The Great Spontaneous Spring Break Mini-vacation of 2018

Due to a perfect storm of zero scheduled activities for both adults and children for three days in a row at the tail end of spring break, Nick and I decided to head to the Shenandoah mountains with the kids.  Putting the trip together inside the space of a few hours may be the best vacation planning we've ever done!  We rented a lovely condo in the Wintergreen resort area for two nights.  As an important aside, when we asked the kids at the end of the vacation what their favorite part of the vacation was, they both said "the condo."  As one of the two adults who had to sleep on the pull-out sofa bed, I beg to differ.

We left on a Friday morning and headed west.  Each child was allowed to choose what we listened to in 15 minute intervals.  Maceo, refreshingly, always chose to listen to the Ramona books on Audible.  Cassius, alas, always chose four songs from the Lion King.  Always.  For three days.  The Same Four Songs.

We intended to go to Luray Caverns before checking into our condo however, unbeknownst to us, Luray Caverns is quite the popular tourist venue and the line was just too long for us to justify waiting in in the rain so we continued on in the direction of our condo hoping other slightly less popular caverns would appear en route.  And, they did!  We detoured to the Grand Caverns, the longest set of caverns on the east coast.  The boys were very enchanted upon entering the caverns though, over time, Maceo maintained a very endearing sense of awe and wonder while our youngest slid down a slippery slope of distraction and a compulsive need to talk while our guide was talking.  And only when our guide was talking.

We walked through rooms called The Zoo and The Chapel to name a few.  We saw curtains of limestone (above) and cave bacon - very thin, striated pieces of limestone curtain.

We even saw The Rainbow Room (below) though I can assure you that nature did not create those colored spotlights you see below.

Day One was a success! We arrived at the condo after the caverns trip and the boys promptly passed out from fatigue.  The adults followed shortly thereafter.

Day Two.  The impetus for this spontaneous three-day trip really centers around a Facebook posting from some friends of ours who have a son in Maceo's class.  Last year, they visited Virginia Safari Park and the pictures they posted of their experience were fascinating to us.  Animals poking their heads inside their car, feeding animals from their car, and having parakeets land on their son's head in this large aviary. We saw those pictures last year and said almost in unison, "We must go there!"  So, day two involved a trip to Virginia Safari Park and allow me to say here that it did not disappoint.   

We bought several buckets of food to offer the animals from our car as we wound our way through this 140+ acre park full of roaming llamas, alpacas, watusi (think large cow with ridiculously large, no - Large - horns), Japanese deer, goats, elk, Scottish highland cows, and more just really, really wanting to put their heads in our car and eat from the buckets we were holding on our laps.  Nick's bucket was taken from him within the first 5 minutes by an aggressive bull.  Oh, how we laughed. But, in full candor, it was a nervous laugh.  And the boys were not comfortable with having their windows down yet.  It took us about an hour to wind our way through the park at around 5 miles an hour.  It had some magical moments in which we could almost forget we were in a car and this was a tourist attraction.  The boys were truly delighted.  

Check out this watusi!

After the car tour, we parked and explored the grounds on foot.  We purchased food for the parakeets - birdseed dipped in honey on a popsicle stick - and entered the aviary and promptly were descended upon by hungry parakeets.  Two landed on my hand right away and started eating (adorable!) and the boys nervously laughed as birds swooped down to eat from their hands, too.  

In the spirit of feeding animals, we went next to the giraffe station where, for two obnoxiously priced pieces of romaine lettuce, we could give the giraffe a snack.  Everyone in the family fed the giraffe and everyone was enchanted by its gentle manner, sweet, large eyes, and its sandpaper-rough black tongue.  

Back to the condo for our second and final night in apparently the best condo on earth, though, I repeat, did I mention we slept on a pull-out sofa and that there were some creatures in the wall that scritch-scratched their way around in those walls most of the second night?  We will never speak of this again.  

Day Three.  We check out of the boys newest favorite abode and decide to make one more sweep by Luray Caverns, though this time not to visit the caverns but rather to try out this three-tiered climbing structure that is not intended for the faint of heart.  It consists of a built-in belay system in which you are permanently tethered to the structure at all times as you wind your way through various high balance elements.  On a scale of fearless (10) and "Holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die-up-here!" (0), I'll fairly rate Maceo, Cassius and Nick as 10s and myself as a 1.  The boys loved it, though, and it was wonderful to see them gaining confidence as they climbed higher and tested the more precarious elements in the structure.  

As we drove home to the monotonous repetition of those damned Lion King songs, we just couldn't wait to be king! No, wait, I mean, we reflected on what a fun, spontaneous vacation we had, or, as Cassius would say, a vacation that wasn't "super dumb."  

This is really a thing, y'all!

When the boys have behaved relatively well each day, we let them watch 3 minutes of a video of their choosing before bedtime reading.  This treat has devolved into them instructing us what specific and exact words to put in the search function of YouTube (Momma, write "ginormous stuffed blue leopard chasing a warthog!"). 

I'm not quite sure how we stumbled upon the thing that has captivated them for the last month but I'm here to assure you that it's really a thing, it has a deep base of followers and producers, and I could not be more scared about the state of the interwebs and what interests humans when I watch this stuff.

What is it, you ask?  It's the cult of surprise eggs.  Seemingly relatively sane adults and sometimes kids record themselves opening all different sizes of plastic, playdo-wrapped eggs filled with the trending toys du jour.  The mystique in these videos comes from how quickly or slowly the treasures within the eggs are revealed, how well the person doing the revealing describes the features of the toy itself, and how long said person doing the revealing plays with the unwrapped treasures within the eggs.  Did I mention there is either full-on commentary in which every action the revealer takes is talked about while the suspense builds for the viewers or there is some chirpy, happy music playing and the revealer does no talking.   In no uncertain terms are the kids not captivated.  Maceo and Cassius chatter through each video:  Ooh, Maceo, I think it's going to be Lego Batman! No, no, wait, it's Spiderman - ooooh!

Maceo was so inspired recently, he came up with this.  Just so you can have a taste of the utter entertainment awesomeness that is going on in our house right now.

A Counting Game from Cassius

Each year, Maceo and Cassius's school holds a fundraising gala for which each class of each grade has to submit a class project to be auctioned.  Cassius's class decided, among other gifts, to make a 1-10 counting game showing all the kids in the class.  Can you find our crazy-haired monkey in this photo?

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

I recently sold some extraneous bike gear and after the last guy left, I walked back into the dining room where Kate and the boys were sitting at the dining room table. I gave $20 to Kate, and Cassius piped up in a sweet and polite voice, "Can I have a dollar, please?" "Nope", I replied. "I only have $20." "Can I have $20, please?" said Cassius in the same sweet voice. He's going to be rich, I tell you!

Two Slightly More Enthusiastic Gymnasts...

We've now logged four gymnastics sessions and I am excited to report an exponential increase in enthusiasm and ability.  Well, mostly in enthusiasm.

First, a proper warm up. 

And, oh, the tumbling!

And the jumping!

Black History Month

I picked up the boys yesterday, Thursday, at school. "Papa, do you know what boykati means?" I hear Cassius ask me. "Nope, what?" I respond. He then proceeds to tell me about Ms. Lucy, his afterschool care teacher, and how she got arrested for trying to drive a bus. I slowly realize what is happening here. First, Cassius is a talker as his grandfather will tell you. Second, he hasn't totally understood the story of the Birmingham Boycott and "Sister Rose" as Mace calls Rosa Parks. I let Cassius wind through the story, and then I add some facts about black folks being treated differently even though they'd paid for their seats, and how this was true in all places in the south especially--restaurants, stores, etc. When Kate comes home, I encourage Cassius to educate his mama. He trundles out of the room and into Maceo's bedroom where Kate is helping Maceo get his pj's on. "Mama! Mama! Do you know what boycotts means? Boycotts is when you are sitting in the back of the bus and you want to go to the front and you paid your money and you're black and the police come and they tell you to sit in the back and Ms. Lucy wants to be in the front and they say sit in the back. "'No!' said she and they put her in jail!" Whew! Inhale. Maceo again patiently points out it was Sister Rose and not Ms Lucy, and Cassius impatiently agrees and changes that detail and asks Mama if she did know all of that. He then rushed back in to our bedroom to tell me the story again. So, here's the third iteration of the story of the Birmingham Bus Boycott, as told by Cassius.

Two Reluctant Gymnasts

Nick and I determined that we lacked the creativity to get us through unstructured winter weekends so we pitched some ideas to the boys about Sunday classes we could sign them up for.  Gymnastics won by a simple majority and I promptly signed them up for 8 weeks of a Sunday morning beginners' class.  I'm almost certain I was more excited than they were as my elation over how tired this would make them and thus how great quiet time on Sundays would be for Nick and me weighed heavy in my mind. 

So, as we have read it's best to do, we started talking up the gymnastics classes leading up to the first class two weeks ago.  Both boys seemed excited and also eager to do a few practice tumbles at home to prepare for class.  Nick and I were cautiously optimistic about these obvious signs of interest.  As you may know, the Manolakos-Loewen children do not seem to have received the "immediately join in the group sports, woo hoo!" gene that their parents have for better or worse. 

We arrive at the gym which is inconveniently located outside the Beltway (sigh), and go in. Rephrase: we sloooooowly walk in, with each step getting slower as get closer to the door and my heart gets that all-too-familiar sinking sensation as I brace myself for the 1,200 pep talks I'm about to give to get these boys to participate in this class.  They are slow to take their shoes off, slow to move from one hallway to the next as we try to figure out where we are supposed to be, and they are even slower to enter the gymnastics equipment and floor area where the class assembles to do warm-ups.  (My goodness, young kids are flexible!)

I resort to what I know best:  bribery.  With the promise of a stuffed animal and McDonald's afterwards (do NOT judge this, please, please, please), I try to lure these kids onto the floor. Maceo has finally reached an age where he can weigh the pleasure of a new toy against his fear of joining, and, lo and behold, my bribery works!  He joins the class of four other girls who are supposedly aged 5-6 over whom he towers, he grumbles a few or ten times about how there are so many girls, and then the boy is sold on gymnastics. He does high beam. He does the trampoline runway thing. He does the rings and the uneven bars!  And somersaults! Oh, the somersaults! 

Sure, Cassius is not yet at this age of rationalization in which he can put aside his fear to gain some tangible rewards but Maceo cashed in on all the bribes and now happily sleeps with his new stuffed devil emoji.  Cassius clung to my leg during the whole session.

Flash forward to week two.  Maceo joins right into the warm-up and Cassius clings to my leg. My bribes still stand for Cassius and he assures me he will join after the warm-up.  And, he did! He jumped right into the group of shorter 6 year old girls and one tall Maceo and I slowly backed out of the gymnastics area to the parent viewing area where I should have been all along.  And, below, oh below!, is the proof of their participation.