Wow, it's been a minute since I blogged. I guess as the kids become adults, this is basically mostly a 'what Corinne and Asa are up to' blog. Though, there are some Calib and Hayden highlights to get to. Peyton is still in the UK, but don't worry we have lots of proof of life pictures/messages. He's doing well- so well, in fact, he pushed his return date one more time- this time not until mid-June. So, we'll see if he shows back up then. Still, he's having a good time, and we've gotten plenty of proof of life pictures/messages. He's off adventuring, something I couldn't have done when I was 19 (you know, since I had Calib by then), so we'e pretty excited for him.
Back here stateside, Asa took a couple of days off because.. well, he had to. It was a use it or lose it situation, and we're not a voluntarily give up vacation time kind of family. It did allow us to finally hit Taco Tuesday at Stone's Throw in Tampa. They have $3 Tacos on Tuesdays, and I've been wanting to try them for awhile now. Shockingly enough, the fish tacos were my favorite. The cauliflower was also delicious, though the shrimp was a little spicy for me. The other two were ground beef and chicken, so kind of basic, but still yummy.
And, it's not just a good deal on tacos: You can also get Margaritas or Blackberry Lemonade for $5. I went with the Blackberry Lemonade, and I wasn't disappointed.
Stones Throw is down by Water Works Park, right by Armature Works, which is basically like a fun food court type place, but with better stuff than like pizza and tacos. We stopped by Bakin Babes for a Nutella Cookie and Buddy Brew for some Cold Brew.
And then we parked ourselves at one of the outdoor picnic tables.
After lunch, we took a nice stroll along the Riverwalk, something that's quickly becoming one of our favorite things to do in Tampa. We walked from Ulele
...Down to Curtis Hixon Park where we got a Whatever Pop. It's been a minute, but I still love those!
And then we continued down and made our way over to the Oxford Exchange..
We stopped by there to take a break in the air conditioning (It's getting hot here for sure!) and got some iced tea.
And then we made our way back through the University of Tampa.
And Along the way, we spotted a few gators.
When we got back, we hit the pool with Calib and Hayden, and played some Mario Kart.
And then grilled out for dinner!
Wednesday of course, we had Sur-FRY-vor. (Where we watch Survivor and Asa makes us French Fries!)
Thursday we took a bike ride out to Pizza Pie and got a couple of slices to go, we peddled back to the plaza just outside our subdivision..
And we were joined by a few friends. I love this time of year, when the babies come walking by.
On the way home, we swung by Dunkin Donuts for a few Munchkins
After which, we stopped by the pool.
I love the new little cabana things they put in. We really like the one on the right there. It's our go-to, unless someone beats us to id.
Asa and I also started the Lego Star Wars Saga.
And on Friday, we had a picnic lunch at our favorite cabana.
Saturday we watched Brentford with breakfast tacos. Because we're soccer (ahem football) fans now, apparently. I think it's an excuse for breakfast tacos, but I"ll take it!
We also had some errands to run, so we swung by Panera for free coffee and got some all you can Swirl.
While it's been hot, you do get a couple of days where it's still nice enough for the hammock.
And it was nice enough we could also color the eggs on the patio- by preferred method of coloring.
We left a few in the dye while we went to the pool just to see how bright we could get them.
Usually we have a big Easter breakfast, but besides me and Asa nobody is really up and around for breakfast (or sometimes lunch), so we had breakfast for dinner the night before.
Easter morning marked the 60 day window for Asa and I to book anything for Disney for our anniversary. We really wanted to get certain dining reservations (Here's looking at you Homecomin Brunch) and more importantly, the 'enchanting extra' of the Wild Africa Trek. It's basically a behind the scenes tour at the Animal Kingdom (You get to walk across the board bridge over the alligators and eat lunch in a boma on the savannah!) But, they only have like 12 people per tour- and they fill up fast. Luckily, we were able to get a spot, though not for our prefferred time. Still, reservations opened at 5:45 AM, so we were up really early... which meant we had lots of time to think about where to hide their $20 bill eggs. We hide some plastic ones, sure. But, everyone is out there for their $20 bill one. I told them for days- maybe even weeks- that it was going to be really hard to find them this year. (Peyton, however, got lucky and just got some cash venmo-ed to him, without having to find anything).
Anyway, this is where I came up with hiding Hayden's egg.
In addition to the $20 eggs that are specific by color to kid, there is a $5 golden egg out there somewhere. I put this one in a pillow cushion zipped up. Fun fact: this is where I wanted to hide Calib's egg, until literally the night before he said "where are you going to hide it? In the couch cushions?" And then I knew I couldn't hide his there.
Of course they each got their baskets too. We don't hide these- it's not that fun to do it, because they're so big, space is limited.
I also made me and Asa a little basket too.
While we waited for the kids to get up, we worked on our puzzle. We decided we missed doing them, and so we pulled out an old one (that didn't make the wall of puzzles, of course).
When it was all done we labeled the date on it, and decided once a year had passed we could do it again.
When Calib and Hayden finally got up, they got their baskets, and started looking for eggs.
We hid 31 plastic eggs, and told them whoever got more than half would get a hint about their $20 bill egg. But, Asa and I made these really hard too. They checked all the usual places and were then convinced we didn't hide any at all.
Despite the fact I told them nothing was in cabinets, closets/pantries, or drawers, Calib was convinced the rice scoop was an egg, turned the whole thing upside down and spilled rice EVERYWHERE.
Hayden was the first to 16 eggs, so he got a room eliminated. I believe we told him his $20 bill egg was not in the office.
Calib is generally really bad at finding eggs, but this year he was really bad at finding eggs. He even moved all the couch cushions around and didn't hear the $5 golden egg. Instead of a $5 bill in the egg, I put 5 William Henry Harrison bucks (gold coins) in there, so you could hear it when you moved the cushion. Hayden was the first one to find that one.
And then Calib spent the day looking for his egg. He found some binoculars, a rubik's cube, and his recorder from third grade.
Still no egg for either of them, by the time we got to dinner. We had our usual Low Country Boil for Easter Dinner.
The evening went on, with no eggs found.
Ellie was unimpressed.
Calib looked and looked.. to no avail.
By bedtime we were broadcasting the pet cam to our tv to watch him look.
He was unimpressed.
By Monday, we were on Easter Day 2. Calib went to school, and we took that opportunity to go see if his egg was still there, and he didn't find it overnight. So where was it? Well, you see that shelf? This is IN Calib's room!!
And there it is. Still there. So, we knew he didn't find it overnight.
Oh! But we did get a new router. Asa won one at work. Now we don't have to pay Spectrum for the use of theirs! Plus, it works way better. My Chromebook can actually get internet in the kitchen now!
Back from school, Calib resumed the egg hunt.
Asa and I headed down to the pool for lunch. And we had two things of note: Hayden is getting up later and later, so we have to leave him notes like this on the coffee, and check out the grapes I got for our picnic!
Monday evening, right as he went to shower, Hayden found his egg. Calib had actually located it a few hours earlier, but he knew it wasn't his, because his is the green one, and Hayden has the pink one.
Calib was then extra mad that Hayden had found his- but he still couldn't locate his own.
(Also, I inturrupt the egg hunt to bring you some cute puppy pictures).
By Tuesday, we were one Day 3 of Easter. While Calib obsessed over where his egg was, I made myself a pair of custom Guardians of the Galaxy Ears to wear, because we had gotten lucky enough to get Annual Passholder Preview Passes to ride the new coaster early! They came out pretty cool!
I did convince Calib to take a break from looking that day to grill brats for dinner.
But by the evening he was screaming about his egg again.
And by bedtime he was having a full on melt down. I will tell you- we offered several times to tell him where it was, but he always declined. He'd ask for more clues- and we gave him vague ones. Eventually we told him it was above waist level- then neck level- then head level.
Easter Day 4 was more of the same. He looked all day, and still nothing. The videos are actually way funnier than the pictures. By now, I had our entire cousin chat hangout invested in the egg hunt.
Easter Day 5-
Calib was wearing down. He said we broke him. I gave him one last hint, and gave him the step ladder and told him he'd need that to find his egg. He'd been through all the emotions. Lots of anger- screaming about where the egg was. Bargaining for more clues. Denial that we even hid the egg in the first place. And eventually Depression. By the time I gave him the stool, he was just sadly dragging it around everywhere with him.
About 7:30 on Thursday, Calib announces he gives up. I was sure he was going to find it, but he said he never would. To be fair, at one point he said he was going to look on his shelf in his room, and then I head the lego train fall, and I thought 'my gosh, he has it!' But somehow he missed it. Now, part of it might have had something to do with the fact that he's slightly color blind (especially for green), which might be something to take into consideration going forward. But, eventually, Asa and I showed him where the egg was. He'd reached the final stage: acceptance he was never going to find it.
It wasn't even that fun to show him where it was at that point because he was so frustrated at that point. He said he was going to have long lasting damage from the experience, and set a doomsday clock down to next Easter. Hayden said he was going to write a parody song entitled 'We Don't Talk About Easter', and Peyton, who got to watch the whole thing from a distance, found it hilarious.
I thought maybe next year I should just hide a bunch of really hard ones with $5 in them, and you find as many as you find. Calib might be good at that. He said he knows all the good hiding places, and was going to make a spreadsheet of them for next Easter. (To be fair, half the places he looked I was like 'Oh man, that IS a good hiding spot). It did take everyone a few days to find all the regular plastic ones too. Calib would just come to our room at night, fling open the door and throw one at us everytime he found it.
I did make some dirt to help cheer him up (and in honor of Earth Day). My mom was here for the First Day of Spring, and had gotten us so many other sweet treats, we didn't need it then. So, I made it for Earth Day instead.
And that's it for the Easter Blog!
Next Up: NFL Draft Day Pizzas!
