Cousins, Vomit, Construction

Pretty much in that order!

Cousins
So this weekend was our turn to have the Caspari kids over here and Dave and Amy to have 24 hours to themselves. They got here at noon and we basically killed the afternoon and evening with playing (in and outside), swimming at the pool, dinner, a movie (All Dogs Go To Heaven), and baths. Everyone went to be okay ... Kristi had a little problem staying in bed, and Emma had some issues*. But for the most part it went pretty well until ...

Vomit
The middle of the night ... Timmy woke up and threw up. He continued to do so off and on from then until Saturday night. At first we thought maybe he had just overdone it what with the cousins and food and playing, etc. But nope, he was sick. So Cyndie quarantined him to our room where he basically spent the rest of the day laying on the bed and watching movies. That kind of like would kill Emma, but for Tim, it really was a pretty good day ... throwing up aside! After breakfast of pancakes (Sarah is the only kid I know who does not like chocolate chip pancakes!), I took the healthy kids on a driving tour of local parks ... thanks for the inspiration Auntie Jane. We hit six ... the Dragon's Lair (we think that one counts as a "full-fledged park"), Emma's school, the Cobb Park off McDonald, the Tot Lot near the water tower, and the two Elementary schools in LG. We had several more on the list that we just didn't have time for. Then Emma and I drove the Caspari kids down to Crystal Lake. We stayed for lunch and an hour or so of play, but that was it. The rest of the day Cyndie and the kids laid low but ...

Construction
I hit the outside of our north wall to remove the siding. The deal we're doing with our friend the contractor is that he's going to charge us his "friends and family" rate hourly. Basically he uses these kinds of things to keep his guys busy between jobs or while waiting for inspections, he's not making much money. So he pointed out a few things like taking the siding off that I could do to save us a few bucks. It took about 2.5 hours. So now we have a big tarp on the side of the house. In the evening we watched a bit more TV.

Sunday Timmy seemed pretty good, though he and Cyndie stayed home from church. After quiet time he was pretty perky and was participating in our marathon "school" session. I was the teacher, Emma the student, and Timmy and Cyndie the Principals. We did classroom work and pledges (of allegiance) and had homework and took field trips (a bike ride) and had gym (cornhole) and art class and music class (learning a song from church complete with actions). It was fun, and took most of the later afternoon and evening.

Unfortunately Timmy was feeling a little yucky by bedtime ... maybe we over did it. Anyway, he threw up again in the middle of the night. He's a bit pluckier today again and ran some errands with Cyndie, so hopefully he'll be back on top of things again before too long.

*Emma for some reason decided that she had to go to the bathroom literally 10 - 15 times within a half hour of going to bed. I think it was actually a bladder infection with kind of confused her, but she really over dramatized it and made life miserable for Cyndie and I for an hour and a half after bedtime on Friday and Saturday nights. Oh well, I think Cyndie and I learned some more about how to help her and deal with her when that happens again.

So now the week is upon us. It is the last one before school starts. We're looking forward to a couple of play dates, Auntie Jane's visit this weekend (and seeing cousins), Grandma and Grandpa D return home, and, of course, school starting ... Emma on Tuesday and Timmy on Thursday.