Day 280: More Time with Friends

We started today by heading out to work - Eric at Checkers and me back at Katie's house.  Alison and I worked on painting while Joe, his dad and his friend moved furniture and boxes into the house, and Katie juggled Charlotte and directed everyone.

Later I went over to Kristie's granny's house for dinner and fun with her family.  Granny made some really good noodles and cornbread, and then we played Uno with her nephew - who was thrilled to be the recipient of a "draw 4" card because he "only had one card left"!

This box is labeled "Kitchen - some glass"

Alison also enjoyed getting to be around the beautiful little girl!

Day 279: House Painting

Eric was back to his routine today, but I'm on spring break.  I was hanging around the house doing absolutely nothing when Katie invited me to help her and Charlotte paint.  I've never painted walls before, but I would say Charlotte and I did a nice job touching up the red and blue paint in the living room.  Katie cooked stuffed red bell pepper soup with crab cakes, which was AMAZING!  And then Katie and Joe took me out for custard afterward.  Poor Eric was stuck with a Totino's pizza for dinner, and I owe him big time!

Doesn't the red accent wall look great?  And little Charlotte is perfect at being three weeks old!

Day 278: Can We Do It? Yes We Can!

Today was a schoolwork day for Eric and a chores day for me.  He had a take home test and a project due in his tax preparation class.  Eric had been working on these last week and while we were in Michigan, but couldn't really focus, so today was crunch time.  While he was crunching numbers, I used my new phone and a checklist app to make my list of chores for the day and set off to work!

Then while he was at class, I went to Dave Ramsey with Papa and Ashley.  Tonights lesson was "From Tuition to Fruition", and it is about saving for college and retirement.  Dave talked about if a 30 year old made 40k per year and put 15% into retirement each year (making 12% interest), that by the time they were 70 they would have over 5.8 million dollars.  Eric and I won't yet be 30 when we start on this baby step, and we may not make 12%, and we might not work until we're 70 - but as Dave says "if I'm half wrong, you're still a millionaire!"  We are VERY excited about this because we really believe that this can be our future!

Aw man, I fell up the stairs!

Checklists and calculators, oh my!  These new phones are great!

Day 277: There's No Place Like Home

We said a quick goodbye to the boys in the morning, when Cash left for daycare and Molly took Dec to a doctors appointment.  Cash left first, and I didn't get any morning pictures of him, oops!  Then we hung around with Molly for a bit, packed up and headed home!  We made awesome time and actually got home just after 10pm.  During the drive I worked on updating the blog on my new phone (while Eric was driving) and Eric worked on napping (while I was driving).  When we got home, we plugged in our phones so we could play some more!  We're slightly obsessed with the phones right now - learning how they work and searching out what apps we want.

Dec climbing around the couch.

RAWR!  I am Declan, this is my sweater!!!

Declan saying goodbye to Eric.

 Declan saying bye to me!

We found this creepy run down gas station when we switched drivers on a US highway.

Cool old gas pumps.

Day 276: More Michigan!

I'm almost feeling fully recovered today and we decided to keep the boys home for the morning so we could spend some time with them.  We played at home for most of the day and went to the park for some slides and a picnic.  Finding the park was an interesting ordeal.  It isn't spring break in their area, so all the kids are at the schools.  Plus it was really cold outside.  We were going to skip the park, but Cash kept saying "we're going to the park" and "I'm going to slide!"  So we scouted one out at a local church and got our slides in.  Then we had an in-the-car-picnic because it was so cold outside, brrr!

After we dropped the boys off at daycare, ready for their naps, we set out to enjoy a really cheap movie!  We stopped at Family Fare to get some movie snacks - chocolate covered peanuts for me and cheese nips for Eric.  The best part is that Family Fare has a coffee, water, and popcorn machine by the doors for their customers!  So Eric and I grabbed three mini bags of popcorn to take to the movie with us!  We went to see Tron in 3D for $6 each.  We both liked the movie - but I really didn't like the lack of visual contrast.  Everything was tones of gray with accents of blue or orange - there were no other colors while they were on the grid!

We had planned on going to the driving range after the movie, but it was too cold and rainy so we went home instead.  Luckily, less than 5 minutes after we got home, Eric saw the UPS truck and we tripped over each other running down the stairs to the front door.  I signed for our package and we raced to open the boxes for our new cell phones!  Within the next two hours we had activated and set up our new phones, and spent nearly 2 hours on the phone with customer service to get our numbers transferred from T-Mobile.  Now Eric and I belong to Virgin Mobile - for $25/month/each we get unlimited texting and data, and 300 minutes.  Eric will easily be able to keep it under 300 minutes, but I may have to bump myself up to the $40 plan for 1200 minutes.

After Molly and Nate got home from work, we had a potluck of lasagna and barbecue pork and set the boys up with some of Declan's new toys so we could play games.  We started with Pandemic and won (pretty closely) on our first try.  We were at 7 outbreaks though, so it was a race to the finish!  The game is over if you reach pass 8 outbreaks.  Then we played Monopoly Deal, which is a really cool card game version where the goal is to collect 3 full sets of properties.  Then we all ended up going to bed pretty early, it was a long day!

 Cash and Dec on the spiral slide.  Cash is trying to smile, but not looking.

 Popcorn and crackers in the bag!  We don't spend $5 on a bag of popcorn, no way!

I was offering for Eric to use scissors to open the box with our phones in it, but he insisted on using the knife shaped like a raptor claw. 

They didn't want to overwhelm Dec with gifts at his party, so we opened his Kansas gifts tonight.  Both boys love the remote controlled dog from Aunt Becky and Uncle Alan, and the baby smartphone from Aunt Deb and Uncle Sean!  

Day 275: Medicine, Paint, & Dancing

This morning I woke up early and headed to Meijer, Michigan's version of Walmart or Target.  Their pharmacy had a generic version of azithromyecin for only $15.  I took the first two doses and went back to sleep for another few hours, and was already feeling better when I woke up.  Eric and I did nothing at home all day.

We picked Cash and Declan up from daycare around 5:30, and let them do some painting with homemade paint (equal parts of flour, water, and dish soap, colored with food coloring).  Cash practiced his pointillism - painting with one fingertip while saying "I'm getting soooo messy Duck-Duck!"  Declan just wanted to splash his hands in the paint, and wasn't thrilled about moving them to his paper.

After Molly got home from work, we broke out Just Dance 2 and had a really good time.  I danced to "Rasputin" with Declan on my hip and he LOVED it, Cash danced to "Jump Jump" with me and did pretty good following directions, and Molly and I did "Rasputin" and "Iko Iko" together.  That's about as much of Just Dance as any one person can take.

Overall, today was MUCH better and restored my faith that this could still be a good vacation.  Between medicine, sleep, and lounging around most of the day - I feel back to life and think I'll make it.  Eric is still complaining of an itchy throat, but it doesn't appear to be progressing and definitely doesn't look like strep.  Thank goodness!

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Day 274: Declan's Birthday and More Badness

On Sunday we woke up and played with Cash and Declan, got the cars loaded up for the party and made sure we had everything we needed before heading to Ellen's.  I was feeling a little better than yesterday, but not by much.  I opted to not do face painting for the kids at the party so I wouldn't get them sick.

The party went really great! Eric and I decorated Ellen's garage again (same as Cash's first birthday) and helped set up tables and food.  Molly and Ellen made stuff for sandwiches, potato casserole, chips and dip, fruit salad, cake, ice cream and soda.  After we had lunch Declan (aka Cash) got to open his presents.  Then all of the kids got to do a neat turtle scratcher craft project, and then it was time for cake!  Declan thoroughly enjoyed the cake and didn't mind getting messy.

Shortly after we got home from the party, Eric and I headed out to an urgent care clinic.  When I'm out of network I can choose between 50% of a doctors office visit or $75 for urgent care.  I doubted I could make an appointment, and that appointment would end up being cheaper than the urgent care.  The doctor looked at my throat and said it was strep, decided to swab anyway and said strep again when he ran the swab, and confirmed it with the rapid culture.  I got really upset because it looked like Eric was also coming down with it and I thought we would have to leave Michigan in the morning to prevent infecting the kids.

Then we went to three different pharmacies before finding one that was open at 8pm on a Sunday night.  They told me I could pick it up in 45 minutes, so I just bought some face masks and we went home.  When we returned to Walgreens an hour later, they pointed out that prescriptions are not covered when I'm out of network and my azithromyicin would cost $42.  I took the script paper back and planned to try Meijer in the morning because the doctor told me they had free antibiotics.  So, one more night untreated and I can barely swallow my own spit.  Hopefully Eric remains healthy and everyone else I've exposed to it since Friday.

Dec really enjoyed his lunch and the turtle spinner from Monica. 

 Everyone enjoying a festive lunch!

The kids were enamored with this blow up turtle because it makes a loud squeaking noise when you squeeze or squish it.

 Molly is looking great!

Dec is so close to walking!  He takes a few steps at a time right now. 

Cash actually did all of the present opening. 

 "Happy 1st Birthday Declan!"  Molly and I make a great cake decorating team!  She does all of the work, and I just make the surrounding look good enough to compliment the cake!

It's hard to see, but that's a tea light on top of the cake!  This is while we were all singing "Happy Birthday".

Mmmmmmm 

 Yea!  It's my birthday party!

I had a crepe paper boxing glove after cleaning up! 

What a good looking family!  

Booooo, we waited for an hour after the doctor saw us before a nurse gave me my prescription.