As evident by the title, it was a slightly crazy three days + Friday night. Most Friday nights are chill for us. We're all exhausted and we all choose to hang out at home, with friends and neighbors. Although, this Friday was not like that. In fact, the entire weekend left very little time for resting. The only thing that saved me was having Monday off because from 4 p.m. Friday to bedtime Sunday night, I was moving nonstop.
Let's begin with Thursday first. A no school day thanks to snow. Since it was event week, I had extra on my plate. Luckily, I was able to send the bigs up to the hills in our neighborhood for sledding and snowboarding while the littles slept. I got work done and the bigs came home just in time for hot chocolate and snacks. It was a win for all of us.
Friday night we held the Museum's monthly Try Day. It was a family Valentine's Dance that proved to be quite popular with the community. Luckily, I had my entire family's help from running the Valentine card making to making fresh cotton candy for visitors. I'm beyond thankful that they agree to help nearly every month.
Saturday morning I was up early to help promote the Museum's upcoming Summer Camps. Fun fact: I spent some of my time off in January writing the curriculum and lesson plans for the camps. The morning was a complete success and I had a great time networking and speaking with families.
From the camp fair, we grabbed a quick lunch, dropped Zeus off with my sister, and went North to Clear Lake, IA for a kite festival. I'm not used to our favorite little lake town in the middle of corn fields to be crowded with people, but the festival was so neat! The kites are huge and look more like balloons than kites. We also learned that the kites are flown by professional kite fliers (I had no idea this was an actual thing). After walking around the frozen lake and admiring each kite, we walked around the square, grabbed cookies and coffee from a local shop, and grabbed a drink at one of our favorite breweries, Lake Time.
We weren't quite ready for the day to be done and felt we needed some more time in nature (that was less crowded). We went twenty minutes east to Mason City, IA and hiked at Lime Creek Nature Center. AllTrails made it seem that there were only a couple of trails to choose from, but we were thrilled to find an extensive, winding trail system throughout the area, as well as a paved path that is part of the city's bike trail.
favorite part was coming across an old brewery from the prohibition era. The mini's favorite part was the trail beinMy g covered in ice, so they got to "ice skate" through the 2 mile hike. That was not a favorite part of mine since I failed to bring my ice cleats. Oops!
Sunday was reserved for running errands, cleaning, laundry, homework, all the usual things we have to fit into one day. The middle one has been asking for a pink pineapple for weeks and we finally found one. For $10. Expensive, but it made a twelve year old stupidly happy, so that was worth it.
I had Monday off for an appointment and to take my kids to and from school. I was able to have a couple of free hours in the afternoon and picked up Crumbl Cookies for carpool. Also expensive and it also made the kids stupidly happy. Again, worth the money.
It was another day of nonstop movement, but I made time to also prep for Fat Tuesday. We celebrated at daycare and in the evening. Once again, for the fourth (or maybe fifth) year in a row, the middle mini got the King Cake baby!
