What I Loved About Last Week (1st Edition)

My friend, Kansas Mom, does a weekly review on her blog called "What I Loved About Last Week."  In an effort to be a little better about capturing a snapshot of our lives, I'm going to join her "week-in-review" style blogging to see how that works for our lives.

Here's what I loved the week of 3/19-3/25

1. SPRING!  Even though it rained most of last week, Ira's Spring Break, we had a wonderful week, and it was a good reminder of the changing seasons.  Goodbye COLD, hello Spring.  Even if it's rainy, I'd take it over winter any day.

2. Gardening!  We spent the first weekend of Spring Break almost entirely outside.  We moved 26 tons of dirt by hand (with shovel of course!) to make 4 wide raised beds (3ft wide by 24 foot long and about 2 foot deep.)  It was HARD work, but such GRATIFYING work!  (Such is life with gardening.)  We still have 3 beds left to make, but have a little bit of time to get them done as we don't need to plant anything in them until mid April.  This is a new method of gardening for us found in this book.  We're anxious to see what kind of results we get with it.

2. Fun activities - we decided to step out of the ordinary, stay at home days that we typically have and do fun activities outside the house.  Friday we picked up a bunch of stuff to finish getting our garden ready then spent the evening with my sister and her family playing outside, roasting marshmallows, and talking about the future.  Tuesday, we spent the day at Exploration Place.  It was so nice to go somewhere and just have fun and not have to worry about what other errands we need to get to (typically when we go to town, we're there to run errands.)  Thursday night, Andy and I took the kids to Chuck-E-Cheese's.  Neither of them (nor I for that matter) had ever been.  To say it was sensory overload would be an understatment, but once we adjusted to the constant noise/lights/activity, we actually had a WONDERFUL time!  Ira loved playing the games and Ruby loved riding the little bus over and over and over...

3. Ira impressed me with his honesty when we walked up to a game and there was a ticket hanging out (that somebody had forgotten I guess.)  I asked him if he was going to take the ticket and he said "No mom, I didn't win it, it's someone else's."  Wow, thank you for teaching me about truly being honest, Ira.

4. Romantic Getaway.  Andy surprised me Thursday night by telling me we were getting away for the weekend and my parents were going to watch the kids.  It was WONDERFUL!!!!  We ate dinner at Bonefish Grill on Friday night.  It was a little pricey, but the food was honestly some of the best I've ever tasted.  We then spent the night at the Hotel at Old Town.  Hotel at Old Town will always hold a special place in my heart because it's where we spent our wedding night.  We've always been impressed with them and they didn't fail to disappoint this time either.  The manager who booked our room purposely booked us in the same room we spent our wedding night in nearly 7 years ago.  It was such a pleasant surprise!  On Saturday we went to Kansas City and spent the day shopping up at The Legends.  We spent the night at the Four Points Sheraton at the Airport, then went to Mass at the Cathedral in KC and headed back home to pick up the kids after eating lunch at Ruby Tuesday.  You know it's been a nice break when you're actually ready to get home and back to the kids.  We had such a nice time reconnecting and just talking without interruptions.  I have such a sweet hubby!