Spring Break--Part 3, the Finale!

If you missed them, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our Spring Break Adventure.

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, so of course I woke up early to prepare a fabulous green breakfast for the family and prepare lots of fun Irish games for the day...NOT REALLY--actually I completely forgot about the holiday until my mom reminded me (which Riley and Kaiya were only too happy about, since it meant that they got to pinch me). My mom made Riley some green eggs for a snack and that was about as festive as we got (sorry kids, I'll make it up to you on April Fool's day---promise!)

Riley with his green eggs and no ham

Thursday afternoon Dr. Candice Park (now known as Dr. Candice Wood) with her mom and her new little baby for a visit. Candice was the resident doctor who took care of me during my pregnancy and who delivered the quints. It was so fun to see her! The quints especially loved the baby :-) (notice that she and her baby are wearing green and she even brought us green cookies---there is one mom who didn't drop the ball for St. Patrick's day!)

Kassidy, Ryder, Kyndall, Kaydence and Rustin look at baby Lauren while Candice snaps a photo.

After our visit with Candice, we headed out to the farm. My cousin's husband, Steve, is a dairy farmer and owns a small dairy farm out in Florence, AZ. I am not much of an animal person, so I really respect anyone that can do that for a living---especially in the Arizona heat! Steve and Kiera were great to give us a tour of the farm and let us help feed the baby calves.

Kaydence, Kassidy, Ryder, Kyndall, Riley, Rustin and Kaiya come face-to-face with the cows.

My cousin, Kiera, and her little boy Ledger

Kaydence, Ryder, Riley, Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin and Kaiya

Filling the bottles for the baby calves....brought back memories of the early days when I used a similar process to fill bottles for the quints :-)

Heading out to the calf stalls

My cousin says that this little cow is considered "perfect": black face, white stripe and pink nose.

This little guy was born only a few hours before we got there.

Feeding the calves (Note: this is a rare sight---my MOM is feeding the calves. If there is anyone who is less of an animal person than me, it is my mom!)

Front: Kaydence, Ryder, Kyndall, Rustin and Kassidy, Back: Riley and Kaiya, Driver way in the back: Dylan (Kiera's son and second cousin to my kiddos)

Friday was our last day in AZ and we went to "Makutu's Island", a big indoor playplace with crazy slides, tunnels, fireman poles, etc. The kids thought it was super fun, but some of the less adventurous ones wanted me to go with them on everything. That was when I realized I am not as young as I used to be :-) My cousins, BrieAnne and Kiera, met us there.

Makutu's Island: Kyndall, Kaiya, Kaydence, Ryder, Rachelle, Rustin, Kiera, Dylan, Ledger, and BrieAnne

Friday night we had dinner outside on the patio

Papa, Riley, BrieAnne, Kaiya and Mimi

The "Goodbye" picture---it is tradition at my parent's house to take a picture in this spot before leaving

Ready for the trip home.

The drive home went fairly smoothly. I came up with a new plan for rest stops and actually managed to shave 5 minutes off our stopping time!! (It's the little things that make life exciting.) At our first rest stop, the kids were happy and well-behaved. As we paraded in, I could hear comments like "Oh, how cute!" and "That is so adorable!". By the time we got to our second rest stop, the kids were tired and ready to be done with traveling---they were not happy or well-behaved. The only comments I got were "Oh, you poor thing!" and "I'll pray for you!"

All in all, the trip was a lot of work, but a lot of fun! Crazy or not, I am glad that we did it!

Spring Break--Part 3, the Finale!