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Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 – Thursday, April 9th, 2009
Kalamazoo/Dowagiac
Tuesday
We started our spring break with a shopping trip at K-Mart in Kalamazoo where my mom (grandma S.) works. Grandma purchased many nice things for the kids and I. Z got an air soft gun, sunglasses, and a hat. Little D got a pair of tying shoes (aka tennis shoes), sandals, hat, scarf, gloves, pants, and sunglasses. Little C got princess pajamas, sandals, and sunglasses. Big C got flip-flops, tennis shoes, and sunglasses. If you haven’t guest by now, my mom works in the shoe department and K-mart. Fortunate for us they were having a BOGO (buy one get one) sale. Shopping made us hungry so we went to Taco Bell for quick lunch. We dropped mom off at work and left to check into the hotel in Paw Paw.
We made reservations in advance at the Super 8 Hotel in Paw Paw because it is half way between Kalamazoo and Dowagiac. Little D could not wait to get to the hoshell (hotel). Upon arriving we passed the hotel because it was tucked behind a BP gas station directly across the street from the I94 exit. We ended up down town Paw Paw instead and stopped at the Calhoun county courthouse to take pictures of the building for big D. Z was more interested in the jail next door to the courthouse. I think he thought a prisoner would climb the wired fence and attack us. He told/ask me something about a guard with a gun, a tower, and prisoners. I can’t remember exactly what he said but something to that effect. Eventually, we turned around and found our hotel. Z made a crack about how much stuff we brought for a one-night stay. We all wondered if the hotel manager thought we were moving in. After we moved in to the hotel, as Z puts it, we got dinner at Burger King and then enjoyed some time at the pool. The pool was pretty cold so little C really didn’t want to get in however little D couldn’t get enough. Z and little C eventually decided to go swimming for a little bit but ended up going back to the room while little D and I had fun playing a game of catch in the pool. Well…..actually, I was on dry land and she was in the pool. Shortly, my mom (grandma S) showed up and we all went swimming together, that is, if you count 5 seconds of jumping up and down and yelling it’s too cold, as swimming. The funny part is that it was my itty-bitty thing of a mother whining about the cold. GEEZ….. mom, put some weight on will yah and maybe you wouldn’t lose so much heat from your body! Little D and I loved playing water ballerina and by the time we got done little D was shriveled up like a prune. My mom decided to go to the store for goodies to eat while we were playing games. Little D and I showed grandma S. how to play sequence dice and L.C.R. Little D kicked our butts! I invited my mom (grandma S.) to stay with us at the hotel and luckily we brought an extra blow up bed for her to sleep on. We didn’t originally plan for her to stay but we enjoyed every minute of it. The girls wanted to sleep with grandma S on the air mattress; Z had one queen bed, which left me with the other queen all for myself (Yippie!! Oooppps…Did I say that out loud?) Not to my surprise having a bed to myself didn’t last very long. Little D jumped into bed with me and then the goof ended up falling out of bed in the middle of the night.
Wednesday
We had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Great my grandma’s (Great Grandma F’s) house on Magician lake in Dowagiac. Shortly after arriving at Grandma’s the girls and grandma made scrumptious brownies for us have after a lasagna dinner. Yummmm , my two favorite foods to eat.
Great Grandma F hid 15 Easter eggs for the girls to hunt. First, they both found eggs as a team and then they re-hid them so they could each take turns hiding and finding them. We were glad it kept them busy outside for a while and hoped they would burn off some energy. Z made a target for his air soft gun and did some target shooting with Great Grandpa F. Through out the day Great Grandma kept us busy with lots of fun activities such as: playing games (which she rigged because she won all of them! LOL), making doll houses out of cardboard boxes, cutting out paper dolls, going for a walk, and driving down to the lake. Later, I was able to spend some quality time with Grandpa helping him with his facebook page. How many 89 year old’s do you know that have a facebook page? Gramps.. your cool and hip. He also helped me print out my pictures on his AWESOME printer. I was happy to hear his stores while listening to his favorite music Hank Williams on 8 track (yes… I said 8 track). He explained that he only paid $10.00 for the player and it works beautifully. Z asked Grandma to sew a Runescape (online video game) robe for him to role-play with. Grandma requested a picture of what he wanted so Z replicated a pattern on the computer for her. He did an awesome job with the design detail and grandma said she knew exactly what he wanted. Great Grandma is very talented, she recently salvaged a quilt that I attempted to sew. I had a little trouble with the backing so I gave it to her to fix and it looks great. We gave it to the girls to use for their toy babies. How special is that? As the evening drew near, I put a movie on for the kids so grandma could give me step-by-step instructions on how to make a scrubbie. Good thing grandma is patient because we could only get a portion of the scrubbie done. The kids had trouble settling down and I was having trouble making a slip not in the netting. Argg.
Thursday,
I awoke with a child puking. Little C got sick in the middle of the night but gratefully that did not deter me from eating grandma’s famous potato pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast we finished making the scrubbie and packed up for home. Since we were going through Kalamazoo I decided to stop at Beth’s gravesite in Riverside Cemetery. It was hard to see her grave un-earthed and awaiting a head stone. I took some pictures of the location of the site and explained to little C what it meant to be buried. Later, we headed to Subway on Gull road for lunch. Of coarse, little C did not want to eat anything after purging all night long. On the highway the kids started to fight and get anxious so I decided to stop at a rest area to play for a little bit. It was sunny and warm so we played tag and had a snowball fight with the snow that wasn’t melted. After we got home I asked little C what her favorite part of the trip was and she said “making the cardboard houses with grandma”. Thanks for your great hospitality Grandpa and Grandma. We miss you already.
Click here for our spring break photo album
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