Spring Break!!

Happy Easter everybody! Only a few days late, haha! We had a great Easter. We made it to Mass as a family at 9:30am and the boys were quite well behaved even though it was super hot in church and took a little longer than normal Sunday Mass. Then we went home, they got their baskets and I hid tons of plastic eggs and they had the Easter egg hunt. After that we headed across the street to visit Jason's parents and siblings and celebrate Jason's dad's birthday a day early. We ate hamburgers, hot dogs, cake and ice cream, YUMMY!



Monday we got on an airplane and flew to Cleveland and then to Kansas City, Missouri. Jason's grandparents live in Independence and we visited them for a few days during Ethan's break from school. I finally met his aunt, Malea, saw pictures of his mother, Fredna(who passed away in 1987) and his other aunt, Ranae who passed away almost 2 years ago and met his cousin Brooke. We had a good time over there, then went back to the hotel for a bit. The hotel we stayed at had an indoor pool and we managed to go swimming once because the water was FREEZING!!! Tuesday we went to a place called Paradise Park which was sooooo much fun. There was a game arcade, foam factory that the kids used these airguns to shoot soft foam balls and dump foam balls on each other, mini-golf, a children's edutainment center that had so many fun things to do, plus bumper cars, go karts and batting cages(which were the only three things we didn't do cause the boys were too short or little). At the edutainment center, the boys got to play on an outside playground, ride bikes on a track, paint their faces, play in pretend village with a grocery store, bank, house and restaurant, frost and decorate blueberry muffins, go to pretend school, and play in water. There was a cafe where we got pizza and sandwiches for lunch. There was also a puppet show, arts and crafts area and infants and toddlers section. Then we went over and visited some more.
On Wednesday we went to an outlet mall that had a T Rex Cafe we had intended to eat at but changed our minds and ate at Saddle Ranch Chop House instead. Then we went to Home Town Buffet with Jason's family. Thursday we got up checked out of the hotel, went and said goodbye and headed out to the airport. After flying from Kansas City back to Cleveland, it started pouring out during our 2 1/2 hour layover, then we flew back home where the snow was coming down hard and thick. It took us 30 minutes to drive home when it should of taken 15! We ended up with almost 6 inches by morning, and now (Monday) its mostly gone!

Saturday we went to my parents house for a delayed Easter celebration. My sister Heather was able to make it up with her kids and she picked up my sister Linda's oldest 2 boys from their dad's house for a few hours. My mom went all out like she always does. Ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, sweet potatoes, and biscuits, mmmmm! Plus she and my nephew Jeremy made a chocolate bundt cake made with chocolate pudding and chocolate chips, talk about yummy. I even convinced my mom and Heather to go buy candles for it to celebrate my birthday a week early since next week nobody will be around, LOL.

Next week my mom and dad are keeping the boys overnight on Saturday so Jason and I can have a "birthday" party with some of our friends over and not have to worry about the kids being here and woken up or something. Sunday my m-i-l is going to make dinner and cake for my birthday, and she asked what I want. I had been telling Jason all week I wanted lasagna for my birthday dinner thinking he would be making it for me so I told her I didn't know. I didn't want her to go to all that trouble. Jason spoke up and said "Lasagna. I'll buy the stuff and bring it over and make it, and just use your stove." He's so sweet! I love him so much. Right now he's out hitting some golf balls with his brother at the driving range.

On a side note we finally got all the bills from his ER visit. We got a doctors bill for $437, radiology bill for $353 and hospital bill for $5304, so total is $6094. Yikes, that's over half of whats left in our savings! Thank the Lord we have enough to cover it if we can't get it reduced because of unemployment and being uninsured. Hopefully they will reduce it some so we will have the savings to continue to pay our mortgage, truck payment, car insurance, and utilities. Not to mention, I got a letter a couple weeks ago about Ethan's cardiologist appt. he was scheduled for the beginning of February! It went to our old house and finally got forwarded. I had lost the card in the move and forgotten to write it on the 2008 calendar! So now I have to try and schedule it and they usually are booked months ahead of time. Although I could schedule it and then hopefully have insurance by then at least. Look for the silver lining on everything, Crystal, right?