April Break

This year we had such a great plan for April break.  It included meeting up with 7 other families in Pisgah.  We reserved sites and we were fired up.  But sometimes the best laid plans...... are just that.  Plans ..... and we needed to be flexible because sometimes they need to change.  As it turn out, the weeks leading up to our trip were cold and rainy here in VT.  Weather forecasts showed the same exact weather holding on strong over the Asheville/Pisgah area.  Families started dropping out on the plan in the days leading up to it.... One family decided to go to the caribbean, another decided to stay here, and another headed to Florida.  So, the rest of us decided to head south to Harrisonburg, Virginia and see how the weather panned out.  We packed bikes and camping stuff and headed south as we normally do.  First stop was Nana and Grandpa's.  

Next we stopped at Hester and Hudnell's for a night.  The weather was beautiful, so we left early on Sunday morning and made it to Harrisonburg by 10am.  John and I got to join some of the guys for a great ride.  We also rode the next day, but then the rain began.  At the last moment, we decided to change plans entirely and head to Hilton Head.  Sherry and George are wonderful about always making us feel welcome,so we jumped on the opportunity to be in warm sunshine and play with them:

Within an hour of being there, we were on our bikes at Pinkney Island.  We saw crocodiles and sand crabs.  John even saw a five foot long rat snake in a tree!

viewing alligators

A corn snake that John climbed upon

searching for crabs

The following day, George arranged for us to borrow kayaks from his friend George in Beaufort, SC.  We saw crabs and sharks!  We even got fresh oysters:

It was wonderful to be at the beach!

And Sherry took the time to go shark tooth hunting with us:

We also loved hearing my Grandfather's story that Sherry is working hard to transcribe:

On our way home, we stopped through Charleston to have lunch with Izzy Johnston and then had a wonderful night at Lindsay and Silas' house north of Charleston in Cross.

Exploring Charleston

Biking with Kai

Easter

John and I have mixed feelings about Easter.  We aren't really into the whole religious part of the holiday-- which is kind of what the whole day is about, but it is fun to carry on some of the non-religious customs associated with the holiday.  This year, we tried a few different egg dying techniques. One that Sherry recommended involved Cool Whip (instead of shaving cream because I feel weird about eating an egg that has sat in a soap like substance) and food dye. 

We love being able to ski on Easter weekend.  Saturday was a perfect afternoon.  The snow "corned up" and the sun was shining.

The Easter Bunny still manages to come to our house.  He drops off very nice gifts, but no candy.  He used to hide the dyed Easter eggs, but after Zephy went on her own hunt before us and ate most of them, we requested that he not do that. The kids were okay with that because we found another hunt to partake in.

Years ago, before I had kids, I was at Mad River when they had an Easter Egg hunt on the slopes.  I pretty much hate what Easter eggs promote.... in terms of competition and greed, but if we were going to have our kids do an Easter egg hunt, this was the kind of hunt I knew we could all embrace.

We got to the start, just in time.  The first half of the event involved following a giant bunny down the trail called Bunny.

Once the kids got to the Sunny Side double, they split them up according to age and sent them down the slopes to find plastic eggs.

The kids loved, even though the choice of using a basket instead of a bag was questionable.

We spent the rest of the afternoon skiing with friends, looking for corn snow.  The temps were a bit too cold for that, but we had a ball none-the-less.

We capped off the day with another egg hunt at the Mahoney's (with more candy) and lots of great food with fun friends.