Spring Break

Over Spring Break, I went to Illinois to visit family. I'm not going to give a full, detailed list of all the activities we did since that'd take up about a week's worth of blogs ;) :P, but a day-by-day list of who we got to see and some of the more interesting days ought to be enough.

Thursday night to Friday morning was the drive out there (approximately a 14- to 16-hour drive with pit stops). I didn't sleep much since it was my job to keep my mom awake. I slept for two hours when we stopped to rest and maybe another hour more altogether, but that's it. Friday afternoon was okay, mostly calling people to tell them we made it out alright and running some errands with my grandma. We also saw my Aunt Krystal for a short visit while we were out.

Saturday, Uncle Steve and Aunt Vickie took us out to the Rainforest Cafe in Gurnee, and then we all went to Rocky's House of Fun and Mini Golf and spent the afternoon/early evening mini golfing. Really, Saturday deserves its own journal, but that's okay. Adam was feeling sick at lunch so he didn't eat his mac and cheese, but I enjoyed my steak. We all caught up and enjoyed the decorations in the Cafe. Adam perked up for mini golf and Kaytlin insisted on trading golf balls with Uncle every few holes. The place itself is cool because it's dark and everything is painted in paint that glows in the black lights that are hanging in there. All the painting and things are carnival-themed so there is a bearded lady plywood cutout and various glowing mock carnival rides. We took our time, letting other groups pass us if they were faster. Kaytlin took turns between having Uncle or Mom help her and hitting the golf ball herself. She did surprisingly well for her usual lack of control.

Sunday was Easter, but the fun that day started before anybody got to Grandma Bonnie's house. My mother gave my brother and sister a bath in the jacuzzi but my grandma didn't specify not to put too much bubble stuff into the jacuzzi and bubbles were everywhere. When we started scooping them out of he tub, we piled them into the separate shower to pop. Surprisingly, neither Grandma or Papa Ron were angry about it. In fact, Grandma said that the bathroom smelled nice after it was all said and done. The rest of Sunday was rather tame, even though everybody was at Grandma Bonnie's.

On Monday, we went down to Oswego to visit Uncle Matt and Aunt Tracy. I can't say it was nothing special since it's always fun with Uncle Matt around, but very little would be interesting to you guys. Cousin Richie also came over so I got to see him for the first time in probably a few years. We all talked about various things and had a really good dinner, and then we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get a gift for my Uncle Brian's wedding and then to Culver's to get dessert.

Tuesday was spent going down to Aurora to visit my dad's side of the family. We wanted to go out there because Grandma Nebel was recently in the hospital for kidney problems but when we finally got out there, she was doing better than she has for a while. Personally, I was glad to hear it, especially since my dad was mad that he wasn't able to come out and see her yet. After we visited her and brought her up to speed on how Kaytlin was doing, we went to Aunt Ze and Cousin Cris' house. I was finally able to get online and that's when I responded to the first batch of comments on dA. I didn't get to see the one cousin I wanted to (he's still in the military and somewhere else), but Kaytlin became good friends with our second cousin, Natalie Rose (who chewed out my mom for not visiting often enough :P). We had tacos for dinner and I did get to talk to my cousin, even if I didn't actually get to see him. We didn't get back to Grandma's house until 12:15 am (Oops...).

We spent half of Wednesday at Grandma's house before we went out to visit Aunt Tracy and Cousins Abby, Max, and Jake. After we spent a few hours there (and I attempted to read my comments on dA but didn't get very far because the computer was being a pain), we watched Max and Jake's karate class, which meant going back to Grandma's house since she teaches the class and the school is right next door to her house. After class, we went out to dinner with Aunt Tracy and Uncle Tommy, the cousins (Tom and Tracy's children, anyway), Papa Ron and Grandma Bonnie, and then Auntie Amber and her kids caught up with us while we were still there, but didn't eat dinner with us. Adam was finally feeling better so he ate a good amount of pizza.

On Thursday, we started packing up our stuff and Aunt Krystal, Grandma Betty, and a friend of my mom's from school all came over to visit. We spent some time relaxing but left to go to Uncle Steve's house early in the evening. We said happy birthday to Cousin Kim (not Uncle and Aunt's kid, Richie's sister) and Adam later gave her her 25 spankings and a pinch to grow an inch. :D We had spaghetti for dinner and Oreo cheesecake for dessert. Uncle taught Adam table hockey with pennies and sent him on a scavenger hunt, with money as the prize for each find. Adam was a pain most of the night, but in normal Uncle Steve fashion, he didn't really get mad. I think he got a little annoyed, but as my mom said, he's a quiet discipliner, very unlike my dad. He's also surprisingly fast, which I expected but which apparently caught Adam completely off-guard. That's what he gets for continuing to misbehave when even Uncle tells him to stop. :D Other than Adam's behavior, the night went very well for our last night before setting off on the road again.