Camps+Sewing+Climbing+Surprises=Spring Break

Spring Break at the Ditto's house should go down as a week to be remembered. It started out with most of the kids doing a three day camp.

Alex and Nate participated in a baseball camp put on by the high school baseball team. Although they were not really together for most of the camp part it was still a bonding experience for the two of them.
Alysee and Coop went to a Gymnastics/Art n' Craft Camp. Both kids were in heaven having a morning filled with gymnastics lessons, making fun crafts, and running around having fun together.
Tyler did a cross county camp with the local high school track team. Tyler competed in the hurdles, 100 meter, and relay portion of the track meet. He did AWESOME!!
Thursday was a designated sewing with mom day. I had bought fleece for each of the kids to sew a little blanket for themselves. Each of the kids really enjoyed making their blanket.
Nate was quite the seamstress.
The final products! We have a movie night and all the kids loved snuggling with their new blankets.

Friday afternoon Birch took off half of the day and we all headed to The Feathers in Vantage, WA to go rock climbing.

Alex lead climbed the first climb to set everything up for the rest of us.
Alex on top.
Alysee was crazy good!
Check out Alysee's moves!
Chloe is an obsessive climber. As soon as she descends she asks to go again.
Proud Daddy!
Cooper was much more brave this time climbing. He was still nervous but it actually looked like he was enjoying himself.
Nate...he is passionate at all he does, rock climbing is no difference. He's like an animal.
Way to go Nate!
Birch got to climb a bit, belayed a lot, and was the designated...

toilet man. We seriously just bought this toilet set up to take climbing with us. Over the four hours we were climbing I think Birch had to help half of the kids go poop while hanging their little bums over a rock edge. We're excited to try our porta-toilet seat next time we go climbing.
Tyler is steady and muscular on the rocks. He loves to climb!
I climbed once but spent the rest of the time balaying, frantically making sure that Chloe wasn't going to fall off the side of the cliff, and feeding the endlessly hungry kids.

I made this fun movie with lots more pictures and video clips from our day climbing. It is about 12 minutes long.

I still think it is kind of crazy that we all enjoy this activity.

After we all piled back in the car we took the kids out to dinner at a nearby Mexican Restaurant. Then we did something sneaky...

I surprised the kids with the movie "Tangled"-- after popping it in the DVD player instead of driving home we drove to Spokane. Buried below all our rock climbing gear were suitcases and sleeping bags. The kids had NO clue!!! They had all been begging to go to Spokane and see their Grannie and cousins--Birch and I did an expert job lying and told them that it wouldn't work this Spring Break. We even decided to surprise Grannie too.

As we drove into Spokane only Chloe started to question our location. Are we at our house?, Chloe would ask. Is this **(our hometown)? Am I going to sleep in my bed tonight? Meanwhile the rest of the kids were glued to the video screen and had no clue. They were so excited when we drove into Grannie's house but were also a little worried about what they were going to wear for the weekend.

Birch loved holding his little niece Savannah.
All the girl cousins were in heaven together.
Chloe loved cousin Lucy.
Chloe was glued to Uncle Ryan and Aunti Blayre.
Blayre planned a super fun Girl Night at her house. Since the little girls were a bit too small to stay the night Blayre painted all their toes before leaving with the older cousin girls.
Blayre had such a fun night planned. The girls all made homemade ice cream, painted their toes, watched a movie together, and giggled until the wee hours of the morning. Blayre and Ryan are so much fun with the kids!

We all enjoyed attempting to watch General Conference together--always a challenge with that many little kids running around. It was such a special weekend!

I think this goes down as a Spring Break to be remembered!!!