A Long Boring Update With an Even More Boring Title

Wow - hard to believe our "snowman picture" was taken just over a week ago. Two days later - last Thursday - it was nearly 60 degrees and I cleaned out the garage because I just had to do some kind of outdoor project! As the winter drags on, the walls of our house seem to be closing in on us and it is wonderful to be able to work outside a little. Today is another beautiful day - a little windy but warmer and sunny. Zekers, Kari Bou and I spent most of the afternoon hauling dead branches and twigs from the backyard out to the street, while Malachi observed from his stroller. From the looks of things, the ice storm of several weeks ago left its mark on just about everyone's property; our street is littered with piles of branches from one end to the other.

Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday Danny attended a training seminar for a program he's excited about implementing in our church. At least it was close enough (about an hour south of here) that he could come home to sleep at night. Still, it was a long few days for both of us! Lets just say that by the end of Friday, after dragging all four kiddos to Pizza Hut for dinner in a moment of complete idiocy, I once again felt like the infamous "Provers 32 Woman" (evil twin of the Proverbs 31 Woman). And poor Danny was suffering from intense brain overload after cramming 5 days' worth of classes into 3!

But Saturday finally came, and the kiddos and I packed up and drove to join Danny at the end of his last class. We got to eat dinner together at Friday's, where our unkind waiter announced my age to the whole restaurant (unmoved by many threats, Rachel told him it was my birthday); then we spent the night in a nearby hotel. Before we got there, I had a craving for Tazo bottled green tea, which I've only seen at Starbucks. Since we couldn't seem to find a Starbucks (why is it that the only time you ever actually find a Sarbucks is when you're not looking for one?), we stopped at Panera Bread, where I paid the outlandish price of $2.50 for maybe the worst bottle of green tea I've ever consumed. I'm guessing this is why I'm familiar with Jones' soda but had never heard of Jones' iced tea.

The really cool thing was, the hotel had overbooked their suites, so we got two rooms, right next to each other, at no extra charge. Malachi and I slept in one, and Danny and the other three kiddos slept in the other. (Hey, we realized before we left that by taking all the kiddos we were pretty much abandoning all expectation of a romantic getaway!)

We both really missed attending church, but it was SO nice to get out of town for a bit. We did some mall shopping (where I made one purchase), and I had a chance to visit one of my favorite thrift stores (where I purchased about 50 clothing items for the kids, Danny and myself)! The highlight of the trip for the kiddos was getting to swim in the hotel pool. I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately, because the pool was overrun with screaming, pre-adolescent girls (at least 20 of them), and therefore was deafeningly loud. The noise proved to be a little too much for Malachi, who just started shaking in my arms, too frightened even to cry. So I took him back up to our room for a bath, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

We never did get any good pictures; I guess the weekend, while pretty exciting to us, didn't make for any cool "Kodak moments." And while the details of it have probably bored you to sleep by now, we had a lot of fun just hanging out together. Times like these are a nice gift every once in a while.