February Vacation

It’s back to the rat race.  Today I spent the day at the office, followed by a 3-hour class that I hope will help me successfully redecorate the family room.  When I arrived home at 9:40 p.m., I realized that tomorrow is school picture day for Norah, and she had chosen the fairy princess background and needed a fairy princess dress.  That’s one good thing about living where we do…I was in and out of Kohls literally 15 minutes later, with 2 dresses, a little white sweater, and 2 pairs of white tights.  I hope the fairy princess is happy.

On my way home from Kohls I was thinking about this blog post, and how I would write about the fact that we survived February school vacation.  But the truth is…it was actually enjoyable.  There were years when school vacations were tough, but this year was different.

I started out with a Moms’ Night Out for Elizabeth’s 40th birthday.  Anyone who makes it to 40 without going to see a bunch of drag queens strut their stuff MUST go to Jacques Cabaret, especially if they’re from Kansas.  The…um…ladies were hilarious, if a little scary at times, and were surprisingly good dancers and lip-syncers.  I knew I shouldn’t have let the kids see the photos when Norah told our tour guides later in the week that, “Mommy and her friends went to see boys dressed as ladies, but they still had man-voices.”  (She saw a G-rated video too.)

I can’t decide which is my favorite photo of the birthday girl, so here are two.

The next day Aliya had a soccer game at 7 a.m., and after that we headed to West Yarmouth, on Cape Cod.  I was a little disappointed with the hotel, but it was fine, and there was plenty to keep the kids occupied.  We went on a great tour of the Cape with Des and Terry of Cape Cod Scenic Tours, which I highly recommend.

The next day we met our friends, the Pearlmans, and went to Provincetown and North Truro after stopping at the Chocolate Sparrow.  Race Point Beach was beautiful and the kids used teamwork to roll a giant log back into the water from the top of the beach.  We saw a bunch of crazy young adults(?) swimming in their underwear, went to the library to see the giant ship, went to lunch at the Squealing Pig, and then to Highland Light where we almost froze our butts off.  Here are a bunch of pictures from the gorgeous day.

On the way home we stopped at Battleship Cove in Fall River, another highly recommended activity.  We got to explore every nook and cranny of a destroyer, a submarine, and several other boats.

I spent the rest of the week trying to catch up on some work, and then Aliya’s team won the championship, followed by my favorite Moroccan dish with Ben’s family and the Pearces, then a sleepover for Aliya, and finally a little housecleaning and a trip to the movies.  Hugo was AMAZING.  We packed quite a lot in, but we had a lot of fun.  I wonder what April vacation will bring!