Birthday time!

 Another birthday come and gone.  It was a good day filled with things that make me happy.  Since my actual birthday was a work and school day, we did a little celebrating the day before.  We went bowling as a family, and Anna joined us too.  Bowling was fun and everyone managed to get a spare or a strike!

I know that the birthday person should have everything done for them, but I actually enjoy baking, so I made my own breakfast--chocolate chip almond scones.  Everyone else loves them too.  It does take some planning to bake on a week day as I need to have it out of the oven by around 6:30am!

At work I brought in some Oreos to share with the kids for a birthday snack.  They were all delighted with that.  My friend Amy brought me beautiful flowers too!

Troy and I went out for lunch after work.  I had a little time to kill before we met up, so I did a little shopping.  Was not too successful, but I did find a pair of shorts and an egg dye kit at Walmart! The company was great, the food yummy and I even got more flowers!

The afternoon went by quickly with a doctor's appointment for Timothy and piano lessons for Teresa.  I decided to just do dinner at home.  And even though I made my favorite brownie ice cream cake, I opted to save that for the next night.  It was free cone night at Dairy Queen and the weather was perfect for sitting outside.  So we ended the evening with some DQ soft serve!

Cones at the DQ

My family made me feel special with some fun decorations, and select special gifts from Troy, Teresa and Timothy.  Troy also surprised me with a new non-leaking faucet in the kitchen!  I am blessed and had a wonderful day!

All my pretty flowers!

The stuffed animals all celebrating with me!

My favorite cake!

Spring break

We did not go some place warm for spring break, but we had fun and were sad to come home again.  It was our usual trip north to see family and find fun activities.  Teresa kicked off the vacation with some serious shopping because stores are bigger in the cities.  She had more options and found some cute things. We tried out a new restaurant, Smashburger.  It was okay--not great, but not bad either. I felt bad for the one worker out front who had about 100 things he was responsible for.

The next day, we made a trip to Wild Rumpus bookstore, which was in our plans two years ago, but never happened due to the pandemic.  It was a cute little store with several animals and lots of good kids books.  We met up with cousins and Grandma kindly let the kids pick out a new book!

Later in the day we made a trip to Skyzone for some jumping and active fun.  They jumped and climbed and battled and ran up the warped wall.  They were all pretty tired after that outing.

After a little break, two cousins joined us for the evening and a sleepover.  They also got to go on the traditional ice cream outing to Honey and Mackeys.  It is Timothy's favorite because it has black licorice ice cream. 

The next morning was a trip to the pool and more cousin time including some pantry bingo.  Timothy won black olives and beets.  Teresa won popcorn and fruit snacks.  Then we had to go pick up the littlest cousin from day care and head to see more family.  Timothy and Teresa got to play some serious hide and seek, take a dip in the hot tub and Teresa got to see what it felt like to be in first on Mario Kart! It was a fun night.  Since it was St. Patrick's day, the cousins set traps for Timothy and Teresa instead of the leprechauns.  Teresa was lured in with animals and Timothy was lured with technology!

Our last day did not go as planned.  We left the kids at home to drop Grandma's car at the repair shop.  As it turned out I had my battery checked to find out I needed a new starter.  So what we thought would be 20 minutes, turned into two hours and then 4 hours after complications with parts.  The kids got a little bored with screens at home!  

We did a little more shopping in the afternoon before heading out to drop Teresa at a cousin Birthday party.  Timothy and I stayed home with Grandma and played a competitive game of Life!  

And sadly, our fun days had to end.  There were lots of laughs, a few unexpected turn of events and many memories.  Thankful for spring break 2022!