Crazy Week

So, I'll start out by saying that things have calmed down a bit, but the last few days/week have been pretty tough. 

Last week, we lost my Grandma Robins (my paternal grandmother).  She was struggling with pneumonia, and never fully recovered.  She had other health issues too and was 81-years-old, so it wasn't completely shocking, but still sad.  She was a quiet woman, but always had a smile and seemed very happy to see family when we'd visit.  She will be missed.

Even though it was a sad time, the timing of the funeral worked out well.  We were able to spend Mother's Day with some ladies who are super special to us.

We got to celebrate Aunt Carrie's birthday... on her actual birthday!

Carrie, Grandma, Mom, and I all went and got our nails done.  It was so fun!  Thanks, Mom!

With my babies on Mother's Day

One other quick note on Mother's Day... The kids came home with some papers from school about celebrating Mother's Day.  I love these things!

Later in the week, we went for a hike in the trails of our neighborhood.  Our neighborhood association (Winterset 5) is celebrating 30-year anniversary.  Part of this event was called "Trek the Trails" which had 9 markers throughout the five neighborhoods, marking the 9-miles of trails that go through our neighborhoods.  We thought this might be fun to get out and do as a family.  Plus they had some great prizes if you win. 

We started off great, finding the ones closest to our home. 

Then we went off to the other neighborhoods.  One of the the stops (#4) had some wooden stairs and a bridge over a creek.  It was beautiful. 

But on the way back up the stairs, Leslie slipped and her forehead met the corner of one of the stairs.  She was bleeding... a lot... and the cut was deep.  After hiking back up to the car, we cleaned her up a bit and decided we needed to take her to the ER for potential stitches.  Thankfully after applying pressure, she stopped bleeding by the time we got to the hospital, but her forehead still needed help. 

We got right back, they cleaned it out, numbed it, and thankfully, the doctor was able to glue it instead of having to do stitches. 

Look at that smile!  And those beautiful eyes

She was a trooper.  We never had to even give her Tylenol.  I'm kinda amazed at how tough she is; she always seems to handle pain well.  Even right after it happened, she cried, but she was never hysterical.  She just kept saying, "It's painful."  :(

The next day we decided to see if we could finish up the markers we'd missed, so here are a few more pictures from Trekking the Trails:

We didn't go in order.  You can see this is before Leslie fell.

The ironic thing is, we'd hoped to win a prize (winners haven't been announced yet), but even if we do, we're still in the hole because of our ER copay - HA!  Seriously though, we really enjoyed it.  We went to parts of our neighborhood that we knew existed, but never explored, and it was all so beautiful.  Definitely a fun adventure!  ;)

Speaking of adventure... next week we're off to our Caribbean cruise!  We're leaving out of Fort Lauderdale and stopping in the Bahamas, Grand Turk, Aruba, and Curacao.  Daniel will miss the last four days of school (thanks, snow/ice/ridiculously cold Winter school cancellations), but I think we're all ready for some fun and relaxation!

Bonus photo - Daniel's crazy awesome teacher, Mrs. Brewer, called just to check-in and say hi to her students this week.  As you can tell, Daniel was thrilled to talk to her for a few minutes.  He read her part of his homework.  Whoever Daniel gets for second grade is going to have a lot to live up to!  We just adore Mrs. Brewer.