Wow, so it appears I got a wee bit behind on the blog. Oh well, such is life. The start of spring break I headed out to Iowa to spend some time with my dear friends Michelle and Andrea. We had a wonderful time visiting some of the neighborhoods we used to haunt.
Sparkling grape juice for all (on account of Andrea expecting her FOURTH girl, haha!)
The boys had plenty of fun at home with Dad, too!
Noah celebrated his birthday over spring break, Happy #11 buddy!
On his birthday we were able to go visit Mike at work and see some of the lab, pretty cool!
We went out for pizza at Mod Pizza over lunch.
We were also able to spend a day with the Worsts over spring break and celebrated again with them.
It was nice to have some lazy pajama days too!
At the end of our spring break, the boys and I headed out to West Lafayette for a weekend with some of the Benhart crew!
We were able to tour around campus a bit.
And saw the infamous Boilermaker himself!
Noah and CJ participated in a ChemE Day put on by an engineering frat. They had fun doing a variety of experiments. The weather was awful, but we didn't care!
We crammed into the van and headed out to some laser tag.
The kids loved laser tag!
The also loved an evening in the hot tub! Thanks Brad and fam for hosting us!
The boys had another day off and spent the day with Bampa. They were able to go to Palmer's in LaGrange and see their favorite server, Nina!
Noah had the opportunity to hear Master Nelson (leader of all Chicagoland National Karate Schools) speak at a class recently, he also gave Noah a stripe for signing up for tournament!
Noah worked hard along Maya and Ari to gather data for their upcoming science fair project.
Sam and Isaac were goofballs at a recent trip to Kohl's.
Mike went to a Cubs game for work and ran into our friend, Molly!
We took the boys to Great Wolf Lodge in Gurnee as part of the birthday festivities!
Sam and Isaac loved the wave pool, while Noah did countless trips up to the big slides.
Sam was excited there was a panning/rock collecting activity!
Ben & Jerry's ice cream makes a perfect snack!
The lazy river was a big hit too!
We even got milk and cookies delivered to our room by one of the characters!
Back at home we did some Easter egg dyeing with Xavier.
And I got to snuggle baby Addison!
Easter was a successful day with egg hunting!
Everyone had a bout of a stomach virus that week, made for perfect passport photos. We all look as bad as we felt!
After everyone recovered and headed back to school, the younger two participated in crazy hair day.
And Philie and I began the epic job that took 3 attempts to hang a chair in my sunporch (now known as the "Ladies Lounge"). It required us going up into the garage attic...
And teaming up to thread the eye bolt in the right spot!
SUCCESS! A wonderful 40th birthday gift from Philie and my mom!
On one of our working days, Hattie even got to pet Lily, she was thrilled!
Speaking of the cats, they are doing great! They have grown a lot and rule the house.
We had a freak snow storm in late April which allowed us one last building day for this season.
Noah's science fair project was a hit!
He also nailed his karate tournament, winning 1st place in sparring (a HUGE accomplishment for him) and 3rd place in self defense. So proud of this guy!
So now we look forward to more spring and more days that we can spend outside having picnic lunches and building forts!
