Easter morning

We started our Easter morning by attending the annual potluck breakfast at church. Andy and B helped a fellow church member N, who was B's confirmation sponsor, in making pancakes. B helped out last year too. He sure has grown in a year. Andy and N have been making pancakes for several years now.

After breakfast, L participated in the church's Easter Egg hunt. They hid 150 eggs and it was all over in probably less than five minutes. L received a chocolate cross for collecting the most eggs. She then played the handbells in church with the children.

B was happy to see his friend, IB, walk in with his parents and come sit by us. The boys looked so handsome dressed up (a little).

Beat this, Cindy

My new high Swiped score!

Crazy kitty

Muffles loves to run through the house and jump up to the top of the office chair on the back porch. He thinks he's king of the hill.

He also likes to sleep in really odd positions. This was his latest.

Decorating everything

L had two of her neighborhood friends, E and E, over this afternoon to dye Easter eggs. Notice how Muffles is sitting there overseeing the whole operation. The kids kept mixing colors and came up with some pretty ugly ones. They were laughing the whole time and even cracked a couple of eggs open - on purpose. I ended up throwing out the dye, the cups the dye was in, the cracked up eggs and the newspaper they put down which was soaked through to the tablecloth. The tablecloth is now in the wash and the kids are playing in the back yard. L is dressed as a purple witch. I have no idea why.

They made it back

Mom, Cindy and L came home from their Disney trip today - sunburned and tired.

My chauffeur

E has been my chauffeur this week, trying to increase her number of hours behind the wheel. Yesterday we drove to Oak Brook Mall and Yorktown Mall and today we went to LaGrange's Trader Joe's and a shopping center in Elmhurst. She's making up for the two weeks Ai was here when she couldn't drive because she can only have family members in the car.

Loving FaceTime

While L is in Florida she's able to contact me with FaceTime through her iPod. There's no charge, which makes it better than a phone call, and I can actually see her sunburned face! Andy and I have used FaceTime when we've been in Jamaica to talk to the kids. The only problem is that you have to be near your device when someone is trying to connect with you. Otherwise, L leaves me a message, like "We lost grandma." Oops. At least they found her again!

Book of Mormon

Tonight Andy and I went downtown to see Book of Mormon at the Bank of America Theater. It was funny, but pretty raunchy (for me anyway). I think it could have been toned down a bit and still be funny. There is no way I'd let E see it.

Before the show, we had dinner at Italian Village. We initially went upstairs to The Village, but they said we'd be seater faster in the lower level, at La Cantina, so we ate there. I had chicken parmesan and Andy had the Filet Pizzailoa, beef filets in a tomato sauce with garlic and herbs. And some nice chianti.

Play with me

Muffles is a little lost this week without L around. Today he went over to E and kept meowing. E figured he wanted food so she got up and headed toward the kitchen. Muffles, though, went over and sat down on his mouse toy. He wanted to be played with!

Challah

E had her friend, R, sleep over last night and they spent most of the day making challah, a Jewish sweet braided bread. It looked really pretty and turned out OK, but R said it needed more sugar.

They spent the evening watching "Mulan" and "The Incredibles." Today they played balloon volleyball in the living room before going to see the new cartoon movie, "The Croods." I had to ask if they were the oldest people in the theater. They said no, there were some parents there too.

And they're off ...

to Disney World!

Surprise

Mom and Cindy came up today to surprise L with a trip to Disney World - leaving tomorrow morning! They gave L a gift with cards, "52 Fun Things to do on the Plane," and a note about going to Disney. Course, L had to ask when, and when Cindy told her tomorrow, she screamed. She ran upstairs immediately to pack, and then I repacked her, removing about five stuffed animals that will not be making the trip to Florida.

No more surgery

I went to see my hand surgeon this morning and we both agreed that I don't need another surgery on my thumb! He said it seems to be bending pretty well. Surgery to remove the scar tissue could add another 10 degrees of bending, but he didn't want to recommend that as he didn't think it would be worth going through surgery and physical therapy again for such a small gain. He was pleased, too, that I'm getting more feeling back. It said that should continue until a year from surgery. He didn't tell me to make another appointment but said he may give me a call in September to do a one-year check-in.

It is kind of amazing I can now touch the base of my pinky finger when it was a big accomplishment to just reach the tip of my pinky a few months ago.

Complaining works

L raised over $200 for her school's Jump Rope for Heart to benefit the American Heart Association. Despite how many times I tell her that the prizes are junk, she believes they're the coolest things she's ever seen. She reached the $200 fundraising mark so she could win a light-up spinning disc thing that, wouldn't you know, broke the first time she pulled the cord. The disc went flying and the cord snapped and retreated into the toy. She immediately went back to school to see if her gym teacher had any extras. Of course, he didn't. She came home all pouty and crying because she was sooo looking forward to playing with the disc with her friends and the cats.

I told her she could sit there and cry about it or figure out what to do. We decided to email the American Heart Association and tell them that the toy broke on the first attempt to play with it. In about 20 minutes, she got an email back asking for her address so they could send her out a new one. You have to like when organizations respond appropriately! L also won a T-shirt that she's holding up in the picture, a playground ball and a jump rope.

In other good news today, E found out she got accepted into University of Illinois' aerospace engineering camp this summer! It's the same engineering camp she's been to before, but this is the first time she's noticed they were offering aerospace engineering.

Facial Hair Day

Really? Facial Hair Day is one of the "spirit days" the Student Council came up with? L made a mustache out of string and tried taping it to her upper lip before she left for school this morning. She came home with a different mustache drawn on her face. She said the tape kept bothering her so the first mustache had to go.

Different look

We knew it was going to happen, but it still was a surprise when we first saw B's friend, IR, with his new haircut about a week ago. He cut the ponytail for Locks of Love and sent if off to be made into wigs for kids undergoing cancer treatments. He then shaved what was left to benefit the St. Baldrick's Society. It's already starting to grow back:

A thank you

We received this note from E's Japanese teacher today.

Contortionist Kitty

I found Muffles twisted around while he was laying on the sofa. Doesn't look very comfortable to me.

Bye, Ai!

Hard to believe it's been two weeks. We drove Ai to O'Hare Airport this morning to meet up with her group at 10:30 a.m. Their flight was supposed to leave at 1:30 p.m. but before we left the flight had been pushed back to 3:30 p.m. They'll be flying for about 12 hours, arriving in Japan about 6 p.m. Monday their time. They gained a day on the way over and lose a day on the way back. Here's E helping another Japanese student unpack some of her overweight luggage. Ai's was overweight too (50 pound limit) so she had to put some of her things into a friend's bag.

Here's the group picture of all the Japanese students and their host students.

We stayed until they were pretty much through security and the American Airlines people told us to clear out. Ai said she'll email us when she gets back home.

Downtown once more

Today we took Ai downtown for her last chance to get souvenirs. We tried to go to Millennium Park, but the police had it closed off till 4 p.m. because of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. We did get a few pictures from the street, though.

We also toured the Cultural Center and walked along Michigan Avenue to shop. We had lunch at Gino's East and Andy and I both decided that Pizzeria Uno and Due are far superior.

Tonight was the farewell potluck for the Japanese students. L got all excited when we realized it was being held in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The night was pretty emotional as the students each stood up and thanked their host families for having them.

Back at home, Ai gave each of us a thank-you card. Very sweet.

Movie night

Today was Ai's last day at OPRF. This evening she and E are going to the Lake Theater to see a movie, "Jack the Giant Slayer" with a group of other Japanese students and hosts. After dinner (chicken fajitas), L was showing off the Nerf gun her friend, M, gave her after their playdate today. The gun keeps jamming up on him so he decided to toss it in the trash. Instead of that, L asked for it and he gave it to her. After asking Ai if the darts make a noise as they were shot by her head (really), L decided instead to set up a shooting range with three cans in the living room. All three girls thought it was pretty fun. I think Ai even taped the goofing around. Probably to show her family how silly Americans are.

Chicago Art Institute

Since Ai was sick Tuesday and missed her field trip to the Art Institute, we decided tonight would be a good night to take her there. B decided to stay home, play on his computer and eat Campbell's Mega Noodle Soup. No culture for him! Thursdays are free nights for Illinois residents and fortunately they only checked my ID so we all got in free - yea! We went down after Andy got home from work so we weren't there till a little after 6:30 p.m. The museum was open until 8 p.m. so we had to hustle. We were able to see the Picasso exhibit which was awesome. Here the girls are in front of a model Chicago Picasso sculpture:

According to the Institute's web page, "A century ago, in 1913, the Art Institute of Chicago became the first art museum in the country to present the work of a young Spaniard who would become the preeminent artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso." L wanted me to take a picture of her by this Picasso, The Old Guitarist, because she said she recognized it from art class.

We also saw a few of the museum's more famous paintings and toured the Japanese art area.In the miniature room exhibit, we saw a Japanese house interior. Ai said it looks similar to her house. Pretty neat.

Ai took lots of pictures of the few things we were able to see:

After the museum closed we stopped at a McDonald's downtown to get a quick dinner. Can't send Ai home without some American McDonald's food, can we?

More candy

Today Ai went with the fourth-year Japanese students on a field trip to sing karaoke and to visit Mitsuwa, the Japanese grocery store we took her to on Saturday. When we were there she bought some candy for the kids to try. L, of course, asked Ai last night if she could buy some more. Ai came home today with a whole pack for L. It comes with three strawberry, three chocolate and three vanilla. By the time I got around to snapping a photo, L already had eaten the strawberry one. She was offering to share the candy, though, so that's a good thing.

Some L love

L stayed home sick today (not to be outdone by Ai, I suppose). Could be that she stayed up too late in bed watching DVDs. Hmmm. Any way, she had a fun day with the cats. Usually, Muffles will sit right by L or lie down beside her. Today she was giving love to both cats.