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THIS Spring Break
It just made sense.
Our 2-year-old son isn't fond of unfamiliar beds. Staying home would be easier on our wallets, too.
My husband and I made some get-things-done plans for the break.
On our to-do list: Paint some rooms, scour the kitchen and tackle the dust that had accumulated all around.
We all pitched in to complete the tasks.
Our son and 5-year-old daughter seemed to actually enjoy "getting" dust with a spray bottle filled with water. Seriously. (OK, they also enjoyed spraying each other. There are no Stepford children in the Baer house).
Our son got a kick out of using the vacuum cleaner attachment to suck up the dust behind our furniture.
Who says cleaning can't be fun, I ask you?
But this was a vacation, after all. We made room for more traditional good times.
We had take-out food native to a different country nearly every night.
Typically, we have family movie nights on Fridays. For Spring Break, every night was movie night.
We watched Benji flicks, "The Fox and the Hound" and "E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial." We saw the last film twice. My daughter was just as taken with the movie as I remember being when I first saw it.
We got out of the house some, too.
At Alum Spring Park in the city of Fredericksburg, the children collected interesting looking rocks and sticks and threw stones into the spring.
Our daughter had learned about monuments in school. We took a day trip to Washington to take in some of the sights.
We climbed the steps to the Lincoln Memorial and walked around the Washington Monument.
Our daughter tried to count all the flags that ringed the structure.
At the World War II Memorial, we tried our best to explain to her in simple terms why that war was fought.
We participated in a mild culture clash when we pushed our bulky double stroller into a tiny city Starbucks filled with laptop-toting college-aged hipsters.
A man in a dress shirt and slacks with shiny shoes ordered a "3-pop" latte.
Chocolate milks, muffins and a fruit and cheese platter were on our menu.
We munched while we strolled through a city park, playing "I Spy" to help keep the kids occupied.
I'm not sure where the 3-pop latte guy was headed that afternoon. He might have been on his way to an important meeting.
I don't know what he might have thought of our slightly ragtag family caravan.
But I'm sure that wherever he was headed, he wasn't having nearly
Kim Baer: 540/368-5028
Email: kbaer@freelancestar.com
