Spring is for flowers and kites and eclipses

By Easter Monday we were mostly feeling ok.  Bob was still not feeling 100%, so I took the three oldest to church cleaning and we took care of his Sunday school room with Heidi. 

Everybody went to school/work on Tuesday, but by Tuesday evening Cecily was sick.  mur.  She had a rough night, but was ok the next day and spent most of it frying her brain.  Note Perrin trying to get as close to the moo-ies as possible.  :P 

I was so paranoid that I would be sick next, but somehow I alone have escaped.  Last I heard, Jake and Jack also weren't ill... perhaps it's the superiority of names that start with J?  Anyway, we've all been healthy since.  :)  

Mister 'help-uh boy' is very enthusiastically unhelpful.  😆

Quick game of ring-around-the-rosie.  Applicable after our own personal plague. 

Koch Easter was the Saturday following, for brunch.  Perrin was interested in the egg hunt for about a minute.  :) 

 I was kind of excited about the eclipse....  these two were just excited to play outside. 

 

The shadows when we were at our most eclipsed were the coolest part.  They were so eerie.  

  

We made eclipse cupcakes, though they didn't turn out very pretty.  :D  

 

 Michelle and kids came over one morning to divide perennials.  

They wanted umbrellas because it was raining slightly- Perrin was most interested in pointing out each type of vehicle on his. 

It was windy one afternoon and they reeeaaally wanted to fly their new Easter kites.  It was probably too windy, but we tried. 

 

 

Kite flying is really a two-adult activity because as soon as I got one kite untangled, another one would need help, and nobody has any patience.

 

 Perrin was so excited to fly his kite, and I was untangling someone else's kite tails and he ran off, with the wind, and then let go of the string.  *sigh*  Off it went.  And there it stuck.  High up in Mrs. F's tree.  She's a gem though, and said it was decoration and 'we'll just have to let the Lord bring it down.'

Meanwhile, Bob found mushrooms this year!  Woot woot! There was great rejoicing.  

 

I took the girls to see Disney on Ice in Bloomington.  Since we were over there anyway, and it's only a few blocks from the arena, we went to the Old House Society store and I might have brought home a few more light fixtures.  The girls were marginally impressed.  I don't love crowds or stadium seating, so I was slightly flustered getting to our seats.  It was fun to discover that we were right in front of some people we know!

 

The show was really fun.  The ice skating is incredible, and the girls thought it was great.  They've been singing the songs non-stop since.  They all decided they were hungry and weren't impressed that I wasn't going to spend $16 on a commemorative bucket of popcorn.  

We got to introduce the Brakers to Firefly Woods after church on Sunday.  It was a lovely day for a walk, but it was hotter than we are used to. 

Their outfits all coordinate and it makes me laugh.

Most of them ended up with wet shoes and feet.... and mine were all wearing school shoes.  (why?!?)

This one just wanted to throw rocks in the water.

Bob had to jump the lawnmower battery... our neighbor was happy to lend moral support.  :D 

Emmy made herself a spring salad with dandelion greens and violet blossoms, then decided that the greens were too bitter after one bite.

The annual washing of the playhouse dishes ended up with them all getting soaked.

Candied violets...

 

Spring is my favorite and I hate mowing while the violets are blooming.  The yard looks so blousy frowsy in a good way and fresh and natural, and then mowing ruins it. 

 

 They have a house under the lilacs.  😍

 

 There were storms predicted, but then we never got much of anything but rain.  Instead the power went out for a couple of hours. 

 

 

 Bob hooked up our battery powered light bulb (I love it! So much light and less harsh than a lantern.) and we all hung out around it reading and knitting and driving cars.  We put three kids in the shower at once with glow sticks to save hot water, and then the power came on as soon as they got out.  :)

 I took three girls to Joshua's grand opening and we came home with three dolls.  That we didn't need, nor do we have anywhere to keep them.  *sigh*  They were so excited though, and it's never too early to foster an appreciation for antiques. 

Dang came over for a little bit one afternoon.  Miri got left behind when they went on a walk, so she made a dande-lion with me.  Somebody posted the idea on facebook and it looked like a quick easy project to cheer her up.  

 

I have been plugging away at Emmy's dollhouse.  This kit has so.many.pieces.  I feel like I've been painting forever.  I've been working on it (in very small amounts of time) for three months and it's still pieces all spread out while I prep everything.  😜

 

We made violet jelly (left) and tried lilac jelly (right) for fun this spring.  I like violet, it's got a tangy taste to it.  The lilac must be really subtlety flavored, because I'm not convinced that it doesn't just taste like sugar.  :P   And the color isn't very exciting... some recipes called for adding a few blue berries while it boiled to make it more pink and now I understand why. 

 

 Emmy got to help me replace the bath fan motor... she would have gladly passed being electrical assistant off to someone else, but Cecily was keeping Perrin occupied, and Cadence went to Menards with Bob, and Miri was off being Miri. 

Yay projects... or something. 

It was a pretty productive day, we got the fan switched and a bunch of spring cleaning done inside; we replaced some broken fire pit blocks and cut trees out of the fence outside. 
Then we got to enjoy a puppet show.  :) 

 

They were finally all in their Easter outfits together and we had a few minutes Sunday morning... still didn't get a cute picture.  haha. 

Mister Buster likes 'my ah-mul' puppets. 

 

He also really likes filling things with dirt.... my rain gauge... the playhouse mailbox....

Oo!  We have a plan!  And a lovely rendering of the front elevation of said plan.  Next step is to talk to builders and find out that we can't afford it... mur. 

Blessings.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Alternate title: A Comedy of Errors

Alternate alternate title: Can we get a do-over, please?

So my Mom rented cabins in southern Illinois for a few days over spring break since all three schools were the same this year.  We packed up everything and the kitchen sink and then Bob decided it would be a good time to investigate how we were getting a damp spot on our ceiling... he thinks he found a loose shingle, and ran to Menards for caulk, quick. 😝 (We're turning into the K-bergers...)

 

Anyway, we got on the road eventually.  There was much roaring from the dinosaurs in the middle row.

The trip was uneventful, we listened to Odyssey and made pretty good time.  Perrin was pretty excited about all the rocks. 

When we walked into our cabin, the first thing we noticed was the strong smell of dead mouse.  Really strong.  Bob narrowed it down to the floor vent in our bedroom, and every time the heat kicked on it sent fresh waves of stench through the house. Neither of us wanted to breath that all night, so we put Miri and Cadence on the couch bed and took their room. (They were pretty gracious about it. 😏)  Only problem was, the sheets that were on the couch bed were not clean and there was no extra bedding in the cabin.  So we pulled the sheets, pillows, and blanket off the bed in the 'mouse room' for them.  The kids were all still bouncing off the walls excited, tho Cadence was a bit nervous about mice...

The closer we looked at our cabin, the more it seemed like they had cleaned after the last guests, but not checked it since then and it had been a while since it was last used.  There were cobwebs in the corners of the ceilings, they hadn't blown the big pile of leaves off the deck, THERE WAS MOUSE POOP around the edges of all of the bathrooms.  I am terrified of spiders.  Mice don't bother me so much, but mouse poop everywhere completely grossed me out, especially with kids who don't get that hotels/cabins/lodgings are not the same clean as at home clean.   So I cleaned that up as best I could since there were very few cleaning supplies available.  We managed to have a quiet night, though. 

Matt had found a dead mouse in his cabin when he got there, and Rachel had one run across her in bed. We were packing lunches in the morning and Michelle pulled out a bag of chips that had been chewed open...  Oh my word.  My Mother is absolutely irrationally terrified of mice and she handled it all remarkable well, considering.  😂  The kids were not bothered, they built a fairy garden and found an interesting beetle. 

Mom went to talk to the manager about the mouse situation and buy mouse traps, etc. while the rest of us went hiking.  Giant City State Park was really close so we checked out the visitors center. Perrin: Oh! Animal!  to the several stuffed specimens on display.  :)  

Take a picture of me as the flower!!

Such intrepid explorers we. My brothers have camelbaks, Bob gets to carry all our water bottles in a polka dot back pack.  hehe.

The kids loved the cool rocks.

As did Dad. Quote of the weekend: "When Grandma's away, Grandpa will play!" As he led the kids up the steep rock formations.  😜

Some of us are afraid of heights and did not need to get to the top of everything.

We ate lunch after our long hike and played at the playground.

Then we did a shorter hike and Bob took Perrin in the carrier.  He got pretty heavy on our morning hike.

 

Then we climbed the water tower and checked out the stuffed buffalo in the Lodge.  I did not get close to the edge.

Tall spiral staircases are not my favorite thing. 

 Back to the cabins for naps and an egg hunt. 

 

 

And games.

 

 I brought a passover-ish spread for Maundy Thursday which took forever to heat up so we ate kind of late. 

 

We celebrated Katrina's birthday. :)

And then tried to get the kids to bed.  Mine did Passover activities and we set out glue traps and mopped bathroom floors.

 

There was a large tub in the bathroom that the kids all wanted to swim in for their baths.  😁

 

 

Then the plague hit.  We made it all winter without getting any stomach bugs.  First Michelle texted that they had 3 kids throwing up one after the other in their cabin and were running out of bedding and towels and were using kettles and bowls for buckets....  then Cadence came in and woke me up to tell me she'd thrown up all over the couch bed.  I got up, but I felt kind of weird, told Bob I needed to lay down again and the next thing I remember is opening my eyes and I was on the nasty carpet.  So I must have fainted?  I don't know.  I laid in bed for a few minutes until I felt normal while Bob started the clean up.  We got Miri changed, Cadence in the shower (she made it to the toilet the second time), and tried to figure out bedding.  The only extra bedding in the whole place was a fitted sheet for a twin bed, which didn't fit but we stuck it on there and gave them our blanket.  No extra pillows either so they didn't get clean ones.  We had no buckets either, so Cadence got the empty cooler (which she had to use, but didn't wake me up about and we dealt with that in the morning).  Then Emmy got sick, but she made it to the bathroom, thankfully.  And I got up with her each time, but she didn't really need me.  Cecily was of course freaking out the whole time.  Bob went down next... thankfully Miri and Perrin pretty much slept through all of it.  I just remember shivering in bed, listening to mice in the walls, waiting for the next one... 

Meanwhile in Mom and Dad and Jake and Rachel's cabin, they caught two mice in glue traps and Liezel got sick in the night and they also did not have bedding or towels.  The girls thought it was hilarious that Uncle Jakey had put a mouse in a plastic bag on the porch and it was hopping around in the morning...  Matt caught one in his and the Braker's cabin which brought the total of visible dead mice to 4.  😳  

In the morning we all were very tired and afraid to eat anything.  Most of the kids were recovering so it was a pretty quiet day.  Dad and Matt took Miri, Cecily, and Jack on a hike since they weren't sick.  I'm told Miri needed to be in front the whole time.  

Aww, look at those Wyss Farms shirts.  :) 

Bob spent most of the day sick, Cadence was pretty much back to normal and went back and forth between our cabin and hanging out with the recovering Braker kids and Logan, who then eventually succumbed.  Perrin had diarrhea, which is at least fairly easy to deal with so we just wandered around outside and watched moo-ies inside. 

Nathan and I took a load of dirty laundry to a laundromat.  It was kind of nice to escape the sickness for a bit.

Listless children... Perrin fell asleep on the floor, and Cecily was sooo bored when she got back from hiking.

It takes Emmy a long time to recover, and she was still throwing up into the morning.  She spent a lot of time reading and being afraid to even drink water. 

The manager finally came out and brought some fresh bedding and towels.  Only king size fitted sheets, dish towels, and no pillows at all were dropped on the ground outside our door. 😜  We did eventually get another comforter for our bed and we cobbled together bedding for Cadence and Miri.  

No one really felt like eating much supper, and Perrin was a grouch so I spent the evening at our cabin and listened in to Good Friday services. Some of the girls went and played games at Grandma's cabin.

Thankfully, we had a quiet night in our cabin.  Jake and Rach were not so lucky, Katrina went down in the middle of the night so they packed up and were gone before we were up.  😜  We managed to get our stuff loaded up faster than we ever have before too.  I'm not sure I've ever been so glad to leave a vacation before... 😂

 

We borrowed Easter Egg buckets from Grandma just in case we needed them in the van.  I gave all the girls Dramamine (anti-histamines are also anti-emetics) in the hopes that we would have an uneventful trip home.  It mostly was.  We made a stop for gas, and listened to Hank the Cowdog.  No one felt like stopping for fast food so we ate sandwiches at a rest area. 

A very windy rest area.... we were back up on the Prairie.  :) 

Fresh air and sunshine is good for us. 
 

They always get a little crabby the last hour or so.  The dinosaurs were really loud and really thirsty.

So we made it home and got most of the laundry through- it all smelled like the cabin... which smelled like dead mouse.  woot.  Bob was still not feeling great (G.I. bugs just hang on and on for him) so he was not planning on going to church in the morning.  Then in the middle of the night Miriel threw up all over her bed.  *sigh*  So between that and Perrin still having diarhea, we decided not to risk church.  Which was a bummer, because we missed Easter and a wedding.   Miri perked up pretty fast, though I wouldn't let her eat anything for breakfast and lunch besides crackers.  😵

 

Easter Baskets after watching church.

 

 

Perrin likes his truck full of crayons. 

And the big chocolate cross.

 

I *think* we're far enough past initial exposure to say that Cecily and I seem to have escaped.  Cross our fingers and hope our strong constitutions have saved us.  Ha.  Mom's count was that 18/23 of us were ill in some form in a span of 48 hrs.  Was it food? Was it a bug? Will we ever know? 

This week I saw someone telling parents not to give their kids lots of toys, instead give them stories.  

Well.  

This is a STORY.  😂

Blessings.