making lemons into lemonade

The ice storm late last week left many in our area without power, including 18 of the schools in the district where Paulie and Philip attend school. So many schools without power meant that they ended up with another snow day yesterday, despite the fact that the temperatures were near 70 degrees. When Paulie heard that they had another snow day, he knew that this would essentially take away his last day of spring break. That's right; they've had so many snow/ice days this year, they won't really have another break between now and the end of the school year. Elizabeth and Finn had an already scheduled teacher work day. I came up with a plan for a single day of spring break fun. We headed on a road trip to Charlotte to the Discovery Place. We truly made it into a huge one-day spring break event. We watched Hubble on IMAX, explored every last exhibit, watched a stage show about matter (including liquid hydrogen and fire!), watched a brief 3D documentary on King Penguins in South Georgia, and petted both a Bearded Dragon and a Red-footed Tortoise named Herbie. In all, I think it turned out to be a lovely spring break day. And I'm happy to see that my 13- and 14-year-olds still find it fun to just play all day.