Sam and Nate are finally back in school this week after having a week off. This is all great for Sam and Nate, but considering Gina and I did not have the week off, this presented several challenges. Thankfully, we were able to adjust our schedules to spend a lot time with the boys and do some fun activities. Here is a play-by-play of some of the fun things we did: Saturday: I took the boys to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. There was a an exhibit on Grossology that they wanted to show me. It was pretty funny, and I was not nearly as grossed out as I thought I might be. We also got to see a cool 3D movie, and I ran into an old friend from FBC Euless. It was a great start to the spring break.

Monday: My class at UNT was online this week, so I stayed with the boys all day. We spent the morning at Firestone having the tire on Gina's tire fixed. While we waited, we went next door to Whataburger and ate lunch. This was the boys' first experience with waiting at an auto care place, and I think they did pretty well. We came home and took a nap, then we spent the rest of the day playing at home and being silly.

Tuesday: I had agreed several weeks ago to teach a class for a colleague, not knowing that this week overlapped with the boys' spring break. Gina teaches her class on Tuesday, so I knew she couldn't watch the boys. So, Sam and Nate got their first taste of college when they came with me to class. I have brought them to UNT before, and they did pretty well, so I thought I had a pretty good plan going in. I found out pretty quickly that there is a difference between a handful of faculty having a meeting and a room full of college students doing a noisy activity. The boys wanted to be right in the middle of the action, and they didn't think twice about interrupting me while I was addressing the class. After several awkward pauses, and me trying to gather my thoughts, they settled down and the day ended pretty well. We got to cap it off with a trip to McDonald's with Gerald and a couple of his doc students. The boys slept all the way home, and we spent the rest of the day on the playground across the street.

Wednesday: I had a very important meeting on this day (more on that in a future post), so Gina took the boys with her to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. They had a great time doing some art activities with the visiting artist, John Singer Sargent. Of course, this was not the real artist, who died in 1925, but it must have been an actor or something. I didn't actually get the details from Gina or the boys. Anyway, they came home in the afternoon, and we spent the rest of the day at the house and on the playground.

Thursday: I had another class to teach at UNT for the same colleague, so the boys got a chance to redeem themselves in another college class. Having gained some wisdom from two days earlier, I took a different approach. Rather than plopping them in front of the same movie, I let them each watch different shows on two different devices. Yes, I know, go ahead and judge me. Oddly, both boys wanted to watch what the students were doing (building windmills out of paper and sticks), and they interacted much better. They got to munch on some of the Tootsie Rolls from the activity, and when all of the students left I put a movie on the big screen while I cleaned the room. They loved that, and we got some funny looks as students walked by (the room is all glass). We headed back to Fort Worth and met my parents and MawMaw at their hotel for a quick swim and dinner. They were passing through town on the way back to Casper. As Sam pointed out, this was their first swim as 4-year olds. They seemed to do a lot better and were able to paddle themselves all around the pool. We came to our house for dessert after dinner, then everyone crashed for the night. It had been a busy day, and everyone was spent.

Friday: It was just the boys and I again, and I wanted to do something special for the end of spring break. Because the weather was so nice, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. The last time we went, it was so blasted hot we could barely breathe. This time, the temps were perfect, but there were about a million people there. I think everyone else had the same idea as me. The crowds didn't stop us from having a great time, and we got to see just about every exhibit. The boys loved seeing the gorilla and the snakes the most. I was a bit partial to the red wolves and the mountain lion. You can take the Poke out of Wyoming, but you can't take Wyoming out of the Poke. We ended the day with a train ride and a nap in the car on the say home.

Saturday: We spent the day at Uncle Tommy and Aunt Carol's house playing with cousins, eating, watching basketball and relaxing. It was a perfect way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I was hoping for a few more upsets in the tournament, but alas, order seems to have been restored. The boys especially liked dancing to the Zumba game on the XBox 360 Kinect. I even tried my hand at it, and all I can say is, thank goodness there were no video cameras in the room (that I know of).

So, that is our week in a nutshell. Sundays were our official day of rest, which is why I have omitted them. :-) Now the boys are back at school and I am trying to catch up on my work. Which is why I'm blogging.