will i ever get used to pulling up next to this?

5th grade welcome

tonight was 5th grade welcome night at RMS

for real.

alex is finishing up his last days in elementary school

and my youngest is going to middle school.

yikes.

we had to walk around the building -

doing a scavenger hunt as we went

as a WEB leader ben was there helping

and ben's friend, evan, helped teach alex how to use the lockers

of course i wish that ben had one more year 

so they could be there together ...

BUT

drew and ben have both had a great time at RMS

and they've already told alex all there is to know ;)

SO ...

so i'm really excited for alex to get there too

a jazzy day at the MOA

today was ben's last jazz band day at the MOA

drew had the day off

so alex took the day off as well

and we all went down to watch him

pre-easter drive thru

after spending the day with grandma lenore

we decided to drive thru wausau to head home

the boys were super excited to meet the new puppy

and it broke the trip up a bit

the boys were able to have breakfast and spend time with aiden

and we were able to go to church at IBC with grandpa jim

although we didn't have a full day of easter activities

we did stop by to say hi

and so grandma wendy could give the boys the cool baskets she had made them

the kids did a quick egg hunt

and then we headed back home

so that we could catch the easter service at EBC

busy weekend.

lots of miles.

but as always

so worth it.

a quick roadtrip

this year our easter plans got changed up a bit.

larry had a procedure done earlier in the week

so it would be a lot to have our usual easter at their house

the boys had off school on friday

so we decided it would be fun to still do something

we made a last minute decision to head down to see grandma lenore

we stayed at a hotel that was new to us

so the boys could swim and have a little fun

we had dinner at sprechers

and we spent quite a bit of time hanging out at guitar center

and then made our way down to see grandma lenore

we had our favorite spaghetti pie

and stopped at our favorite cheese store

the weather was BEAUTIFUL

and everything was just a step ahead of things here

so it was nice to see so much green and feel the 70 degree temperatures!

starbucks does deliver ... kind of.

one other advantage to having stacey around during the day ...

i have the best delivery person around ...

i could get used to this

f * o * u * r * t * e * e * n

we started ben's birthday celebration on friday night at red robin

he came home from school a little bummed -

he had asked a few friends to hang out on saturday for his birthday

and as he put it 'they all had really stupid excuses'

what he didn't know is that i had been talking to them 

and we had something planned for saturday night

i quickly texted them and told them to set up plans for sunday

and we took ben to dinner

eventually he worked past his friends being busy on saturday

we woke up and got his favorite cinnamon roll

at hans bakery

had lunch of his choice at jersey mikes

and then went home to play his new haunted mansion LIFE game

that i secretly bought and had shipped when we were at disney

about halfway thru the game i realized we were never going to finish in time

so i suggested we 'take a break' so ben and drew could go get his free birthday drink

while they were out - ben's friends came and found their hiding spots

he walked in the door and they all surprised him

they hung out

had pizza

we had cake

and then we went to see the new kong movie

in the end ...

i'm pretty sure he had a great day -

he was surprised

he had a few of his favorite people with him

and he got to do something he had been talking about doing for a while

happy birthday, ben!