Grandpa Roy's 90th birthday party

On April 18th, we celebrated Great-great grandpa Roy's 90th birthday! Noah met family members he had never met before and I saw family members I hadn't seen since my grandma's funeral almost 18 years ago. It was a wonderful afternoon. The pictures are all of the group shots - the only shot I missed was getting a picture of Noah with ALL 4 of his grandpas and 4 out of 5 of his grandmas... with the exception of Grandma Hurst, every one of Noah's grandparents were in one room and I missed the photo op. I had even thought about it before the party but didn't remember until 4 of his grandparents had already left. :( I'd say, "Maybe next time," but chances are pretty good that the opportunity will never come 'round again.

Roy's 90th

More Dubuque pictures

Despite the fact that we were in Dubuque for less than 3 days, we still managed to spend a little bit of time with everyone. Friday night, Noah and I had Happy Joe's pizza with Grandma Alice & Grandpa Bob and the Rehfeldts and Noah and Taylor even had an Easter egg hunt! Saturday night, we spent with Gummy, Grandpa Bruce, Uncle Bryan and his boys, Aunt Becky and Cousin Josh, once again eating Happy Joe's pizza, this time in the lobby of Gummy & Grandpa's hotel. :) Grandma Bobbie, Aunt Becky & Josh had made the trip over from Nevada (near Ames) so they could see all of us. It was fun to sit and talk and laugh together. We all went to church with Grandpa Roy on Saturday night, so that gave us some time to have breakfast together on Sunday morning before heading for home.

Family Time in Dubuque

A whirlwind trip to Dubuque, Iowa

This past weekend, Noah and I made the 400 mile trip to Dubuque to help celebrate Great-great grandpa Roy's 90th birthday. We left on Thursday after school and arrived late Thursday night to Grandma Alice & Grandpa Bob's. Amazingly, with most of the construction in Chicago completed, we were able to make the trip in just over 7 1/2 hours, and that included our dinner stop! (I was expecting the more typical 8 1/2-9 hour trip...)

On Friday, we were able to spend the day with Uncle Bryan, cousins Steve, Brendan and Aidan and Great-great grandpa Roy, seeing the "sights" of Dubuque. Grandpa Roy kept up with all those boys - they were done sightseeing before he was! Since Bryan's boys had never been to Dubuque before, we wanted to show them some of the things we did growing up. We went to the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (which actually is fairly new - not something we did growing up...), Shot Tower Pizza (one of my Dubuque favorites!), the Fenelon Place Elevator (aka the 4th St. elevator), and Julien Dubuque's grave, which I haven't been to in ages and I don't think Noah has ever visited. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time just being together - something that doesn't happen often enough since we live so far apart.

Here are some pictures from our day of "sightseeing."

The Sights of Dubuque

Happy Easter!

I awoke this morning to this beautiful picture that Noah drew for me.

We went to the "sunrise" service this morning, making it 5 worship services in 4 days for Mr. Noah. Following this morning's worship, we went to the Easter breakfast sponsored by the youth and then of course, the Easter egg hunt!! There were 16 kids participating this year, which was GREAT! (One year each kid got to collect 71 eggs - egg overload! This year it was 26 - still more than enough!)


We also attempted to do some special cookies that a friend of mine told me about... I'm not sure what they're called - empty tomb cookies? You tell the Easter Passion story while mixing together the ingredients the night before and then put them in a preheated oven overnight, turning the oven off after you put the cookies in. They are supposed to be hollow when you bite into them in the morning, but ours didn't really have that effect. They're very light and airy, but no obvious empty space to remind us of the empty tomb. Oh well... it was worth a try.

This afternoon, we'll have Easter steaks (we opted out of ham this year...) and just relax. Hopefully Michael will get a nice, restful nap in as well. After the first hymn this morning, his voice was already a bit crackly, so hopefully he makes it through the 2nd service!

Noah and I head to Dubuque on Thursday for Great-grandpa Roy's 90th birthday, so we'll continue to be busy for at least one more week.

I pray that each of you has a blessed Easter. He is risen! He is risen indeed!! Alleluia!!!

Easter cookies

We made some Easter cookies and I thought I'd share them with you because some of them are pretty funny. We made feet to symbolize Jesus washing the disciples' feet on Maundy Thursday, in case you're wondering. :)

Easter cookies

COSI

Noah's Spring Break unfortunately falls on Holy Week, which limits the possibilities of things we can do. We planned a trip to COSI and though it's the busiest week of the year for Michael, he came along! It was a nice surprise to have him along with us. We had lunch at Uno Grill and then spent the afternoon at COSI in Columbus. Check out the pictures by clicking on the picture below: (don't forget to click on "Slideshow" in the upper left on the next screen)

COSI

Girlfriends and Grades

I've been meaning to blog about Noah's girlfriend for a few days, so I'll combine it with his latest report card. :)

Noah came home about a week ago and told me he had a girlfriend. Her name is Ella and she is in his class. He said he likes her because she looks nice every day and because she is very good at coloring. That's right, the important traits for a girlfriend: looks and artistic ability. ;)

As for grades... Noah continues to do great in kindergarten. All Es and Ss! (Excellent and Satisfactory) Mrs. Lyons included these comments on this quarter's report card:
"Noah continues to amaze me. He is ready for first grade right now. Let's keep challenging him, truly he has no limits...You should be so proud, he is a wonderful young man."

We are proud of him and he continues to amaze us as well. His reading has improved tremendously in the past few months and he is just soaking up new things left and right. We applied for the Arts Magnet for next year. If accepted, he will do everything that "normal" first graders do along with an additional 90 minutes of music, art, drama and dance each week. We saw kids from the Arts Magnet perform at a Lima Symphony concert a couple weeks ago and he whispered, "Mom, maybe they'll do this next year and I'LL be able to dance up on the stage!" It's a lottery system to get in, so we just have to wait and see.