Busy Busy

We've had a pretty decent weekend. Saturday, while Alex was at his girlfriend's band solo contest, Kurt, Nicky, Christy, and I went to Spillville to the Bily Clocks www.bilyclocks.org. It's a museum I'd gone to as a kid. My family was always big on educational day trips. It was cooler than I remember. Dvorak spent a summer there so the upstairs has an exhibit about him that I didn't recall. The museum has various collections of stuff like Indian artifacts, rocks, and other clocks. We got in for a family rate and got a guided tour!

As long as we were in the area we drove down to see Ft Atkinson. It was a fort helping to protect the Indians from 1840-1849. It was a bit chilly but the kids got to run around for a while.

The next stop was the world's smallest church in Festina. St. Anthony of Padua was built in gratitude after a mother's son returned from the Napoleonic Wars unharmed. The brochure said the son was the only veteran of those wars in Iowa. (I found that hilarious).

Our next stop was to a Fish Fry. It was worth the wait! They had that yummy sweet colesaw with poppyseeds. I love that stuff! However, I think fish frys are going to be an activity we pursue once we are childless.

Sunday, Christy and I went to the Taste of Grace Tea at my home church. Mom had invited us. She emceed and did a great job. The had 50 different sweets and savories for us to load up on our snack trays. The accordion Club of Iowa was part of the entertainment. They were pretty good, but 2 hours of on and off accordion music is more than enough. While we were there the boys had some male bonding time. They did archery in the side yard and some yard clean up.

We got everyone to and from their first day of school with us. Nick has a 50 pt project due on Wednesday. He wasn't going to do it because he didn't have any money for tagboard. GRRR. Kurt and I have been working with him on that.

In order to amuse myself I'm keeping track of the number of loads of laundry and dishes during our week with the kids. It's for 9 days. Any guesses??

Heading out to Mother - Daughter Tea 

The Spread 

The goofballs at the Bily Clocks museum 

Christy opens the cannon window at Ft Atkinson 

They arrive!

My week as a full time soccer mom has begun. I ran some laundry, stuck supper in the oven, did some dishes, and went to get #2 at soccer practice. Kurt arrived at 6:30 with kids #3 and #4. #1 stayed at the farm saying he'd come over "if we did something special". You all can guess how I reacted to that :)

I'm out of the dreaded 'pac until Monday, April 3rd. Today was supposed to be my official date of separation. I got to work, fired up my computer, and saw I had a calendar reminder that said, "Last Day at Work - 59 minutes overdue". So sad. I wanted to try and keep it up so it could continue to tally for me until our next mythical close date in August. It didn't work though.

I have big plans for my vacation next week. I want to order wedding pictures, finish wedding preparations, work on the kids' scrapbooks, figure out some curtains for the living room, and sell my grandpa's truck. I'd also like to make it through some more boxes. Maybe part of my plan should be to be a such a fantastic wifey-poo and evil step mother that Kurt sees the light and says, "screw the severance! Go ahead and quit!"

Irritation

Kurt and I have reached the point in our marriage where we irritate each other. JOY! It mostly has do to with my sister giving the entire family the plague last week which made our vacation less than relaxing. (I never knew one man could hold so much gas)("hold" might be the wrong word). Therefore, Chicago was fun but not f**king fantastic fun like I had hoped. We did have an AWESOME room at The Seneca. It was 1 block from the Hancock Tower and 2 blocks from Water Tower place. Despite the ick, Kurt, Amy, Rikki, and I had a good time. We had tapas at www.CafeIberico.com, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Science and Industry. We also hit the Cheesecake factory, and Second City. Oh yeah and World Bazaar and the Container store.

Now back to the irritating. The children are irritating, my job (which will NEVER end) is irritating, and spring break being over is irritating. Also, one of the stones fell out of my wedding band. The REALLY irritated me. I was mostly over being a crabby crabberson by Sunday. I'm trying to remain in a quasi good mood this week.

Next week we have the kids full time. I can't begin to fathom how much food and laundry that's going to entail. We pick them up Friday night and don't take them back a week from the following Sunday. Pray for me.

This and That

I've been in a scrapbooking mode lately. I've gotten quite a few pages done as well as finished our vacation album. I was planning on getting all the kids' baby books done while I was Unemployed. So much for that idea.

I downloaded a bunch of free fonts which is cool because I have such terrible handwriting. I'd love to have 12 x 12 printer, but we looked and they are terribly expensive.

My sister tells me Target has scrapbooking paper and embellishments on clearance. Of course, yesterday was the first day in months I haven't checked my email at work!

Thursday I went to CR with Kurt. I dropped him at the office then went in search of business casual pants since we're back to dress code. I power shopped and got 3 pair. It was $80 worth of clothing for $42! Gotta love sales and coupons. However, I was done shopping by 2:30 and not due to pick him up until 5. I checked out the phone book and decided to head to coralville to the Reminisce scrapbook store. It advertises itself as Iowa's biggest and best. I don't think it was either, but it was pretty nice. They had a lot of stuff I hadn't seen before. Apparently they have their own paper line and they are VIP vendors for other stuff. They were all a twitter because some scrapbooking celebrity was coming in that night. Thankfully, I'm not so far gone that I know who those people are!

Nicky and I have a lot of homework so I better get us started!