Josh and Becca Thrap and Family

Last week was Spring Break for us (and many of you). It had its ups and downs. I have been feeling better since my last post, but still not back to “normal.” The “vacation” was supposed to start with the Wheelers coming here for the weekend. That was the plan until I got a call Friday afternoon that Chris had been in a minor car accident (no one was hurt) but it meant that they would not be able to drive here. So at the last minute we packed up and went there since we’d all already built up the kids that they’d get to play together. Saturday evening Kate and I stayed in with the kids and let Josh and Chris go out for dinner etc and when they came home late that night they had a new game for us to play. SingStar Amped version for the PlayStation 2. It’s kinda like a karaoke challenge game with famous songs and you have to sing the right vocals (words tempo and pitch) while you get to watch the original music video of the group who made the song popular. The idea was fun, but (in my opinion) the songs mostly sucked. This however opened our eyes to the fact that there were other versions of the game–in particular an ’80’s version and a new ’90’s version was to be released on that Tuesday. Sunday I felt really awful again and when we left the Wheelers to go up and visit Josh’s Grandpa in Hiawatha I had to borrow one of the Wheelers big bowls just in case. Monday, St Patrick’s Day, Josh went to work as usual and the kids and I welcomed Elise, Charley and Carter over for the afternoon to try to get a nice Easter picture for the grandparents. NOT an easy task. It was a frustrating time, but here is one of the better pictures: On Tuesday, the kids and I went up to Ames to visit with my family. My parents spent a few days at Sarah’s helping her complete some projects around the house. We decided it was the perfect time to dye Easter eggs! Dad made one of his famous “slide shows.” After egg-dying, we all went to see Enchanted at the cheap theatre (the first time for Sarah and my folks, the 2nd for Elena and Cameron, 3rd for Jacob, and 4th for Elise and me!) After the movie Josh came up and Scott finished with his work and we all went out for Chinese Buffet. We also discovered that the cheese we’ve been looking for since Christmas is sold at Aldi’s! So we stocked up. The plan was that my parents were going to stop by our place Wednesday morning on their way home and the kids would get to show off their rooms etc and we would do a bunch of laundry and pack things up so that by the time Josh came home from work we’d all be ready to go on our trip to Kansas City. That was the plan. But Josh called me at like 7:30 AM and said that there was a bit of an emergency at his jobsite in Belton, Mo., and that we needed to leave asap! So I rushed around and packed as fast as I could and we took off. Unfortunately we missed my parents and just as we were leaving I discovered that Elise had headlice! And there was nothing we could do about it until we got to our hotel! So our plans had to change a lot. We took Josh to his jobsite asap and the kids and I went out for a pizza lunch and stopped to pick up Enchanted on dvd. As soon as Josh was out of meetings we picked him up and went to the hotel and I immediately began the tedious job of delousing my poor daughter. The kids really wanted to go swimming but it took me over 3 and a half HOURS to go through all of Elise’s hair. I practically begged her to get a haircut, but she really really didn’t want to, and she was very brave and patient so I tried to be too. But that basically killed our Wednesday. Thursday morning the kids and I had breakfast at the hotel and then I took them swimming. When we got Josh up and ready to depart it was basically lunchtime so we grabbed a light lunch and headed out across Kansas City to a store that Josh has a gift certificate to that is just a little neighborhood market store but it has lots of bbq rubs, sauces, and accessories and specialty meats. They even ship their meats nationwide. Since we didn’t have a cooler on our trip and our hotel room didn’t have a fridge we decided not to use the gift certificate this time around. So we went on to my Aunt Gwen’s house which was just a couple blocks away. Gwen and Pat are in the middle of several home improvement projects. Elena made a little house from some scrap wood and Pat gave the kids each a little chunck of bamboo. The afternoon was beautiful! It was over 70 degrees. We had a nice visit and stayed longer than I intended so I hope we weren’t in their way too much. But then it was on to dinner. We had a surprise for the kids. We drove clear up to the opposite side of KC from our hotel to take the kids to TRex for dinner. It was in a shopping area called Legends that is obviously new and still growing and it reminded us a lot of being in the Phoenix area. We passed a Nebraska Furniture Mart store that looked like it was bigger than the Muscatine Mall! Because of the time of day etc. it was really difficult to get my pictures to turn out. So forgive me for the bluriness. We were seated in the Aqua Room. We sat in a booth designed to look like a shell. And this is what hung above our heads: The kids did a little exploring while we waited for our food. The food was decent and overpriced, but it was large. We got the fancy dessert. And everyone was exhausted by the time the meal was over. Friday we went swimming again and headed home. We stopped in Bethany, Mo., for some lunch at a place that I remember eating at as a kid on a return trip from Colorado with my cousins. It’s called Toot-Toot. It’s a small buffet and the selection is not large but it offers homemade homestyle favorites like pot roast and chicken noodles and has lots of fresh baked goods and homemade jams and jellies. Back at home we stayed just long enough to bag up all of our laundry to control the potential of the lice and repack for the weekend, then it was off to the Wheelers again. While we were traipsing about Kansas City, Chris had gotten SingStar 80’s AND 90’s versions and waited for us to open and play them! He challenged me to a battle of “Ice, Ice, Baby” (which I think I won) and then we sang the night away! Badly. LOL!!! It was a lot of fun. Saturday we went on to Muscatine and celebrated Easter with Josh’s family. We had a yummy lunch and then I fell asleep on the floor because I still wasn’t feeling well. While I was asleep the kids hunted for eggs and Josh took a few pictures for me. Later that evening I was able to have dinner with my friend Jeanna and then I helped my dad copy some pictures. Sunday I was still not feeling well so Josh took the kids to church without me and I slept in. Then my relatives came over for lunch and if my dad emails me copies of some of the pictures he took then I’ll post them too, but I was too busy eating to take pictures!