Cole's Confirmation

Cole was confirmed on Thursday, April 25th at St. Christopher Church.  He asked his Grandpa Harold to be his sponsor.  Cole selected Kolbe as his confirmation name after Saint Maximilian Kolbe.

(Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish priest that was imprisoned at the concentration camp in Auschwitz.  Because of his good deeds and prayerful disposition, Kolbe was called "Jesus of Auschwitz" by his fellow prisoners.  In July of 1941, three prisoners escaped from the concentration camp.  As a deterrent for more escapes, the guards chose 10 men to be placed into an underground bunker and starved to death.  When the last man selected cried out that he was worried about his wife and children, Kolbe volunteered to take his place.  He prayed and held mass during the two weeks in the cell while the other men starved to death.  He was the last one alive.  The guards had to inject him with poison which ended his life.  Pope John Paul II canonized Maximillan Kolbe in 1982.)

The Thrill of the Hunt

After losing a lot of the month due to sickness, I felt like I was really behind the eight ball when it came to Easter.  I had to do some last minute, one stop Easter shopping at Wal-Mart. It got the job done.  Egg dying occurred between 8-9 pm on Good Friday.  I was ready to skip it this year.  However,  Reed and Riley really wanted to do it.  I didn't want to let them down. 
Luckily, they were satisfied dying just 18 eggs.

On Holy Saturday, I made some treats to take to Mom and Dad's on Easter.  When Steve got home from work, we went to Smashburger for dinner.  For the past couple of years, Cole, Trent and I have been going to Holy Saturday service.  We changed our plans this year.  The Buckeye basketball team was playing in the NCAA tournament.  They had made it to the Elite Eight, and we didn't want to miss their game.  (Turns out, we should have just gone to church.)  At halftime, we had a backyard, glow in the dark Easter egg hunt.  The kids enjoyed it and ended the night on a sugar high.

The kids woke up on Easter morning and were excited to see what the bunny had left them.  Since we didn't go to mass the night before, we decided to attend the 7am sunrise service.  Even though it was early, we really liked this service.  We decided it may be our new tradition.

After church, we spent a couple of hours at home.  Steve took the kids over to visit his parents while I did some chores.  Around 1:30 pm, we headed up to New Bremen. We enjoyed spending the rest of the day with family.  We had the annual Easter egg hunt and had a fish fry for dinner.  It turned out to be a great Easter.

So long March

March was a difficult month for us.  As I wrote in my last post, on March 1st, Riley got a terrible stomach bug.  I was up all night with her.  Early the next morning, I got a text from Trent.  He had spent the night at a friend's house and asked to be picked up.  The day before, he and his friend had been skateboarding.  Trent wrecked his skateboard and hurt his right arm.  He didn't say anything to his friend or friend's parents about how bad it hurt.  Instead, he went on to the "party" at another friend's house that they had planned to attend.  He had a rough night and couldn't sleep.  When he got home, he told us what happened and said his arm really hurt.  Steve and I made the decision that he should go to the emergency room.  Riley was still sick so Steve took Trent.  After x-rays, Trent's arm was put in a half cast.  An appointment with an orthopedic doctor at Children's was scheduled for Monday, March 3rd.  It was determined that Trent had a buckle fracture and a full cast was put on.  Since it was his right arm, I was stuck being his homework scribe for the next couple of weeks.  I told him that he needed to hurry and get his cast off because seventh grade was bad enough for me the first time around.  Ha!  Fortunately, his arm healed quickly.  He had a follow up apt. on March 25th, and the cast came off.  (You can tell March was rough because the only two pictures I have of Trent with his cast on are the ones that Steve took right before he got the cast off.)



After Riley got better, I got sick.  It was a terrible bug.  I think Cole got it next.  He had a much milder case of it than Riley or I.  I had been praying that Trent would be spared, but it wasn't meant to be.  He got sick on Saturday, March 9th.  Poor guy got the worst of it I think.  I felt really bad seeing him that sick while he was also dealing with his broken arm.  The following night, Reed ended up with a very mild version.  Steve was the last man standing.  I thought for sure he would come down with it too.  Thank God he didn't because I was about to deal with something even worse.

Without going into all the details, I ended up in the emergency room on the morning of Saturday, March 16th.  By that time, I had already suffered through a few days of pain.  By 3:00 pm on the 16th,  I was in emergency surgery.  The pain both before and after the surgery was awful.  I was back in the emergency room on Monday, March 18th.  After that, things slowly started to improve. 

 I was off work for a week but was able to go back on Monday, March 25th.  That morning,
we woke up to 5-6 inches of snow on the ground.  As I went back to work, the kids enjoyed a snow day off of school.

I am finally starting to feel like myself again.  I feel like we should all get a reward for surviving March, especially Steve. I am used to being a very independent person.  It is hard for me to ask for help.  Steve took great care of me and the kids while I was down and out.  I don't know what I would have done without him.



Happy Birthday Steve!

Steve turned 46 on Friday, March 8th.  We had planned to go out to dinner that night, but life got in the way.  Reeed, Riley and I had tickets for a play at Town Hall Theatre in Centerville on Friday, March 1st.  On the way to the theatre, Riley got a stomach bug.  We were able to exchange our tickets for the following Friday (Steve's birthday).  Steve and I decided to go out to dinner to celebrate his birthday on Saturday, March 9th. 

 

After the play, we brought home cupcakes so we could celebrate Steve's birthday in a small way on his actual day.  It is a good thing we did too.  On Saturday, March 9th, Trent caught the stomach bug.  He was the 4th one in the family to get it.  Steve's birthday dinner plans were put on hold again.    Hopefully sometime before March is over, we will make it out to celebrate.  Happy Birthday Steve! 

the only birthday picture I took

Frosty Fun

On Wednesday, March 6th, we woke up to a blanket of white.  A late Winter snowstorm had hit the area.  We had about 4-5 inches of snow.  The kids got the day off school.  I had a two hour delay and then went into work. 

 

After I got home from work, I asked Reed and Riley if they wanted to go outside and play in the snow.  The weather was suppose to warm up over the next few days, and I knew the snow wouldn't last long.  It was a very wet snow-perfect for making snowmen and snowballs.  We started by building a very unique snowman. The kids got a kick out of that. We then had a snowball fight.  After a while, I went inside to make dinner.  Reed and Riley stayed out and played quite a while longer.  Although no one really wants snow in March (or ever for that matter), we made the most of it.  We had a great time!

 

 

 

 

Ready, Set, Blow

Because of our Disney trip and some other things going on, we weren't able to have Trent and Reed's birthday party until Saturday, February 16th. Hard to believe that Trent is now a teenager! Grandpa and Grandma Suchland, Dina, Brad & Family, Annette, Rod & Family, and Alex and Cristina came. We had pizza for dinner and cake and ice cream later that evening.

 

 

Disney World-Day 8

We woke extra early on our final day at Disney World.  Our flight home was at 3:30, but we had to be back to the resort by 12:30 for Magical Express to take us to the airport.  We woke up and got ready, finished packing and headed out of our room.  We were able to check into our flight right at the resort.  They checked our one bag and held all our carry on bags until it was time to leave.

We were headed back to the Magic Kingdom today.  They opened at 8:00.  The other three parks. didn't open until 9:00.  We wanted to have as much time as possible in a park before we had to be back to the resort.  Besides, Magic Kingdom is our favorite park.

Art of Animation Resort

Once we got to Magic Kingdom, we headed straight for Space Mountain.  We rode it twice. 

Riley's picture from the first ride was so funny that we had to take a picture of the picture.

Riley on Space Mountain

After Space Mountain, we grabbed fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  We went over to Liberty Square to ride Haunted Mansion.  We than ran into Chip and Dale and stood in a short line so the kids could meet them.

 

Chip and Dale

After meeting Chip and Dale, we went to Adventureland and rode Pirates of the Caribbean.  We headed back toward Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  On the way, we stopped to meet Woody and Jesse. 

Woody and Jesse

We rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and it was nearing the time to leave. We made our way back up to Main Street USA and stopped for a couple of photopass pictures there.  We took the bus back to Art of Animation, ate lunch in the food court, retrieved our carry ons and took the Magical Express back to the airport.  The flight home was smooth except the fact that we were sad that our Disney trip had come to an end.


Disney Magic

Flight Home