I have made it to the light at the end of the tunnel. After a couple months of running around in high gear, I've got a bit of a rest. Tonight, I've just been sitting on the recliner for the last few hours, with the TV on in the background, and being in various states of awake, asleep, and that zoned out place where you're kind of in between. So it's been a good evening so far (and it's still only about 8:30).
The last week before Spring Break was busy, with all the energy focused on a single task: Complete the annual reviews. I didn't finish that week, so I went in early and left late on the Monday of Spring Break, and then came in early again on Tuesday of Spring Break. I didn't stay late because the family was coming in that afternoon. So I stayed until about 1:00 and then left. That moment of leaving marked the first semi-real Spring Break I've had probably since graduate school. I call it semi-real because I was still checking email on my phone, but I wasn't planning on responding to anything during the day unless it was absolutely urgent. (However, I was still responding to email in the evening after I got back home.)
Everyone arrived safely, and got settled into the hotel. Because of the travel timing, everyone was hungry at around 4:30, so we walked down from GVR to Lucille's for dinner. Afterward, the kids all got dressed up to go swimming. The main pool closed at 5:00 (which we didn't know), but fortunately the jacuzzi was open, so at least the kids could get wet and do a somewhat pretend-swimming thing. (They're all too young to really know the difference. They got into water that wasn't bathwater, so that counts as swimming!) We did that for probably 15 minutes or so, and then went back up to the room. We left the grandparents behind at the hotel to make a quick run to the store for a few supplies (snack food, bottled water, and the like). Then it was back to the hotel for more hangout time. I think I got back home at around 9 PM. Half-day 1 with family was over.
The next morning, everyone came over for breakfast at my place. I decided to make breakfast burritos because they're pretty easy to make and the self-serve format allows the parents to pick out things for the kids that they would eat. From there, it was off to the Children's Discovery Museum. This my second time to the museum. It's not the right place for a 30-something single guy to be hanging out without being labeled negatively -- even though there's a lot of cool stuff there that I'd like to play with. The first stop was in the water area, which is pretty much an instant winner for the kids. From there, the kids kind of split up (we had a 6:3 adult to child ratio, so there was plenty of coverage). On the second floor, there was a fear exhibit, and I wish I had spent a little more time there. There was a scary noise room and Elijah seemed to get pretty nervous about it, which I found to be pretty amusing. There's another area of the museum that I called the corporate sponsorship area because it has a bunch of little rooms that are sponsored by companies like Jamba Juice and Wells Fargo, and then within each one there are some simple fun exhibits that have some sort of relationship with the company. Ezra and Elijah hung out in the auto area (putting the tires on the car and taking them off again). There was also an art area where I hung out for a little while. It's too bad that the kids weren't about 3-4 years older, because then we would have been able to do some things in the wind-tunnel area.
After we left there, we picked up a quick lunch at a sandwich place and then it was back to the hotel. There was a little bit of napping in the car, but when we got into the hotel I believe it was a pretty quick turnaround to going to the pool for real swimming time. The GVR pool has a sandy area which is kind of nice. There's also a wading area that's connected to the main pool. I think we were there for about an hour. From there, we headed to the M for the buffet. The M buffet is very good, but what was particularly good about it was that all the kids ate for free because they're all under 5 (unlike the GVR buffet, where children over 1 year old cost money). That, and the M buffet is just a whole lot better, with free beer and wine. From there, I was dropped off back at home and the family went back to the hotel to sleep. I think I was home at around 8. That was the end of full-day 1 with the family.
Morning rolled around again, and I was back at GVR by about 8:30 AM. I brought over some breakfast (yogurt, milk, cereal, pastries), and we took our time getting up and out. This day was about getting to Springs Preserve. I've never been there before, and now that I've been there I feel kind of bad about it because it's such a nice place. It's an outdoors area with some hiking and museums, kind of like a desert version of Balboa Park in San Diego. We wandered around briefly before having lunch, and then watched the kids play around in a playground area. Corwin's family went on a little train ride and the rest of us just wandered around. There's an area which is kind of a display area for different walkway pavers and other home garden ideas, and we spent a good hour there, just enjoying the weather (which was pretty near perfect). We met back up with Corwin and went to the Origen Museum (not Origin Museum, which I misread the first time). I don't know how much time we spent there, but it felt like another hour to hour and a half. We didn't look at the exhibits that closely until we got to the area with the animals, and then we slowed out and the kids looked at the bugs and tortoises and such. At that point, it was very late in the afternoon and the kids were past their limit. So we loaded up back into the cars and went back to the hotel. After some down time, we went to the Elephant Bar in the District for dinner. My memory has a bit of a blank from there, which I think means it was more time back in the hotel while the kids wound down. I have no idea when I got home that night, but I know that I did. And that was full-day 2 with the family.
(Edit: It took 12-ish hours, but I just remembered what happened the rest of that night. We went down to the strip. Corwin's family, dad, and I walked from the Bellagio to New York and back again. We looked at the Statue of Liberty and Elijah really wanted to ride the "train" (roller coaster). On the way back, we stopped for ice cream. When we got back to the Bellagio, we watched the second half of one of the fountain shows, and some group of Christians made the rest of us Christians look silly by walking around with signs and talking through a bull horn. Thankfully, they didn't say anything offensively bad in terms of the gospel. But form is not independent of function, and trying to express God's love for humanity to people by using a bull horn seems to me to be a less than ideal approach.)
The next morning, it was back to the hotel in the morning. This would be the end of the trip. Justin, Janet, and Ezra left first by car. My parents, Corwin, Mandy, Elijah, and Adah got packed up and I helped them keep the kids busy while they got their things together, and then they got in the car, and that was it. I walked back through the hotel and casino to get back to my car, and drove to work. And life returned back to normal.
What else is going on besides family? Church stuff is moving forward with the capital campaign. The initial push has actually been far beyond expectations. The baseline goal was $300,000. The "Glory, Hallelujah" goal was $400,000. And we ended up with a total pledge of around $475,000, with nearly $200,000 cash brought up front. This is a really exciting because it's a start of a new thing and our first real growth push as a church. I don't really have much more to say about it beyond that because nothing that will happen just yet. There's a little bit of build up and anticipation for the launch of the building that will happen in the summer. The timeline is certainly ambitious, as we're trying to get the entire renovation done over the summer.
Work stuff is pretty much back to a normal level of busy. I'm doing one-on-one meetings with all the faculty regarding their annual reviews and getting ready for fall staffing. I've got the summer robotics course to finish putting together. I've got that all outlined and I just need to type out the notes in detail. And I'm almost done with that textbook for the new math course we'll have in the Fall.
Yesterday was my birthday. All I did was go out to Mongolian BBQ with some friends. That's all I needed, and life is good. It's taken me about 2.5 hours to type this because I've been watching TV on and off as I've been going through this. Yup, life is good.
