Easter Vacation!

All my years growing up and all my years with my kids , the week before Easter (whenever in March or April that was) was called "Easter Vacation." Now the schools have "Spring Break" and each one has it at a different time during the season. I liked having it the week before Easter because Easter activites and family time could be a focus and of course, everyone's Easter vacation all around the country was the same week. It felt to me like the whole world was celebrating Easter and the return of Spring at the same time. I know there are good reasons to spread out time off and of course we aren't allowed to associate school time off with religious holidays anymore, but I have a lot of fond memories of Easter vacation!

Here is one memory we recorded for posterity when I was actually on the ball for a few minutes:

(When you see my kids' ages, you'll see why it was only measured in minutes.

Oh, and Dan was bishop too!)

Easter Vacation 1984

(Our kids were ages 1,3,5,7,9, &10)

"We had an extra fun Easter Vacation this year. We had planned several activities in advance, and I made up a large calendar for the week with each day divided into three sections--morning, afternoon, and evening. It was fun for the kids to see what was scheduled. I had fun too because I had scheduled some shopping time for myself. They all wanted to be sure to get to the library early in the week so we did that Monday morning. I also promised them lunch out so we did that Monday for lunch after the library. We also went to our favorite park. On Tuesday I took the four older ones on a GATE field trip to the Jalisco Tortilla factory here in town. The kids have been learning Spanish and Mexican culture. We also visited a Mexican bakery where we were given our choice of one of anything in the bakery! A couple of afternoons the big kids had an informal croquet tournament at our house with all the kids in the neighborhood. We rented a VCR and three movies for a couple of days. The movies were "Davy Crockett", "Pollyanna" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark." On Thursday Dan took the day off work and we planned a trip to two places we had never been before. The fun was that we didn't tell the kids where we were going until we were out on the freeway. All week they had been trying to guess where we were going. It was a great day! (see below for details) Over the weekend we decorated eggs and had a fun Easter egg hunt. The Easter bunny came on Saturday morning and we attended meetings at Church on Sunday."

The Mysterious Day

by Josh

"On Thursday, April 19 we drove to the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Oakdale. We got to go on a tour. My favorite thing was the big room filled with 58 vats full of chocolate being stirred. It sure smelled good! When the tour was over they gave us a free sample of their new chocolate and peanut butter egg. After that we went to the Mercer Caverns. It was sixteen stories deep and 208 stairs down. It was really fun! There were stalactites and stalagmites. They used lights to make them look colored. Do you know how dark it is when the power goes off at night? Well, when they turned off the lights it was ten times as dark! The first person to explore the cave had only one candle. It takes 500-700 years from one cubic inch of the formations to develop."

(Note from me: Dan carried MaryAnn and I carried John down and then back up all those narrow steps--I still remember how scary that was to this day!)