When Rob told me that, I said, "Well anytime you want to go see Jason and go to a Luke Bryan concert, you just let me know and we will be there!" The closest they got to our house was the Quad Cities area so arrangements for tickets and hanging out were made. One issue- our children. There is no one to babysit that far away from home and so I ended up staying at the hotel with the boys while Rob met Luke Bryan. Argh- my plan totally backfired! Oh, and he also met everyone from Thompson Square and Florida Georgia Line and ate and drank for free all night. The boys and I ate Taco Bell and watched Cars on our little tiny dvd player we brought with us. Yeah. Exciting trip- for Rob. I got to see the Mississippi River for the first time so that was good, I guess? I did have a good time getting out of town, it just wasn't quite as fun as I was hoping for. Oh well.
After that was my sister and family's visit then Rob went to race in California and was gone 5 days. We all missed him a lot and was so glad when he got back. We both have iPhones now though so being able to do Facetime and talk and see each other helps a bunch. Two days after Rob returned, my parents arrived for a week-long visit. We honestly didn't do too much while they were here. The weather was really cold and crappy. Over the weekend though we did go to Des Moines to visit the West End Architectural Salvage store- if you are an HGTV fan, you may have seen their show before. I have been wanting to go to their store for years but it took my mom seeing the show and suggesting it to finally get me there. I knew it wouldn't be something the boys would like or a good place to take them (lots of breakables!) so I just never made it there because the boys are always with us when we go there. This time though, Rob stayed home with them while my parents and I took a little trip. I even got this badboy.
I have been wanting a library card catalog like that forever- probably since I first saw it in Sheldon and Leonard's apartment. Can you see it way in the back there, near the "window"?
Well, I've never seen one anywhere to buy and when I found this little 10-drawer part of one, I took it. Actually it ended up being a birthday present from my parents (thank you mom and dad so, so much!). I have plans to put some legs on it and find a new top and use it for a side table in my living room. So that trip was kind of my highlight of their visit. Not just because of what I got, but because I got to spend the day out with them and have my full attention just be on them and not trying to be a mom first and then give them whatever I have left after that. It seemed like their visit went really fast and I was very sad to see them go. The boys keep asking about them, and Uncle Jim, Aunt Megan and Olivia so I think they miss all our visitors a lot. Me too, boys. Me too.
So that brings us to the past weekend which I knew would be a busy one with Saturday being my birthday and then Easter on Sunday. The birthday started off great- I actually got to go to Des Moines by myself in the morning to pick up the card catalog and do a little shopping. After being gone about 3 hours though, I was notified that the fridge at home was having some difficulties. I ended up skipping the last few places I wanted to go so I could come home and see what was happening there. We got some over-the-phone advice so Rob could try to figure out what the problem was and see if he could fix it since guess what? No one wants to come out and fix your fridge the Saturday afternoon before Easter. Rob worked on it a lot over the next day and a half but we still ended up needing a repairman to take a look at it. He came on Tuesday and will get the part he needed today and be back tomorrow to install it. Crossing our fingers that solves the problem. My birthday did have some bright spots though-
I think there was more I was going to share but my brain is all tired now from trying to remember everything about the last month. And it is just about time to go pick up Rex from preschool so I better end this here.
