Busy April Part III

The very night that our company left, Brian and I headed to a benefit dinner for A Woman's Haven featuring none other than the eloquent Senator Sarah Palin.  We hosted a table and were able to meet her during a VIP hour.

And to continue the craziness of this month, we got in the car early the next morning to drive to Kentucky for our godson's First Communion.  It was a 16 hour drive and I got to do more of the driving than usual because Brian had stayed up late too many nights in a row and was exhausted.  The trip went smoothly and Kentucky is beautiful in the spring.  Only the home-schooled kids went with Brian and I, the big three stayed behind with their Mimi to go to school.

The first day we were there, the kids played hard and we visited with our good friends.  The second day was the Mass.  

We're so proud of you!

The third day, we went on an adventure to explore the land and area of southern Indiana.  It is on our list of potential retirement options.  We started with Meinrad Abbey.  Parts of it were closed to the public, but we went to the gift shop and talked to a bunch of people.  We left with an awesome statue of St. Isadore the Farmer who is one that is near and dear to my husband's heart.  Here is one of the small chapels that was open.

We drove to the sister convent of St. Meinrad and had lunch at the onsite brewery and pizza place next to their gift shop while Brian chatted with the guy who ran the brewery about the area.

We drove around to several other small towns to get an idea of where things are, what it looked like, how big the towns are, and how far grocery stores are from different areas.

I peeked inside a few churches and they all looked like this, but some were smaller. 

One of our evening walks in their neighborhood ended up in ice cream and a fountain photo.

Our last day was spent out at a winery/distillery with a restaurant, a lake, and an ice cream shop.  We enjoyed them all!

 It was a great trip with friends we hadn't seen in TWO YEARS!!!

Grandma

 On Saturday, we drove out to see Grandma Bess.  She looked beautiful and so put together like she always does.  She seemed to be doing very well.   The retirement place that she lives in set up a room for us to have lunch in which was so lovely.  Brian's Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bruce were there too.  We got our Italian Beef sandwiches that we get when we go there.  The kids were well behaved and Drew didn't break anything so that was a plus.  Luckily he's got quite the personality, so people seem to forgive him easily for having endless energy and being such a boy.  The hair dresser from down the hall made the kids balloon animals like she did last time.  Last time we visited her was 2 years ago when Drewy was about Judah's age.  Time flies, doesn't it?

The boys!  We thought it was funny that Carter picked out his t.u. sweatshirt while we were visiting, so I dug out Isaac's Aggie sweatshirt.

Cousins!

Great Grandma Bess and 5 of her 26 (I think!) great grandchildren

Brian and I got in the picture.

Great Grandma Bess tried to hold Judah, but he's a mover and a shaker.  We kept sitting him up and he kept straightening those legs like he always does.

She is laughing at how strong and wiggly he is.

Judah with (Great) Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bruce

Last Minute Trip

We took a last minute trip to Indiana because Brian's grandma has been in and out of the hospital a lot in the last month.  She is 100 years old and Brian really felt like we should go visit her again.  It was a 9.5 hour drive there that ended up being at least an hour longer due to snow and old country roads.  With stops it took nearly 12 hours.  The kids did great and Drew didn't even get carsick which is amazing!  Judah screamed only once for about 45 minutes.  It made Isaac start crying though towards the end of it.  He was the designated baby helper on the way to Indiana.  Brian plotted a Sonic on the way there so we made it to Sonic once both ways.  I got my new favorite drink, a mango-peach slush and a chili cheese dog.  (Yes, my diet started again today!)

We stayed at Brian's sister's house.  They live on a little farm with chickens and goats.  The kids were in heaven especially Genna who is the biggest animal lover.  Isaac was thrilled to have a boy his age to play with.  Carter is just a couple of months younger than him.

Isaac's holding a chicken.

Doesn't Drew look like the little boy on A Christmas Story.  When I sent him out, I told the kids to pick up back up if he fell over.  :)  It was in the teens!  Brrrr!

Genna is praying that they approve the law soon to allow us to raise chickens in the city limits at our house.  It was Brian's idea that I wasn't super thrilled with until I saw how sweet these chickens were.   I'm a big animal lover at heart, just one without any extra time to take care of them.  Brian swears that the kids and him will be in charge of them.

Cousin Lauren holding the baby Pygmy Goat, Lucy.  Lucy sounded just like Judah when she cried.

The kids found a spot in the front that had frozen ice over a low spot in the yard.  They were shoveling the snow to uncover their little ice rink.

That is ice there, but they hadn't uncovered it all yet.

Sledding on the ice

This was another of Genna's favorite things.  She wanted to know if we could make one of these in our yard when it snowed.

 They also had two four-wheelers and tied sleds to the back of them.  The kids all loved it!  Brian even talked me into riding on the four-wheeler with him.  I have never done that and am just not an adventurous girl when it comes to speed or heights.  He promised he'd go slow.  I wouldn't call what he did slow, but he insisted it was.  It was fun, I guess, but not really my thing.  :)

Isaac being pulled on a sled behind the four-wheeler.

Hannah's on the sled here.

Here's a video of Hannah behind the four-wheeler while her Auntie Kris drove.  This was much slower than when he took me, by the way.

I'll get pictures and stuff about our visit with Grandma Bess up in a day or so.