Caving in to Spring Break

We've decided that since our grand plans of spring break at Disney World have been spoiled by purchasing our van, we would take a couple of day trips to new locations. So today was our first real caving adventure as a family. We drove to a teeny tiny town, stopping on our way to do some more letterboxing (this really is a GREAT family activity to take up) and then for lunch before entering the “crystal palace”. What an adventure! Everyone at every age enjoyed this tour. We saw bats, experienced total darkness, tried not to lose our tour guide and delighted everyone on our tour with Little E’s light-up shoes! The cave was absolutely breathtaking and truly miraculous… unbelievable to think that two little school-age children discovered such a place with a few candles and a LOT of guts! (It was 1883 when it was discovered, and only 10 days after the kids shared their find with the owners of the property – as they had been trespassing – tours started at 25 cents a piece!) So we had a fun day, and now I am utterly exhausted!

One funny thing, we were of course asked not to touch anything so as leave oil and unnatural substance… and we did our best to get our 6, 3 and 2 year olds to understand that concept. However, every so often I would see an unusual splash in the water around us. It took a while but I finally realized that Little E had brought in with him a pocketful of small pebbles and was periodically throwing them into the water to make a splash. I was sure this violated the “leave no trace behind” rule, and so I tried to collect as many of them from him as I could… but it only became a game to him and he ran off as fast as he could. As you can see, he got filthy, while nobody else had but a bit of mud on their shoes! That little guy is sure an explorer, and I’m thankful he was wearing those bright neon light-up runners!!!

Alright, one more funny story… There was a family bathroom at the cave that consisted of a regular sized toilet, a small child-sized toilet and a urinal all lined up beside each other (I really should have taken a picture!) Anyways, all three of my kids were, um, well relieving themselves of their bodily fluids at the same time. Mr. T, however, told Little E to come try standing up with him. Little E absolutely refused, stating, “NO! I sit down!” Mr. T came back quite proudly with, “Yeah, you sit down to pee. Only mans stand up. Daddy and me are mans!” The scene and the conversation were too much for me… ultimately today’s potty talking made me laugh out loud!

Tomorrow we will visit the aquarium if I can feel my body by then. I’m such a pregnant wimp!