It was an eventful but apparently not very photogenic Easter weekend. I felt like things were nearly non-stop from about mid-week on, and I think I'm still recovering. Luckily, Jacob's sniffles earlier in the week didn't last long so we were good to go for the weekend.
Our weekend sort of started on Thursday. Jacob was off that day and we had scheduled his annual brain study for the day since it wasn't a common day off in the area and they still had space. Usually we go around Christmas but between their schedule and ours (and probably COVID capacities and the like), it got pushed off. I took the morning off because I knew that it usually takes me until about lunch to finish the surveys that are my responsibility, and then I usually end up working all afternoon from there anyway while I wait for Jacob. Luckily, he got done a couple hours early so we were out by about 3:30, which was hugely helpful for me. I had about a million things to get done because we were planning on leaving for Buffalo that night. I had a dessert to make (Scotcheroos) and croutons to bake, I had to grocery shop before that, figure out dinner, and pack up the kids and me so we could get to my parents' at a reasonable time. Oh, and I was trying to figure out how to fit in a trip to Kohl's at some point during the weekend because I had a $5 coupon, $10 coupon, and a 30% off coupon (that later became 40% off), that all needed to be used ASAP! Plus we were coming back Friday night for Jacob's tournament on Saturday, and then getting ready for Easter. It was a lot and without those two bonus hours I'm not sure it would have all gotten done. In the end the only thing I didn't get to on my endless list was hard boiling and dyeing eggs, but that's what break is for, right?
I managed to get the grocery shopping done, feed everyone, make Scotcheroos and croutons, finish packing, and miraculously get us out the door before it was too terribly late. I think we got there around 10:30 or so and basically went right to bed. My mom wanted to get up bright and early and go to Platters, mostly for their custard sale, but also to grab a couple Easter items. I got a couple things for the kids--a chocolate basketball for Jacob and a chocolate smart phone for Carter--and some sponge candy for me. Plus my mom's gift to us was a box of miniatures. I miss being able to smell when I'm there because I know it smells amazing! We were back home by around 8am and I was so tempted to go to the Broadway Market to get a painted Polish egg or two and look for a few other things, but the thought of battling traffic and dealing with crowds won out and I just relaxed for a bit. My mom wanted to go to Kohl's, too, so we went there before lunch. She found a few things but I found nothing, which was a double bummer because I wasn't sure my weekend would leave much time to try again at home. We stopped quickly at Walmart to pick up lunch meat for lunch and some gluten-free things for Jacob, and then ate quickly before the kids and I headed out to the outlets...of course. Jacob just got new sneakers so luckily he didn't really have to look for shoes, but Carter wanted to look since his are inexplicably getting worn out already. Jacob did manage to find some clothes at the Nike Store and one thing at the Puma store, and Carter found some sneakers at the Puma store, as well. We made it back to my parents' house with just enough time to boil up Jacob's pasta for prunes and noodles and head out.
After missing prunes and noodles entirely in 2020 and doing it masked and a little nervous last year, this year was a nice return to normalcy, even if COVID is spreading pretty readily again and there are probably plenty of risks to any gathering. But if I can have that kind of close contact with Craig and not get it, I'm going to try to live life relatively normally if I can--especially the important stuff involing family and holidays. We had a lovely time with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their babies. Interestingly, Carter got into playing my uncle's full size arcade game and made a buddy in my cousin's very shy daughter Emmy, who apparently talks to almost no one. Go figure. It was fun catching up, watching the little kids, and eating too much as usual. After that, we were off to church. The kids and I were definitely in the minority masked, but I was thankful we were when I started hearing Carter sniffle. Ugh, not again. Luckily, it seemed to be nothing again, so maybe it's allergies or maybe the dose of zinc I gave him was enough to knock it out overnight. Ironically, the church's head pastor tested positive for COVID that morning! Definitely a bummer heading into one of the biggest church times of the year, and apparently my mom did throw her mask back on after hearing that! I got to see an old high school friend of mine there. Her family normally goes to my mom's childhood church but has apparently been checking out my parents' church here and there ever since they took piano lessons with my aunt there. Ironically, my aunt now goes to our old church again! Such a funny little world the local Lutheran churches are! After church, the boys and I stopped at the Trader Joe's across the street to grab a few things, and then headed home. The house was empty as Craig left that morning for Long Island, his last road trip of the season (yes!).
We were up bright and early on Saturday for a 9am basketball game. It was against a team that's under the domain of Jacob's favorite coach, but not actually coached by him. We knew it would be a rough game, and it was--so rough that Jacob never even got to play. That was super disappointing. It made for an extra long drive out to a team lunch 20 minutes away (plus a detour to get him Chick-fil-A since the restaurant didn't have anything for him). He was not happy. Carter and I stayed for lunch (my garbage plate wrap was so good!), and then we all headed home for a bit before the next game so I could work through some of my Easter to-do list. I had to bake cupcakes for Easter dessert, for starters. I had just enough time for that before leaving for game #2. Once again Jacob didn't play a lot, but he did get nearly a point a minute once he made it in. He scored five points in about six minutes, which definitely aided in their win. I think it also made a case that he should be able to play more, but I guess we'll see. Because of their morning loss they didn't end up in the championship, but for one weekend that was fine with me because I needed those two hours desperately!
Back home we went, and I quickly fed the kids (I was still stuffed and settled for a smoothie later that night) and headed out to Kohl's. I did really well this time, getting a long puffer coat, two pairs of pajamas for Carter, a blouse, a "dressy" flannel shirt, a long-sleeve tee, and a pair of leggings for $41. Not bad! The coat in particular was a score--just $14 for a cute, cozy, knee-length coat that fits me like a glove! Back home, my next task was to prep for Easter breakfast.
Now, I guess a side note is needed here. Originally we were hoping to just spend the weekend in Buffalo and have Craig meet us there after his roadtrip. But the Saturday tournament put the kibbosh on that once it was confirmed a few weeks ago. Still, we figured maybe we could go back to Buffalo Saturday night, go to church with my parents on Sunday, enjoy their church breakfast (which Carter still talks about), and meet up with Craig in time to head to his family. Well...he couldn't get his original flight changed, and eventually a group of them decided to drive back from Long Island after Saturday night's game, which got him home around 4:30am. Ick. But the good news was that we could all take one vehicle and do all of Easter together. So, taking a cue from our pandemic Easter, I decided to try to make Easter morning as special as possible by having a fun breakfast. The only issue was that I still wasn't sure what timing would work better for us. If we went to 9:30 church, I'd have to get up early to make breakfast, drag Craig out of bed on a few hours sleep, and hope we made it to church on time (and if we were late, listen to Jacob complain about not being in the sanctuary again--he hates being in the gym). If we went to 11:15 church, we could have a lazy morning but then would have to rush from church to Buffalo, and likely end up late to Craig's family because we had to make a couple stops on the way. We accidentally stole my parents' iPad charger and cord, so we had to stop there, and then I found out at the last minute that Heather, Peter, and Mason were coming to Buffalo for the holiday, so we wanted to meet up with them briefly to finally give them the baby clothes--third time's the charm after the canceled Binghamton tournament and the jury duty-destroyed Syracuse trip! Oh, and as I was thinking about dragging those bags out, I realized I had promised to give Craig's cousin Jill our 18-month clothes (which Mason ended up not needing), since her little seven-month-old is an overachiever! I was afraid if I didn't do it this trip he might outgrow them before we got back there! So...all things considered we decided to aim for 9:30 church and see how it went.
So, the night before I had to prep breakfast, which was a cinnamon French toast bake. I had to cut a loaf of bread into bite-sized pieces (second time in a couple days doing that, since I did it for the croutons, too!), toast them a bit, lay them on a bed of cinnamon and sugar, pour over an egg mixture, and then let it sit in the fridge overnight. I also frosted cupcakes that night and made more than a dozen baked donuts using the same recipe I used for the donuts I decorated Carter's birthday cake with. I was dragging by the time I put Carter to bed, and then I had to assemble Easter baskets and hide eggs. Ugh. I really struggled but luckily hiding eggs is pretty easy with all the toys we have! Still, I don't think I went to bed until about 1am, and then woke up briefly when Craig got home at 4:30 and probably mostly dozed until my alarm went off around 6:30.
I had to make the streusel topping for the bake and throw it in the oven so it had an hour to cook while we got ready. I also baked up some bacon. Miraculously we ate our breakfast relatively on time and it was pretty darn delicious if I do say so myself!
While we didn't make it out the door when I wanted to, we still made it to church just as the music was starting and still got seats in the sanctuary (good thing people never sit in front!). But I'll be honest--I was very happy to be masked because it was full, and at current rates, statistically there had to be a few people in that room with COVID! It was a very nice service and our first in person on Easter since 2019! We came home to change and pack up, and at the last minute Carter asked when they were going to be able to find their eggs...oops! Forgot about that! Luckily the boys did pretty well--I think they found their baskets and all their eggs within about 15 minutes. Because of the rush I forgot to take pictures with their baskets. Carter got a cute stuffed Easter gnome (he loves gnomes and I found the cutest one with bunny ears at Dollar Tree weeks ago), plus a new phone case and pop socket since he was still using Jacob's old one. Jacob mostly just got candy, plus a $5 bill (it was all I had) and a note to enjoy his new clothes from the outlet. I will say that I was impressed that even Jacob had a hard time with some of my hidden eggs! I actually lost track of how many eggs they had, and even found one spot neither of them found on Monday after we got home!
Another side note is that we were originally going to stay on Monday for Dyngus Day festivities, but between trying to fit in training for Jacob and crappy weather (it snowed in Buffalo), we just decided to come home Sunday night. Probably a good thing since one more round of packing might have done me in!
The Buffalo trip ended up being a little more stressful than we anticipated. When we were about 20 minutes from my parents' house, the van started acting funny. At first we thought we had a flat tire, but then we realized that every time Craig accelerated, the van shook. We stopped quickly to confirm it wasn't a tire, but couldn't see anything. We asked AAA if there was anything they could do, but there really wasn't unless we needed a tow, so we just carefully continued on to my parents'. We stayed there for a little bit thinking through things, and eventually borrowed their car for the next leg. We stopped in Tonawanda to drop off the clothes for Mason and had a nice five minute chat while he fearlessly ran along the sidewalk, and then headed to Hamburg and had another five minute chat with Jill and her husband when we dropped off their bags of clothes. I have five empty bins now! Woohoo! The 3T clothes are started but I will definitely have to sort through a bunch more bins in the next year because I know there will be 3T shorts in the 5T bins!
We had a wonderful time with Craig's family. It was great to catch up with everyone and also to see Carter once again bond with the daughter of a family friend. She's about a year older than him and I guess she remembered him from before, hoping he'd be there. They had a lovely time playing Minecraft! The food was amazing as usual--the desserts in particular were a struggle: banana cream pie, ice cream pie, layered jello, cheesecake, placek (a Polish sweet bread), and then my cupcakes. How can you pick? One of everything, basically! After getting some encouragement from our nephew who has done some mechanic work that it was probably a tire balance thing (Craig had just had his rotated), we headed back to my parents and braved the drive home. We figured out that if we just increased speed really gradually, the van didn't shake as much, so we really only had it happen once or twice on the way home. It was definitely a relief to get home safely, and man, was I tired after all that!
We were hoping to get the van in early Monday but they were busy, so we had to wait until Tuesday. With nowhere to go, Monday ended up being pretty lazy. Between the busyness of the weekend, the last couple weeks of COVID life, and work craziness, I had a few hours on Monday where I think I just sort of shut down. I think I was completely decompressing from everything, unable to motivate myself to get up and get dressed, or really do much besides stare at my phone. I recovered my functionality for the second half of the day--even got to the bank to cash some checks that had been waiting for months, for various reasons--but thank goodness for a few days off this week while the kids are off...maybe. The piles of work are waiting for me, too, so the wisdom of that is debatable. But it's not much better mentally to sit at my computer all week while the kids run amok, so I think it's a fair trade. Speaking of which, the University reinstated its mask mandate on Friday, and right after that my office reverted to our remote flex model, which means I can once again work from home all week, at least for the next couple weeks. Considering I'd rather not wear a surgical mask all day, that's probably a good thing, but it's also a little disappointing because I was eager to try to get back in the groove after nervously anticipating getting back to my new normal, and now I have to wait all over again. It only lasted about two weeks, which makes me wonder if it's foolish to think it will ever work as long as COVID is around. Cases continue to rise--there's an even more contagious variant that's hammering Syracuse right now--and while it's not a bad strain, it's starting to drive hospitalizations up again. I wasn't going to get another booster, but now I'm not so sure. For my own sanity, I'm starting to venture out without masks a little--mostly at stores, because again, if intimate contact didn't do it, passing someone in a store shouldn't either--but crowds will still involve masking, especially now.
As I said, we didn't do much Monday, though Carter did have his first Cadbury egg...
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| He was very excited...and he liked it! |
...and we finally got around to dyeing our eggs.
Just in time to make egg salad for Carter's lunch on Tuesday, and I got asparagus today so I'm excited to make my favorite egg meal, creamed eggs and asparagus. So good!
As for the van, the mechanic was about 99% sure it was the transmission, so we had to wait yet another day to get it into a transmission place. I was having painful flashbacks as I drove there to pick up Craig from dropping it off, back to when my Neon's transmission blew around 2006. That was not fun and not cheap. Luckily, they figured out the van's problem, and it wasn't a blown transmission. It was a $700 fix, so basically around a quarter of the price it could have been. Whew. And just as exciting was that it was done today, rather than a week and a half from now. We do not do well as a one-car family.
Hopefully we can think of something fun to do despite less than ideal weather all week. We avoided the foot-plus of snow other parts of the state received the past couple days but it has still been way below average cold and yesterday was rainy and windy on top of it. Today is sunny and while it's fine to walk to the mailbox or into a store, I'm not sure it's quite at my threshold for a playground or even a walk. The only really good weather is Sunday, and I'll be spending a good chunk of that at my cousin Lori's bridal shower. I almost had to miss that because we were supposed to be in Maryland that weekend for basketball, but that tournament got canceled. And I'll be missing the only other fun trip Memorial Day weekend because of the wedding! Worth it, but it's a bummer there had to be overlap.
So, on we go. Two more Knighthawks home games left, three straight weeks of tournaments start next weekend, and the stretch run of the school year is almost here. May is coming rapidly, and I really hope it brings spring with it!
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