Surprise!!

One of my favorite childhood memories is when my parents surprised us with an overnight stay at a hotel. We thought we were meeting up with our dad for dinner, but my mom had packed clothes and bathing suits. It was so exciting!! So, naturally, I wanted to do the same for our kids. But... I'll let them tell you about it. Here are their writing assignments from Thursday.

Emma Hester, age 8:

For Easter, we went to Pismo Beach. We thought we were going home, instead mom and dad surprised us and told us we would go to Pismo Beach!

For breakfast I had three muffins: chocolate, blueberry, and banana nut. I also had half a bagel, a cherry pastry, some cereal, and apple juice. Yum!!

The activities were super fun! There was life-sized chess, ping-pong, and a swimming pool. My favorite was the swimming pool.

I liked Pismo Beach and I hope we go again.

And Caleb Hester, age 7:

On Easter, as a surprise, we went to Pismo Beach. Outside our hotel, there was a swimming pool, ping-pong, golf, and life-sized chess! This is what we did:

The food was good. I had two pastries, one muffin, two bowls of cereal, some waffle, and cranberry juice.

The activities were fun too. We went swimming, played golf, ping-pong, and life-size chess! My favorite was chess.

It was fun at Pismo Beach; you should go too!

It was a sweet time for making memories. The hotel offered an "expanded continental" breakfast, which, as you can tell by what one child ate for breakfast... was where we saved LOTS of money. We let them eat to their heart's content, and it gave them a good start to the day. I knew they had cereal options, so we brought our own rice milk and some other snacks from Trader Joe's. Ben and I tried to remind ourselves, that it was not a time just for "us." We really wanted to invest in the kids and spend time doing the things that they enjoy. It was not a "restful" trip, but it was lovely, nonetheless. But, as we have learned, with five little kids, there is no such thing as "vacation", only "relocation." hahahaha!! And what a grand relocation it was!