Rich with the turkey on the computer, but it was a pretty big turkey.  It was 21.5 pounds gutted and we got about 8 lbs of meat that we are going to marinate for the missionaries this week.  I can't wait, I've never tried wild turkey, so I am a little nervous about how it will turn out.

The rest of us headed down to Columbia to go to the Mule Days Parade, which turned out to be just kind of a dud.  When we were parking the traffic was insane, The kids all got out of the car and I told them to stay on the grass until I could get out of the car.  Braken started to run out in road so I slammed open my door and door dinged a car when they were driving past us.  I gave them our insurance information and went on our way. 

We left after about 15 minutes because we didn't want to be stuck in the traffic.   

We left and headed to Percy Priest Lake to go fishing for a few hours before we headed to the zoo.  We didn't have any luck but the kids still had fun.  

This is a picture of Braken focusing on putting his flip flops. I love his determination.

 And some other pictures of our day at the lake and the zoo.

 Sunday was our last day with my family.  We had a great day!  We enjoyed general conference, had delicious biscuits and gravy for breakfast, sweet rolls for snack and hot dogs and burgers on the grill for dinner.  I learned a lot about being a better mom and talking to my kids in a kind voice.  I need to work on that!  Everyone was so pooped in between conferences so they had naps.  Rich and Braken look like twins in this picture.  Their bodies have the same posture and position! I love Daddy/Son naptime!

 Lauren fell asleep on Grandpa Jim

 And Braken wanted to be cool like Talon so he found a ball to be his pillow.

 After Conference we headed to Williamsport Lakes to drive around and see some wildlife.  We didn't see very many animals, but we heard some frogs, saw a crane, a flock of geese and saw some fisherman have success!  My favorite part of the day and actually maybe the most memorable part of the vacation was when we stopped on the side of the road on our ride home to pick up a dead possum.  My dad has some flesh eating bugs that he uses to clean the skulls of animals for people and wanted to take a possum skull home with him.  We saw this possum on the ride to the lakes and decided to pick it up with a plastic bag and put it in the back of the van until we got home to skin the skull. 
Well it was all going great for about 15 seconds when the smell of the dead possum began to fill the van with it's nasty, dead animal smell.  The kids in the back started complaining as soon as we started driving again, then it got up to the middle seat where my mom and I were sitting then it finally reached my dad and Rich.  We were all crying with laughter and because we were suffocating in this smell.  The boys opened their windows and stuck their heads out until Rich found a spot to pull over and get the stinky possum out of our car.  We tied it to the top of the car, let the car air out for a little bit and started on our way.  It was hilarious and reminded me a lot of an episode of Duck Dynasty. 
Here is the clip.  Imagine this with 9 people in a minivan trying to escape as fast as we can!

Duck Dynasty Road Kill

My family headed home on Monday morning and we miss them so much already and can't wait for this baby to be born so that we can see them again! Thank you so much for visiting us!