Easter 2011

 This Easter was a lot of fun! Most of it was celebrated on Saturday.

Easter started off with a free pancake breakfast and egg hunt for the Parkridge neighborhood.  It was yummy and there was no long ling, like I thought there would be.  It started at 8:00 so Erik got to come with! Poor Gabe had a bad spill on our way to the park, that's why he looks sad in some of the pictures.  He enjoyed the egg hunt but was only able to get 3 eggs, the big kids were too fast for his little legs! He would spot an egg and say "Gabe's egg!" and then some other kid would pick it up and Gabe would start crying!  Poor Gabe. 

The next Easter even we went to was the Midwestern Easter party.  We as in me and Gabe--Erik had to be at his rotation.  Gabe went with his friend Kade but we met so many other friends there as well.  Gabe loved the big slide they had. 

    

 He was a little weird about the egg hunt though...he ran out in the field as fast as he could when they said "go!" but then stopped just a few yards shy from the other side and started crying.  All the eggs in his basket I picked up for him. 

 I like the Midwestern Easter egg hunts because they have mostly toys and fruit-snacks in the eggs instead of just candy.

  Gabe obviously didn't care too much for the Easter bunny!  Silly boy.

 

There was also a bounce house that Gabe enjoyed, along with snacks and cookie decorating.


Next we went to was an Easter party hosted by some friends.  Thanks Riddles! Good food, fun, and friends!  Gabe really enjoyed himself, besides the falling 6 feet off the playground and getting his face and head ground into the sand.  As much fun as Gabe had that Saturday, he sure had a hard day!  Gabe really got into the egg hunt this time and got tons of candy (most of which Mommy ate)!

 

 

 

Easter Sunday Gabe woke up with his right eye completely crusted over with boogies.  I noticed his eye had a little bit of discharge the day before but I didn't think anything of it.  I've taken him to the pediatrician and it is just from congestion.  Poor Gabe crawled into my lap before church started and fell asleep on me.  He slept all through church...I luckily was able to find a sub to play the piano for me and I stayed home with Gabe on Easter Sunday, of all days! I also missed Erik's choir performance...oh well.

Church doesn't start till 11:00 so we colored eggs and gave Gabe his Easter basket.  Grandma put it together for him!  You can see how tired he is in the pictures.  At least he enjoyed that part of the day.  After church I made a ham dinner (of course) with rolls, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and green beans.  Yum! 

Erik's Week Off

 Erik is doing his Urgent Care rotation, which is 7 days on, 7 days off-12 hour shifts.  The seven days on are a bit rough but it has been SO nice having Erik off for the 7 days (14 total)! If he isn't working in the lab making a little bit of money, Gabe and I are enjoying spending time with him, which is great since we can get some fun things in before the baby comes!
Erik was able to get some "culture passes" from the library by his school.  Normally you can only get one pass a week but Erik borrowed a friends and got two: one for the Phoenix zoo and one the the Arizona Science center.  Culture passes let you in free to a variety of museums around the Phoenix area!

I retardedly forgot the camera for the trip to the zoo (I did take some with my cell phone, but I have no idea how to upload them!) It was a lot of fun; slightly hot but not too bad.  Gabe had tons of fun seeing all the animals, he loved the petting zoo and especially the awesome splash park they have. 

A few days later we went to the Arizona Science Center.  Gabe never had so much fun in his life! I highly recommend it to anyone who has kids!  His favorite parts were the stomach slide and the balls that were held up by an air stream.  Erik and I enjoyed the fact that Gabe had so much fun and the computer station/exhibits about the body.
The best part was the fact that we were able to go to the Body World Exhibit, not entirely free, half-off since half of the ticket price includes admission to the Science center.  It was very cool, slightly morbid and disturbing, but I think something everyone should see at least once in their life.  I won't post any pictures because for one, photography of the bodies was prohibited and I certainly don't want to bother anyone! The bodies were preserved by a process called "Plastination" so they didn't stink like an anatomy lab, which I was afraid of. There were a bunch of fetuses in various stages, very cool to see but still saddening, not to mention the 5-month pregnant lady with her uterus cut open so you can see the baby inside! The guy who took our tickets warned me about that but it was something I wanted to see, even though it was disturbing.  Plenty of other cool things to see, they probably would have been cooler if I hadn't seen it all already in anatomy lab. 
We left the Science center way past Gabe's nap time; he fell asleep immediately so instead of eating in at a place called Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles in downtown Phoenix like we had planned, we got it to go.  It's soul food-aka black people food.  It was yummy, I was sooo hungry by then that just about anything would have tasted good, but I think I would like to try this place again! 

     

 The stomach-slide

 A retarded picture of me