"STAY"CATION

For our Fall Break last week, we decided to take a Family Staycation. (That's where we "stay" home, but act like we're on vacation!) It was the perfect solution to the we-haven't-been-anywhere-in-a-long-time AND YET we-don't-have-enough-money-for-a-big-trip problem. I have been working hard on it, finding ideas, scheduling events, gathering coupons, and buying supplies for the last few weeks. We told the kids we were doing a staycation, but didn't give them any other details. They were SO EXCITED!!!

Our Staycation began Thursday morning and lasted for 3 days. When the kids went to bed the night before that first day, we let them in on the first 2 surprises. First, they got to have a small TV in their "hotel room" (their bedroom) so that when they woke up in the morning, they could sit in there and watch some cartoons. I had no idea this was going to be such a big hit. As Jason strung 50 ft. of coaxial cable down the hallway to hook them up to the cable, the boys were jumping up and down with glee!

Second, they got to fill out their "Room Service" requests for breakfast. Each morning of the staycation there were 3 choices of breakfast, and 3 beverage choices. Then the request was hung on the doorknob the night before, and their choices were delivered on trays the next morning! I kept the choices to simple microwave and toaster items, since I couldn't fix a variety of huge things each day. I splurged on little individual bottles of OJ, apple juice, and chocolate milk. Yes, I could have just poured a glass of these kind of things, but your very own bottle is just SO much cuter!

After they were snuggled in bed, I also set up what we called the "Snack Shop." This was a section of my counter I kept stocked with little snacks that they could purchase throughout our adventures. Since we were going lots of places, I wanted them to be able to bring snacks so we wouldn't always have to be buying a bunch of food. (They used their "Family Bucks" to buy this kind of stuff, which is fake money they earn by doing chores and having good behavior, etc.)

The first morning, after they finished their delivered breakfast (which they LOVED!) we got ready and headed to our first destination. It was an indoor play area for all ages. I had a 2 for 1 admission coupon - yes! This place was AWESOME!!! Lots of climbing/sliding (what you see below is only about 1/3 of it) and 3 massive bounce houses.

Cooper was pretty timid at first, so I ended up climbing and shoving him into things, which left me extremely sore the next day, but he warmed up!

They even have a toddler area with these soft things to stack and play with. But even my bigger kids loved building forts out of them.

Mom almost got sucked into this vortex...

After playing there the whole morning, we grabbed some lunch and headed home. While Cooper caught a nap, the older kids did what anyone does on vacation -- sent some postcards to loved ones!

We relaxed a bit that afternoon until Dad got home. Then he joined us as we went out to dinner at Red Robin! (yummm) I had coupons for 2 free kids meals here.

And SOMEBODY even behaved himself quite well through the whole thing!

Whew!

Goofing off at the restaurant's entrance

Day 2 we headed out to a local park. We spent the morning on some of the rides...

Cooper was happy just to watch

We were mostly there to ride the train! Here they are waiting for it to take off...

...and here we are riding.

Who says AZ isn't green?

(even if it IS a man-made lake)

The picture below is where we stopped to picnic. It was LOVELY in the shade.

I think Tucker needs one of these to play on everyday.

And then we decided to get going. Because if you WEREN'T in the shade, this is what we had to deal with...

UGH!!!

Back home, Cooper got to nap again while me and the big kids began my FAVORITE activity! We made little Haunted Houses out of graham crackers and Halloween candy! We had a great time!

My finished house.

Favorite part: the little mound of "dirt" and tombstone on the side of the house.

hehehehe

Mitchell's

And Tucker's

When Dad got home that night, the kids got to hang out in their hotel room while we set up for the next activity. We had dinner at the "Family Restaurant!"

Complete with little menus

Once again, I couldn't really give them choices, so we did Taco Salad and they got to choose their toppings off the menu (as well as drinks.)

After dinner, we all moved into the "Movie Theatre" where we watched Disney's documentary called "Earth" thanks to our Netflix. HOLY COW we loved this. We had such a great time oooo-ing and ahhh-ing at all the cool animals and cheering them on in their daily struggles.

During the "intermission," we put Cooper to bed and opened up the Refreshment stand. There were lots of great choices of yummy movie treats.

Day 3 was Saturday, so we were thrilled that Daddy could join us for the whole day! We had to make some last-minute changes to our plans because the freakish mid-October weather was NOT on my side this week!!! But thank goodness we found this great museum - we loved it! And that day they had a special where Moms got in FREE.

The theme of the place that day was "patterns." The kids started out by decorating giant cookies with edible markers. (I thought it was funny they kept calling them edible markers. The ink was edible, not the marker! hahaha)

And then we became Wizards of Patterns at the hands-on exhibits!!! Tucker LOVED this cape, Mitchell ditched it as soon as I took the picture.

Everybody got to play

with different ways to make patterns...

In the special toddler-only area,

Cooper got to pick some corn

and prepare a little something in the kitchen.

What a fun place this was!!!

And it's a good thing we weren't outside as originally planned...

Is that ridiculous or WHAT??

And apparently that afternoon I did some of this...

A little later we made some AMAZING

homemade smoothies!

Then we headed off to our final destination! This was an indoor amusement park, with not only arcade games and food, but also a play area and rides!

We came upon some interesting wildlife

Some of us didn't enjoy that as much as others.

The bumper cars were a HUGE hit!

We played and played for an hour or so...

Then we decided to grab some Sonic for dinner and headed home to CRASH!!!

And there you have it! This was seriously the most fun we've had in a LONG time! I think we are going to do staycations more often, although maybe on a smaller scale. It was great to play alongside my kids again, something I don't do often enough. I think we had a good balance of home and away, costs and free stuff. Just enough planned, with just enough resting inbetween. I know they won't forget it.

P.S. I didn't mention a lot of names or locations to maintain our privacy. If you'd like specifics on any of these places, just ask! :)