Happy Easter

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter. We started our day at church for the festival service and then home to get prepared for the family. Mom really made most of Easter dinner this year...lucky us. We hosted dinner for Mom & Dad, Jo, Ole, T & M, Dean, Lauren & the girls, the GGs, and UB. We had a lovely spread of delicious food - ham, pasta, potatoes, cabbage, corn pudding, asparagus, fruit, french toast bake, cheese stada, and salad. Great desserts, too - pineapple cake, cannoli, cupcakes, pies and candy. The kids did an egg hunt in the backyard and played well with each other. It was a great time and a lovely day.
Spring Break was a blast, we had such a good time. We left early on Sunday morning and drove to Columbus, Ohio. We got there mid afternoon. Traffic wasn't bad and the weather cooperated. It was off to the pool the second the bags were set down in the room. It was funny because the pool was an indoor/outdoor pool and you could see the steam coming off the outdoor portion. We stayed at Drury Inn hotels and we love them. They include breakfast and happy hour. We didn't have to get dinner that night because the heavy appetizers during happy hour.
Monday we woke up and were thrilled that the snow predictions were wrong. They said we could be waking up to 9"-12" and it turned out to be about 2"-3". We had breakfast and were off to COSI the science museum. On the way there, I noticed my rear turn signal was out. The museum was awesome. There were puzzle/maze exhibits, space exhibits, gadgets and gears. We watched a show that the kids got to see things blow up. There was a submarine that the kids could sit in and a deep ocean exhibit. We got my signal fixed at a local dealership on our way to Graeter's. It is an Ohio ice cream chain and the location nearest our hotel had a self guided tour of production. We had really good ice cream and the kids got to play in the playground for a little bit. It was pool time when we got back to the hotel and then another happy hour.
Tuesday we had breakfast and headed to Anthony Thomas Chocolates. We got a very cool tour of the factory and got to see many different chocolates being produced and packed. Our tour ended with a sample Buckeye and a visit to the chocolate store. We switched locations on Tuesday and traveled to Dayton. Our destination for the day was EnterTRAINment. It was a ginormous model railroad warehouse, play area and fun house. We spent a couple hours there. The layouts were amazing and so detailed. The kids loved the fun house, with its mazes and games. We had lunch at this great Mexican restaurant, El Rancho Grande. The food was really good and we lucked into lunch specials. We finished our drive to Dayton and checked into the Dayton hotel. Can you guess what the first stop was - pool! We tried to hit Scene 75, a huge entertainment complex but found it was closed until Thursday. We ended up at Chuck E Cheese for some game time instead.
Wednesday we started off at Boonshaft Museum. It was sort of nature center meets children's museum. We spent the morning there - so much to do and see. They had a great discovery zoo with animals you don't usually get to see close up. Bobcat, otters, mercats, porcupine. We saw a movie in the Dome theater  The kids got to run around and play in the various exhibits. We went to the US Air Force Museum/Hall of Fame. It was incredible how many planes were in the hangars. It was a lot of walking and Nick was running out of steam. We went back to the hotel and hit the pool. We had another scoop of ice cream from Graeter's and hit El Rancho for dinner - both were that good that we had them twice.
Thursday was the best weather day. It was sunny and in the 40s. We spent the morning at Carillon Historical museum. It was a favorite day. The museum park was like a smaller version Henry Ford Greenfield Village. There was an indoor museum with hundreds of the items patented in Dayton and a carousel. The park had about 2 dozen shops and buildings from historic Dayton. There was a one room school house, a tavern, a house, a print shop, the Wright Bros shop, a Mill. A huge transportation center, a new exhibit about the great flood of Dayton. We had the park to ourselves - seriously didn't see another family until we were leaving. We learned so much and it was great. We went to Scene 75 for an afternoon of game playing. We did glow in the dark mini-golf. We bowled, and we played games. Ellie hit the jackpot on a couple games and ended up with over 3,000 tickets. We had so much fun there, too. We came back to the hotel and hit the pool and then happy hour. While I was packing up our bags for our trip home, Rob took the kids for a bonus trip to the pool.
Friday we had breakfast and got on the road. It was Nick's actual birthday and we wanted to try to get home for a nice dinner. Our only stop on the way home was to Albanese Candy in Merrillville, IN. They make gummy products and their gummy bears are out of the ordinary flavors. We got home late in the afternoon because traffic once we hit Chicago really slowed. We had dinner at Red Robin and a scoop of ice cream from Chocolate Shoppe. I started our massive loads of laundry. Mom and Dad came over with a little something for Nick's actual birthday.  It was super nice to sleep in our own beds again.
Saturday, Ellie and I ran to the grocery store to pick up what we needed for today. Rob worked outside trying to clean up the yard. I took the kids to an Easter egg hunt at a local church. They had a nice time. Rob took the kids to the park while I got the house prepared for today. It was just a kick around day. We worked on Nick's bug project for school and started to get back to our normal routines.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree