I Didn't Have a Choice!!

If you watch 24, my title is making fun of Jack Bauer.  Chris does the best impersonation of him screaming, "I didn't have a choice!" :)

Really, I didn't have a choice with my lack of blogging lately!  On March 4, the boys and I headed up to Wisconsin to stay with my brothers while my parents vacationed in Hawaii.  I didn't have Internet access there.  After a week and a half with my brothers, Chris joined us and we went to Minnesota for a week with Daniel and Janelle's families.  I was WAY too busy to be blogging during our visit there!  All in all, the boys ands I were away for over 2 and a half weeks.  They were quite the two and a half weeks too!  Wow.  So many crazy things happened (mostly "bad" things) that it was almost laughable.  Almost.  We did manage to keep a positive outlook on life, to the glory of Jesus and his faithfulness to and care for us.  As we rolled into the Land of Lincoln late on March 21st (a day and a half later than our original plan), we were thankful in our hearts for God's goodness and mercy to us.  We were all together, with no major sickness or tragedies in our lives.

So, here's a run-down on all of the fun (and not so fun) things we did while we were away.

• 3.4  Arrive in Dunbar, thanks to Grandma Salesky, Aunt Mary and Matthew's help.  Simon came down with a cold and was a crank for several days.
• 3.6  Luke got to spend the night with Grandma Salesky and Aunt Mary all by himself.  He may have missed his mom a little but made up for it with much spoiling!
• 3.8  By Sunday, I was pooped and missing Chris (and a nap!).
• 3.9  The boys and I got to hang out and play with a friend from college and her kids.  Fun!
• 3.12 By Thursday, I think were all starting to feel iffy.  My throat was a killer, and I lived on Motrin for the next week.  Simon and Luke were both acting so miserable that I had Northland's nurse check them out.  They were ok - probably just viruses.  We were all cheered up when Chris came that night!  The boys had a fun time running around at the gym, despite feeling a little lousy.  They needed to get out of the house! (And so did I!)
• 3.13  My wonderful parents returned from their trip (looking annoyingly tan).  They had managed to find my favorite flip flops from HI! (My pair from our honeymoon was ready to retire.)  We enjoyed watching some comedies together that night.
• 3.14  After a haircut for Luke from Nonie, we packed up and hit the road by noon.  Boy, were we excited to see our cousins!  We had a fun night with Daniel, Molly & the kids.
• 3.15  After church, Jason, Janelle, Katie, Paul, Preston, Anna, Amos and Malachi (try saying that 5 times really fast!) came for lunch and the afternoon.  It was AWESOME to see them!  All four babies together was so fun!  I got a great picture that isn't downloaded yet.  I will work on that soon.  Promise. :)  Late that night, Luke woke up with a raging fever and threw up three times when I tried to give him Motrin/Tylenol.  (Now comes the fun part!)
• 3.16  After several phone calls to the insurance company and area clinics, we took Luke to a clinic at Cub Foods.  We saw the most amazing physician's assistant EVER.  She diagnosed Luke with Strep Throat and even followed a nagging suspicion of influenza and took a test for it free of charge.  Thankfully, the test result was negative.  She graciously gave us an antibiotic from Walmart's $4 list and sent us on our way.  I felt like hugging her and blubbering to her how great she was and how it's not that often that we see health professionals as kind, caring and thorough.  I toned it down and just told her she was great at what she does and thanked her from the bottom of my heart.  When we got back to the car, we had a flat tire.  We filled it up and made it back to the Walmart near Daniel's house.  We purchased 4 new tires (we knew the need was coming).  
• 3.17  On Tuesday, our family headed down to Minneapolis, where we spent the day with Jason and Janelle. The guys headed off to study. It was SO fun to just hang out with my sister and watch our kids play together. And when the guys came back for lunch after picking Paul and Preston up from school, the four of us adults had a great (and quiet!) lunch while the boys played outside in the mud. It was a fair price for a meal without kids so we could have some profitable conversation! Janelle and I finagled a way to flee the coop and make a quick Unique Thrift run. We head back to Daniel's around 4:30. After supper, Molly took me to a local Fantastic Sam's, where I met the most tricky, manipulative beautician who gave me an AWFUL haircut. She just wouldn't really listen to what I wanted and kept insisting that I couldn't go too short b/c my hair (unlike the models in the book) is VERY thick. I tried to explain that it had just been a while since my last haircut and that I had had my hair pretty short for several years, but she wouldn't really listen. I'm not very assertive in the barber's chair. By the time we got back home, I knew I hated it. My hair-do was the shape of a bell.
• 3.18  Poor Gracie got a virus by Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning Molly had the Dr. check her out.  Thankfully, it was just a virus.  We felt so bad for getting everyone sick!  Daniel and Molly were so sweet and gracious to us.  At lunch time, Chris came home unexpectedly with another twist in our week.  Our car had overheated and was leaking coolant.  LOVELY!  Daniel helped Chris take it to an honest mechanic that he uses.  After we got that sorted out, I sheepishly headed back to the hair place where I asked for some more haircut.  I was a bit horrified to have to get the same girl.  It was just an awkward situation.  I could tell she was annoyed.  Plus, the whole place was kinda dragging b/c everyone was tired from celebrating St. Patty's Day the night before.  It was one of the scenarios where I just kept telling myself I would never see her again.:)
• 3.19  Thursday was kind of the main reason why we made the trip to MN (though we were long overdue to visit everyone anyway).  This day - March 19 - was Adoption Day for Katie, Paul, Preston and Anna!  There were probably around 25-30 of us crowded into the court room.  (My parents, brothers, Grandma and Mary came too.)  It was so special!  I will show you some pictures from that day too.  That night, we all stayed at a hotel nearby that had some fun pools and water stuff for kids.  Even though a lot of the kids weren't feeling the greatest (poor Malachi threw up - poolside), they all had a great time.  Luke had been looking forward to going to the hotel with his cousins for so long!
• 3.20  We were planning on returning to IL on Friday but found out late afternoon that the car would take until Saturday to finish.  We decided that another evening with Daniel and Molly wouldn't be too shabby! :)  In retrospective, God in his kind providence arranged these circumstances so that later that night - when a sad call came - Daniel and Molly could both go to the hospital to see a close friend, who went to be with the Lord the next night.
• 3.21  The boys and I enjoyed most of the day with Molly and the kids.  We ended up rolling out around 3pm.  The trip went well, and the boys slept the rest of the way after darkness fell.  Our trip wouldn't be complete without one last little twist though!  About 20 minutes from home, Chris noticed that the sermon he was listening to on the ipod was sounding funny.  The ipod had been sitting in a cup of Diet Coke!  It sounds funny and did give me a case of the late-night giggles, but Chris was not amused. :)  Thankfully, the ipod regained full functionality 3 days later.  We were thankful not to have to pay for a repair or a new ipod!

So, sickness, car trouble and nights full of interruptions (Thank you, Simon!) made us so ready and thankful to be home!  We always love seeing our family and did have a great time with them; it's just tough to be sick and away from home.  Now, we've been back for two weeks, and things are going well.  Simon and Luke have been healthy, I've been working on little projects here and there, Chris & I are once again on the Abs Diet, and we're looking forward to Chris' parents spending Easter weekend with us - so this week will be full of preparations.

If you made it through to the end, thank you for listening to me!  I hope you have a great week as we contemplate and remember Jesus' sacrifice and love for us.