More of the Same

I'm afraid that my blog is becoming a travel-ogue. You know, like testimonies in testimony meeting sometimes do. It's become a sort of chronological record of our goings on, a calendar in retrospect, a journal of events in the life of the Brown's. I say that like it's a bad thing or something. It's not really, I mean it'll be nice to go back a year from now and read about what we were doing in March of 2009, but it might not be so fun for you guys. Sorry if you're bored. I'm trying. I seem to be a dried-up well of blogging topic ideas lately. Wait a second, I know!, I'll blame it on being pregnant! Aha!! I hadn't thought of that before. The baby is sucking all of my creative ideas for blogging. Sorry, but you'll have to take it up with him/her, as the case may be. Tee hee.

So on to the travelogue...

This weekend was fabulous!! As in fan-freaking-tastic. It was so great I didn't want it to end. The only thing that kept me from refusing to let it end was the thought that we'd be able to have another one in only a week and a half from now. Phew! That was a close one.

As you know Mark had Spring Break last week, and that was nice. We went out to lots of lunches, got the last of our blinds put up, and took a hike around "The Dells", which is part of the Matthieson State Park, which is just a hop and a skip from Tonica. The Dells was pretty cool. Huge waterfalls cascading into a deep canyon that you'd never know existed had we not hiked into it. It got both of our heart rates up as there were many different elevations of hiking. We had a good time.

We let the girls skip school on Friday, and set off for Michigan after breakfast. We stopped at a Wendy's for lunch in Benton Harbor (how un-original), and I was struck with one of my first cravings. It was quite strange, it kind of snuck up on me. As I sat across the table from my daughters, they were both enjoying their happy meals of nuggets, fries with ranch, and chocolate milk. Yum, that chocolate milk looked delicious. I got up and got one for myself. It was extremely satisfying. (There I go with my commercial talk, Mark.) Craving #1: Chocolate Milk.

We pulled into Livonia around 5 pm. We immediately got off of I-96 at the Newburgh Road exit as we'd done a million times before to take a peek at the Bassett house. There were renters!! Other people living in our house! Isn't that such a weird feeling when you see OTHER people living in your house? Parking in your driveway? Hanging new curtains in your front window? Strange. We then drove towards Randolph and discovered (uh-oh!!) that SACC kids were on the playground playing. EEK!! The girls shrieked, they wanted to get out and see friends, and play, but we had a date with QDoba, and couldn't be late. We waved from the van...you can imagine the dramatics that ensued.

We then got back on the good 'ole Jeffries freeway to get to our beloved QDoba at the designated time. And it was glorious!! (That's right, I used the word "glorious" to describe a Mexican restaurant.) We were met by the warm, familiar aromas, and all of our family!! We got to dine with the Griswold's, the Day's, and the Grandparents. It was great. Can I just tell you I've really missed that?

We then grabbed some ice cream with the Day's at the infamous Ritters, which seemed like a good idea at the time, although we all shivered outside as we nibbled on our cones. It seems like it should be warmer than it is...why isn't it Spring yet?!?

We stayed with my parents, and on Saturday my Mom and I went to Leslie Goldman's baby shower (lovely and fun), while Mark, my Dad, and the girls went to the DIA. In Mark's words, "they were so horrible they didn't deserve Mexican Village, and they came directly home afterwards." Yikes.

Later on in the day, we went to Cole's 1st birthday party. Everything looked so cute, Erin had the house decorated in a Safari theme, but poor Cole had a high fever and we weren't sure what was going to happen. He perked up eventually and dove into his cute Lion cake and fun was had by all. It was so nice to visit with everyone. I still can't believe that baby is already 1!! The year has gone by too fast!

Later on that night, back at the little condo in the big woods, we enjoyed a little middle-eastern cuisine which satisfied a hankering I'd been having for some grape leaves and hommus. It was delicious. I wouldn't call it a full-blown craving though, just a hankering. It was yummy.

We made it to Church on Sunday morning to the Livonia Ward. It was nice to see familiar faces there. We had wanted to go to the Plymouth Ward, but 8:30 versus 9:00 made a big difference when it came time to wake up on Sunday morning. Ah well, maybe next time.

Now we're back home and things are back to normal, somewhat. We have another busy week, but then are heading back to MI. on Wednesday next week.

I already can't wait!!