Pandemic Weeks 159-160: Spring Break & Easter 2023



Grandma, Anna, Aidyn & Grandpa
 April 1-9 marked spring break for Anna.  This year was an eclectic week with a few road trips and the grand finale of an Easter weekend visit from Aunt Loren, Aunt Mary & James.  The big theme for the week was driving in that Anna completed her minimum required 45 hours of supervised driving time.  She has been working on this since the end of July, so this was a major milestone.  More on that in a moment.

The family started off the week with a long weekend in Ohio to visit Grandma and Grandpa.  It is a good thing the travel day was on Saturday as Friday night was stormy in Ohio, including tornadoes.  We saw evidence of it the entire weekend with downed buildings and trees, including all the trees snapped like twigs in the cemetery where Theresa's grandparents are buried.  This was much discussed at the Sunday brunch, where Uncle Rod, Uncle Tim & Aunt Courtney met the rest of the family to celebrate Grandma & Grandpa's anniversary.  Weather is always a major topic of discussion and there was a lot of material to work with on this trip.  Aidyn, who was also on spring break, came back to spend the week in Paulding as well with Grandma and Grandpa and got to inspect the widespread storm damage.  Anna got lots of driving time logged in Ohio and on a trip to Indiana, where she got to sharpen her skills driving around Amish buggies and tornado damaged areas enroute to a local Amish store.  We decided to make a visit to the store, which is known for its large display of taxidermy animals.  A retired doctor was a big game hunter and donated more than $2M in animals to the store for display (apparently, he did a lot of hunting in Africa).  The display was something to see (and a bit disturbing).  You can check it out at Grabill Country Sales.  

Brunch with the Kohlers

On Tuesday we flew back to Virginia and headed out on Wednesday morning to Southwest Virginia for a visit to Radford University   Anna logged a lot of driving time that day, all on I-81 with lots of trucks.  The drive was beautiful with everything in bloom and the campus was just as lovely when we arrived.  We checked out the area, took a tour and then decided to stop in Roanoke at a prom dress shop.  The Roanoke downtown was fantastic with tons of shops and art venues.  More importantly, Anna found a dress (this was especially important since prom is in a week).  After having Lebanese food for dinner, we decided to drive the 4 hours home (it was quite a road trip day).  Anna logged even more time with night driving on I-81.  She did good and we arrived home at 10:30 pm - a long day indeed.

Easter dinner
Friday night, James, Aunt Mary & Aunt Loren arrived for a fun-filled Easter weekend.  James and Anna made Easter bread on Saturday, under the supervision of Aunt Mary.  They also did the annual Easter egg coloring.  Theresa made the traditional lamb cake.  Aunt Mary made 10 pounds of ambrosia salad.  Aunt Loren brought some delicious wines and there was lots of good food all weekend.  On Easter Sunday, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and headed to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.  As luck would have it, they were having an easter egg hunt along the bunny trail and happened to be selling ears to patrons.  Aunt Mary is not one to miss out on festivities and promptly got her ears.  This made her easy to spot around the gardens.  Anna and James drove separately to and from the garden (they pretended not to know the bunny), with James supervising Anna while she got her remaining hour of drive time and while showing him some of the cool places in Vienna.  There was lots of laughs and merriment over the weekend for a fun Easter.

It was a busy week filled with family.  This was especially helpful as we are very much missing Storm (there is no one to excitedly greet us at the door and our kitchen floor is not as clean as it was when he was around).  Anna is now ready to move on to the next step in driving - instructor training.  As soon as she completes that, she can get her license.  Stay tuned for her progress.  A big thanks to Grandma & Grandpa for hosting us (and letting Anna drive) and to Aunt Loren, Aunt Mary & James for making the drive to Virginia for a visit.  Happy Easter!





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