Home Away From Home

 This is our home away from home this summer!  Its huge!  Much more than we need for camping around here but it will work nicely for a home for two months on the road.  Paul flew to Wisconsin to buy the Excursion and then drove a couple hours to Iowa to pick up the trailer.  For some reason trailers are very cheap in Iowa so we are hoping to not lose too much when we sell it at the end of this summer.  And we will sell the Excursion too.  This whole scenario goes against everything I was brought up to believe in, but we are sure it will work!  We have sold many vehicles on Craig's List in the past, this shouldn't be any different I hope.  While Paul was on the road, we were out of contact for 14 hours.  I was sure he was dead, even though I knew he wasn't, but my mind was sure coming up with some bad scenarios.  I woke up at 4:30am determined to call the Nebraska State Police (where I last heard from him) but fortuitously enough, I received a text message from Paul right at that moment.  He had driven through the night hoping the next town in Wyoming would have cell service, until he got there and realized he should try for the next town.  He crossed the Utah border and had service for long enough to get me a message.  I think Wyoming needs to bring back pay phones.  All is well now though, and we can't wait to get out of here and go exploring!  I just made reservations for camping outside of Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon in the first week of our trip.  After that, we will see as we go.  We hope to follow pretty close to the Mexico border and then the Gulf Coast.  I want to see alligators in the Everglades but that is at the very tip of Florida so I'm not too sure about that one.  We will travel north along the eastern states, seeing more National Parks and hopefully fun stuff for kids along the way.  We plan to visit D.C. again, and Philadelphia which we missed the last time we did our crazy cross-country trip.  We will be in Philadelphia on my birthday where I hope to spend my 40th watching the Braves stomp the Phillies!  We plan on catching the Hill Cummorah Pageant, Niagara Falls, the St Louis Arch, family farm in Michigan, Mt Rushmore, and all points in between.  Paul has 8 weeks of paid sabbatical time and we hope to use every single day of it on the road.  I know people think we are crazy taking such little kids, but if we wait 7 years till his next sabbatical we would have a bunch of teenagers, and I for one think little kids will be much easier to manage than a bunch of surly teens who don't want anything to do with us.  Hopefully I will be able to update this blog as we go, but it won't be a daily thing I'm sure.  I am sooooo excited for this opportunity!  What an amazing country we have been blessed with and this is an amazing opportunity for my family!

Not Our Normal Easter . . . Hopefully

The Monday before Easter Paul's mom had a stroke and ended up in the hospital.  While there, they found a few other things wrong which led them to believe she would need an extended hospital stay.  Paul and his sister Carmen were able to be with is mom that night and the next day and then they figured out a way to share visiting duties.  Paul was able to come home for a day but then went back to Corvallis to be with his mom for a few days, with one of those days being his birthday.  This was all during Spring Break so I planned to take the kids down a day early to visit with my parents before our annual Easter family gathering. Friday morning, the day we were heading down, I called Paul (who had spent the night at my parents' house) to say happy birthday and he informed me that my dad was taking MY mom to the ER for shortness of breath and dizziness.  I am so thankful that Paul was there as they decided to admit her for testing so he could get out all the information we kids needed because dad was a little overwhelmed by it all.  So my poor Paul spent his birthday running between his two moms who were on the same floor of the same hospital!  Paul's mom got a spanking new pace maker on his birthday.  My mom just had a ton of tests and they were never able to come up with any diagnosis for her.  She was able to come home Easter Sunday and they are still in the process of running tests on her weeks later.  My sister Samantha made Paul a birthday cake and just to make sure it was his worst birthday ever, we ate his cake without him while he was giving my mom a blessing that evening!  We hopped in the car that morning so we would visit my mom, see Paul on his birthday, and take over the party preparations that my mom insisted still be celebrated.  Good thing we dyed our Easter eggs on Thursday night.

 The annual family party was now in my hands, though my mom had it all pretty much ready to go, I just had to get it all out before everyone else came over.  With the help of my brother's girlfriend (YEAH!).  We had the normal sandwich fixings, egg hunt, egg toss, and egg drop off the roof of the garage.  It turned out to be a beautiful day and a good party.  I was able to visit my mom twice in the hospital and Paul's mom was released on Saturday so we visited with her too.  Silly grandmas, making us all worry like that!

 Bree and Darcy LOVED the Dollar Store hats Grandma had as party favors.  Bree still wears hers around.

 Don't they look angelic?  Yah right.

Mason was working hard at the gunnysack race.

We came home Saturday night and made it to bed before the Easter Bunny came that night.  Sunday morning the kids woke up and got their treats out of their baskets and had the egg hunt.  Hopefully the excitement of this Easter was an anomaly and we can have a boring old time next year.