mother's day

Since we decided not to hold our garage sale again another weekend, we were looking at a completely free weekend for Mother's Day.  So I decided early in the week that we'd go visit my parents and spend Mother's Day with my mom.  And why not make it a surprise!?!? 

 

But on a side note...did you know it was possible to have strep throat with no other symptoms besides a super bad sore throat?  I found out it was possible about 2 hours before we left town. I should have made an appointment earlier in the week, but I thought it was dumb to go in just to be told I have a sore throat. But for some reason this "sore" was way worse than the normal sore throat, and I only went in because Dave pretty much forced me to.  The only other time I've had strep, I was sicker than a dog, in bed, fever, AWFUL.  This time, I had the same glass-in-my-throat feeling, but nothing else, other than feeling super duper run down.  I just contributed it to having done way too much over the last week or so, between my weekend in Texas, the garage sale in cold weather, and then setting up field day at the kid's school.  But after having NO energy all week, and a throat hurting so bad it was painful to eat, drink, swallow and sleep, I called the nurse to ask if it was possible to have strep without a fever and other symptoms.  She told me to come in, and sure enough, that's what I had.  I'm glad to at least know that something REAL was wrong with me all week.  And thankfully, the antibiotics kicked in super fast and I felt so much better all weekend.

 

We pulled up to my parent's house in Missouri, about 11pm.  I had told my dad we were coming, but my mom had no clue.  The knock on the door at 11 freaked her out enough that there was no way she was going to open the door herself.  My dad let the kids in and they started sneaking down the hallway until they met my mom coming around the corner.  It was a super fun surprise!

 

We spent all day Saturday in Springfield.  Lunch on the patio of Panera...



 

and it's never a trip to Springfield without visiting Bass Pro Shop where Papa works.

There were quite a few new things to see, plus my dad's 40% off discount is always fun to use too.

 Then we checked out Springfield's Discovery Center.

The kids dug for dinosaur bones and went in the tornado machine to see what 70+ mph winds felt like.

The blur in the background is pretty much all that Gavin is these days.

 

 

  They played music, pretended to be news reporters, went grocery shopping, and ran in an hamster wheel to make electricity. The gigantic bubble machine was probably Gavin's favorite, and so was running out of mom and dad's site every chance he got.

 

 

Mason found Papa's glasses and cracked us up.

 

Sunday morning got to spend some time with my grandma. We surprised her too!  And somehow her TV remote made it all the way back to home in Kansas in the diaper bag.  I can only imagine who the culprit was. 

 

 

After church we had a yummy but REALLY long lunch before we left town.  As in 2 hours long.  It wasn't an issue of being crowed and waiting for a table.  We got our table within 15 minutes.  But waiting on our food.  It was far from a delightful lunch.  And the best part was that for half of that time, they were out of high chairs, so we had nothing to keep Gavin confined.  I think the kids and Dave spent more time outside playing than they did sitting at the table. I'm pretty sure we all ate so much chips and salsa that by the time our order came, no one was even hungry anymore.  I will just pretend that lunch never happened.

 

 

It was a fun weekend.  I loved getting to visit and surprise my mom for Mother's Day.  I know our schedule doesn't allow us to get there to visit near enough.  Now if only our littlest traveler will learn to travel as good as his brother and sister - these trips may be a bit more enjoyable.

 On our way home, Mason started feeling really sick. We thought it was car sickness, but the fever and ongoing yucky feelings after we were home for awhile proved otherwise.  Poor thing had his last day of school the next day and we hated for him to miss. I should have kept him home, considering the 24 hour fever rule - but he felt fine Monday morning and I hated for him to miss his last day and ice cream party. Tuesday morning the fever came back, and he threw up all morning.  We were worried about 2 mysterious spots on him that were getting worse and worse, and we wondered if they were spider bites.  FYI, don't EVER look up brown recluse spider bite pictures online.  We were quite worried and got him in to see the doctor.  Ends up that the bites aren't bad ones, but were definitely infected.  I also had no clue that fever and throwing up was a sign of strep - and sure enough he tested positive. 

 

So our summer break is being welcomed in with antibiotics.  And we are waiting to find out who gets hit next.