Alexandria Trip 2019 - Day 2 and Going Home

As you may recall from my first post, EB had strategically set out eggs and baskets a whole day early for the kids ::wink wink::, so our second morning in Alexandria in our vrbo on Lake Mary, we immediately jumped into an egg hunt and eating WAY too much chocolate.

After the excitement died down a bit, the kids settled in for a little Netflix while I got myself ready for the day, and got their clothes set out for them to get ready as well.

Then, we loaded up in the van and headed into town to meet our dear friends, Karla and Morgan at Art Bar 39 for some fun times painting! Karla and Morgan used to go to our church in Windom, but had moved a few hours north, and were only 45 minutes from Alexandria, so I had asked them to come help assist during the whole painting process (because seriously - who in their right mind would handle 4 kids ages 20 months to 7 years by themselves at a thing like this?) It.was.so.fun! And I SO enjoyed catching up with where they've come in their lives over the past few years they've been gone.

The things I've learned while my kids paint:

• They are all very focused.
• Cashel is a major perfectionist like his Mama, and gets extremely frustrated when his ideas don't come out the way he wants them to on paper.
• Kendrick is extremely artistic and a deep thinker.
• Ryan is easily distracted and excitable, but LOVES to paint.
• Kinsley is also a thinker, but also does great with direction when she feels like it.
• I was highly surprised that no one got any paint on any of their clothes. I feel like they're not old enough to have reached that level yet, no?

So, after the painting thing, I was pleasantly surprised to find a bouncy house place had opened directly across the mall hallway from Art Bar 39, so my friends took the kids over there and let me go shop for a while by myself!

Meanwhile, the kids had a BLAST!

At the end, Ryan got a golden egg and had to go on a search to find the Easter Bunny loose in the mall :)

After the mall, we had lunch at Taco John's (and seriously - I think I should have 2 helpers EVERY time I eat out with kids. It was SO EASY!!), then said our goodbyes, and parted ways. I am so, so very thankful for these two, who reminded me that asking for help can be a very beautiful thing :)

When we got back to our vrbo, both littles were sleeping and both transitioned to their beds, so I took the opportunity to get the place tidied up a bit while the big kids played on the beach again. When I was finishing up, it dawned on me that the long list of necessary things to have done before leaving were, indeed, already done. On top of that, we had been planning to leave super early the next morning to make the 3 hour drive back to our home church before the Easter service there. Since we had already done the big Easter hunt and all that, and we were pretty much all vacationed out anyway (because seriously - with 4 kids so young, 2-3 days is about the perfect length for a vacation), I opted to start packing up while the kids slept, and be ready to head home a couple hours before supper time. I was just weary, no one had been sleeping good, it being a new place and all, and I didn't really cherish the whole thought of having to wake up at 4:30am just to get everything together, strip the beds, take out even more garbage and recycling, and all that jazz. I figured might as well get home, enjoy a restful night in our own beds, and get to sleep in and have a relaxed Easter Sunday at home.

And well, really - that's pretty much a wrap! I insisted on a little family picture together (which took about 20 minutes, since gathering 4 kids together and actually having them all look at the camera on a timer perched across the room is apparently akin to torture haha), and then we loaded up and took off!

I'll do a full on recap of the accommodations on the travel blog some day when I get more time, but it was overall a really great place for our family, and it was extremely accommodating! The view was spectacular, and the beach was really great for kids!

On the way home, we stopped for a picnic lunch in Redwood Falls

And just like that, our trip was done!

I'm going to say that I'd like to not repeat this kind of trip with kids at the ages they're at again. I love my kids, they're sweet, the place was great and all that, but it's just a LOT of work to keep kids out of all the things in a new place with only one of me and four of them. ESPECIALLY when two of them are old enough to know better but still too young to care. Just little things, like pulling out the whole game closet full of things and then running outside to play, or coming inside and throwing their stuff everywhere, or digging holes in the sand for their new pet frog or pulling out the games outside. As a single Mom in a place that isn't home that you have to leave in a few short days, ALL those things have to be undone while still managing 4 kids by yourself, and well...there's no time until after 10pm when they FINALLY go to sleep or at 4am before they happen to wake up. At home, those things would just be left until I got a free moment (or they went to daycare and I was on my lunch break), but in a place like this, it has a deadline, and it's exhausting. So...I was so, so tired when I got home, and it was such a good reminder that I need help to do all the things in life, and I need to stop trying to do it all on my own.

While we really do love Alexandria, I do think it'll be quite some time before we make a return trip. We've done all the things twice now that we care to do, and I'm just ready for somewhere new, I think.

Alexandria Trip 2019 - Getting in and Day 1

I'll start by noting that this is the update as far as how the trip actually went in general. If you're looking for things more like a recap on the home we stayed in or recommendations for the Alexandria area, you'll have to check out my Travel Blog that I tend to be a LOT slower at updating :)

The kids and I took a short little weekend trip up to Alexandria over Easter weekend, and had a pretty good time overall. It was just the sleep that was not so great, and the trying to keep the little ones moving as fast as the big kids at times.

Vacationing with 4 kids as a single Mom...it's not horrible. It's also not glamorous and wonderful. But it was a much-needed break for all of us, and a break it was.

The short list of things I've learned about traveling over the years are:

• Nothing excites me more than planning a vacation, even if it's a short one.
• Packing for any trip is my VERY least favorite thing.
• That feeling when you finally pull out of the driveway with all the stuff in your vehicle is a REALLY good feeling.
• It doesn't matter if it's just you or a family of 5 going on a trip: I always take about 12 return trips into the house to get that "one last thing" that I forgot. The number of random baggies of stuff and loose stuff all over the house makes my head hurt.
• Nothing makes you love your home like being away for a while and then coming back.

This particular trip, however, made that last one SO, so very true. See, when we left, our floor was only about 1/3 of the way done downstairs after we had some flooding. When we came home, it was finished, and we could finally move back into our space. But I digress...vacation recap, right?

We left after the kids got done with school on Thursday and drove straight on up to Alexandria with only a short little pit stop for the kids to go potty. When we got into town, we went on over and picked up a take and bake pizza from 2 Guyz Pizza, then found our vrbo place out on Lake Mary. It was SO perfect for us for the week, and we SO enjoyed our stay there! We basically just settled in for the night while watching a movie and eating pizza together, although the big boys explored the beach area a little bit as the sun set before the pizza was ready, and Kinsley and I got the bags brought in.

The owners were so thoughtful and had put together a sweet little Easter basket for the kids with some goodies in it.

Before we knew it, the pizza was ready, and we were all so hungry that it didn't take long to demolish it!

Sunsets here were so beautiful!

We had gotten in late, and they went to bed late, and Kinsley kept coming out of her room (since the door handles of that style where she can do that, unlike at home), and it was just a lot of work to just...get to sleep. I usually like to have an hour or two at the end of the night to wind down too, so I stayed up way too late, and then...BAM - 6am wake up for these kids. So...I was TIRED that first morning. But no worries...miss Jo Pants was ready for the day.

Toddlers, man...toddlers.

We spent most of the morning just hanging around the home, eating doughnuts and fruit and sipping on coffee for Mama. The kids enjoyed the beach for a while as well.

I don't post many of these "the kids stole my camera" type pictures, but this one made me laugh. This is the face I make when they're doing something they're not supposed to be doing. The "You know you're in trouble" face.

We were bummed that we were just slightly too early in the season to do any fishing, since there was too little ice for ice fishing, but too much ice for putting the dock in. The kids made the best of it anyway and tossed thin pieces of ice onto the other ice, shattering it.

After a while, we all got dressed for the day and headed into town to get me some legit coffee (thanks for the Starbucks gift card from my birthday in October, Dad and Pam!) and then made our way over to Noonan Park to check it out.

The consensus: Disappointing, but still entertaining. I was anticipating this kind of scenario like from 3 years ago:

But instead, we had a solitary family of ducks, zero geese, and a whole lot of snow and mud :(

Jo Pants was still highly entertained by all the "birdies, Mama".

Sometimes I don't understand how on earth God felt I was special enough to entrust these babies to me. This one sometimes slips through the cracks since he's so capable these days. He's a really, really good kid :)

Try as you may, there is pretty much no way of keeping this kid from large sticks lol

I just seriously adore my little people :)

I am so nervous about when this one becomes a teenager. Oh my goodness - that smile and those eyes! Thank goodness she's got all those big brothers to protect her!

I have never seen a turtle so tiny before! The kids found this little one in the pond.

These 4 were being SO CUTE, and smiling SO NICE for my stupid slow phone camera (I had to replace the phone a couple weeks later), and, of course, by the time I snapped the picture...

Literally, wherever I am, this kid has to find me, climb up on anything he can to get near me, and play with my hair.

After the park, I asked the kids where they wanted to grab some lunch from, and I was kinda surprised to hear them say KFC. The closest KFC is in Worthington, and we've only been there a couple times ever, but KFC it was!

After lunch, baby naptime turned into nobody naps and everyone gets wild and crazy time. So...we headed out the back yard to the beach, pulled out some beach toys, and got going!

The beach time curbed their energy a bit, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that it felt like a bit of a waste of an afternoon for me. I was SO looking forward to sitting down with a good book while the big kids played and the little ones napped, but no such luck.

After the beach, we got all cleaned up and cozied up inside for a while.

By the end of the evening, with all these non-napping littles, let's just say it got a little bit whiny up in here, so when the sun set and they were fast asleep in bed, we were ALL a little grateful.

One thing I admittedly don't do well is play games with my kids. Mark was the one really into games in our family, but I never really felt competitive enough to really enjoy them. Of course, we'd trash talk and all that, but while Mark was REALLY competitive and into it and would be SUPER excited if he won, I was always just a little meh about it. BUT...apparently these boys are REALLY into games, and so I need to remember that after the littles go down for the night, especially on weekend nights.

While we were finishing up game night, the boys started talking about Easter, and how they wish the Easter Bunny could come a day early, since we'd be traveling on Easter. I took that as the PERFECT opportunity to knock one thing off my "to do" list for the morning we'd be leaving, and decided to call EB in for a special favor. So...I put the boys to bed, then assisted EB in his egg endeavor.

That's as much as I can possibly say about Day 1, right? Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it, honestly ;) Stay tuned for Day 2!