Happy Birthday, Nick

Well, March Madness has come to an end. Nick officially turned 7 yesterday.
We had a wonderful spring break road trip. We got to spend an evening with Julie, Karlton, and Amelia in Louisville. We had dinner together and then Julie and I got to talk and catch up while Rob took the kids swimming. Our drive was broken up to about 6 hour drives. We continued on to our cabin in Sevierville, TN. It was about 15 minutes from town and was up on the top of a mountain that had tons of twists and turns to get to. We were in the mountains and didn't have wifi and it was great. We explored most of the Northeast Smoky Mountains. We started at Big Creek and decided to try the mountain hugging road instead of getting back on the interstate. We had awesome views and saw waterfalls and nature up close and personal...however, we also probably prematurely aged ourselves about 10 years. The car said we were 100 miles til empty and it was 16 miles to the next inlet. We didn't take into consideration the gravel/dirt road, the twists and turns and the climbing the mountain. Also, it turned out the next inlet in 16 miles was just a hiking trail and not a gas station. I was so happy when we could see the interstate in the distance and was even happier that we could coast down most of the last 4 miles...literally, coasting into the gas station on the last fraction of a gallon of gas.
It was chilly there, even snowed on and off. We went to the aquarium one day and it had the coolest moving walkway shark lagoon. The fish, shark, stingrays, and turtles were swimming all around you and you were just able to take it all in. We walked around downtown and looked in a couple of the arts and crafts studios. Ellie really wanted to go to this mini golf course but the time we had left was all freezing and snowing.
We spent the last couple days in Cincinnati. On our first night there, the kids had been asleep for a few hours, Rob went to bed and then the fire alarm went off. I called the front desk and the clerk didn't really know what to tell me. It was midnight but we woke the kids up and went down to the lobby. Turned out that it was some stupid person pulling the switch. Luckily, Nick didn't even remember it in the morning and Ellie shrugged it off. We went to the museum in Union Station. It was 3 museums in one - history, science, and children's. We spent hours there. They had a train exhibit with Cincinnati history that Nick loved. They had this huge bat cavern that you could walk through to see a bats perspective. We had dinner at our favorite Ohio Mexican restaurant. We drove home on Friday. It was a great week and we are already talking about possibly going West next year.
Nick didn't really want to do anything but hang out and play for his birthday. Ellie made cake pops and video taped it. She really wants to place it youtube. Ellie and Rob started to edit it on Saturday night. Nick didn't want to go out for dinner so we brought food in. We went to Target after dinner so Nick could use a gift card that he received for his birthday. We built his new lego truck when we got home.
Today I finished up all our laundry. Did a grocery run for the week. Rob and I worked to dig up all the bulbs and tubers that were around the base of the tree so they don't get damaged when they stump it. The kids played outside all afternoon with our neighbors. We went to dinner at Mom and Dad's. It was great that the kids got to play outside there, too. Ellie's cake pops turned out great.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree