Intersession Activities

As I mentioned last time, the kids had vacation over this past Thurs - Mon/Tues. The boys got out of school early last Thurs. and the girls were off the whole day. Sara and Shifra went to Bubby's house to be watched/entertained by Elisheva who happened to be in town. I went to work. Friday and Shabbos were as usual. So the activities started on Sunday.

Sunday morning we took a trip to Ultimate Play Zone. They had open play hours for children 8 and under, which was perfect for us. We took Chaim Rosenblum with us too, 'cuz it's always more fun when you take a friend along (he's Julie's 3 year old). The kids all had a good time. It's basically one of those places with inflatables for kids to bounce on and slide down.

On the way home from there (actually, really on the way home from dropping off Chaim), we were stopped at a red light. Glancing out my window, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. Who do you suppose was in the car next to us? It was Shmuly and Avital. We rolled down our windows and had a short conversation. They were on their way to a museum in DC. The rest of our Sunday was pretty quiet. The kids played outside in the snow. After lunch we offered the kids a trip to the library, but they declined. So some of us went to 7 Mile, but mostly the kids just spent the afternoon at home doing whatever it is they do.

Monday was the day scheduled for the "big" trip. Unfortunately, Yosef was going to work, so it was just me and the kids. But we took along Bubby and Janice and her 4 kids, so we had plenty of company. And we filled up our entire van!! We drove to Pennsylvania, near York, and toured the Utz potato chip factory. It was a self-guided tour, where you can push buttons near windows overlooking the actual working machinery to hear about what you are looking at. And, of course, there were free chips. The kids found it interesting, although I think the littler ones (ages 3 and under) most enjoyed the long hallway to run up and down. I thought it was fun when some of the workers looked up and waved at us. Then we went to the nearby Utz outlet store and bought some more chips and got more free chips. Lunch was served in the van in the store parking lot.

After, actually, more like during lunch, we drove to the next destination -- snow tubing. A local tzedaka organization had linked up with the place so that some of the proceeds would go to the tzedaka. We had pre-paid for me and the older kids and were told it would be cheaper to pay for the kids when we got there. When we signed in, they told us there was some sort of mix up with the coordinator for the tzedaka org, so the kids could just go in for free. Can't beat that rate!

They had kiddie slopes, and that's where we started -- except that Bubby took Hadassah inside for some quiet time out of the cold. The kids had a good time, but the older ones wanted to try the real slopes. Eventually we split up and they got to do the big hills. Everyone had a good time. Sara Nechama's favorite part was an area near the kiddie slopes -- there were some large pipes covered with snow that the kids could climb over and through. It was a fun time, but I think next time we'll leave snow tubing just for the bigger kids. The littler ones ended up spending a lot of the time inside with Bubby and Hadassah.

Today was back to school for everyone except Sara Nechama. She spent the day at Bubby's again.

Now we're just wondering if there will be school tomorrow. It's snowing (again). I doubt the kids will complain if they get another day of vacation. And if I get to sleep in late, I certainly won't be complaining either.

P.S. If you read this, please post a comment. I get a kick out of seeing comments in response to my posts. Plus, it shows me that you've actually read it. You can just write that you read it or something like that. Or you could comment that my blogs are way too long. Actually, from what I've seen, most of you are pretty creative and could come up with something far more interesting than my suggestions, so I'm looking forward to lots of comments -- I think our record so far is 8 comments for one post (Tovey's iSenbloggers inquiry).