I used to think I’d hate having Max off for an entire month in April for Spring Break, but I’ve changed my tune. I love the fact that we don’t have to cram in all sorts of family fun in a single week.

This year, we visited The Discovery Cube in Santa Ana, Legoland (an overnight trip for the two), went camping in town, visited the Safari Animal Park, went to the beach, and lazed around playing video games. Yes, I did get some work done too! We’re going kayaking tomorrow to close out the month.

Doing just a few things a week took the pressure off of me to take off a week straight, and it kept everyone from snapping at one another from family overload.

When we travel, April is a great time, as most kids are in school and theme parks and cities are empty. Prices haven’t yet risen for the summer, but the weather’s still good.

And I like that his summer is just 6 weeks; having 3 months stretch out endlessly just isn’t imaginable anymore! Hooray year ’round!

I was too busy relaxing and doing nothing during our vacation to San Fran that I didn’t blog. It was your typical amazing live-in-the-city experience. Had a great apartment we scored on AirBandB. Ate wonderful food. Love that you can get any type delivered. Something sorely lacking where I live.

I’ll let the photos tell the story.

I’m sad that Christmas is over. Not sure why that’s the case this year. I think it’s that I realize that our years of holiday magic are limited. Every year that Max feels the magic brings us closer to the end of that era.

This year Santa was especially good to us. And now we are in San Francisco, which makes the holiday feel even longer. But I will be sad when we head home and I have to pack away the ornaments on our dead Christmas tree.

There’s nothing like watching the magic of Christmas through the eyes of your child. Only too soon he’ll be a teen we have to wake up at noon to begrudgingly come down to open his presents. I can wait. Really I can.

photo by stock.xchng user Ewucha. Royalty free.