Beth and I had a very nice weekend up in Michigan but the nice is probably over for a while. Laura and Thomas's birthday present to Beth was a weekend watching the kids. I took Friday afternoon off and we packed up and headed out to Laura's around noon, arriving late afternoon in Ann Arbor. Beth had booked the motel room online based on the websites and whether they had a jacuzzi in the room. However, we got there and weren't that impressed. The place was obviously an older building that had been renovated fairly recently, but not exceptionally well. It was clean and comfortable but not luxurious, and the jacuzzi had a very small faucet. Anyway, we were a bit ahead of Laura getting home from work so we gave the kids a bath (not in the jacuzzi) before dropping them off at Laura's. They were eating when we left and they just waved and said "bye." They seemed really excited to be visiting Auntie Lurla/Lorda. After dropping them off, Beth and I went out to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, where we got the expensive crab leg combo platters. I liked the snow crab, king crab, and dungeness crab in that order. Then we went back to the motel to hit the tub. Saturday we slept late and spent most of the afternoon in downtown Ann Arbor, a very artsy craftsy place. We ate at a really nice place called Grizzly Peak Brewing Company for lunch, highly recommended, and did some geocaching. We were going to find a few but it was SO COLD outside we just did one, which was a mystery cache of boutiques downtown with fairy doors. After another soak back at the motel we went out to a very good movie ("Children of Men"...go see it) and dinner at Macaroni Grill (too noisy, expensive, so-so food). Sunday morning we went to Barnes & Noble for a couple hours before going off to meet Laura and Thomas and the kids at the mall. Missy was just in the process of throwing herself on the floor as we walked up to them, and Alex had a very raspy voice and runny nose. It had just started, Laura told us, so at least she hadn't been taking care of sick kids all weekend. We got the kids something to eat at the mall and then took Laura and Thomas out to lunch at Friday's. We gave the kids benadryl for the ride home and they both slept almost all the way. Alex was running a fever by the time we got home and by today it was over 102. So Beth took him in to the doctor today and he has an ear and throat infection and is on antibiotics. Poor kid, he feels awful.

Today was Alex's preschool father's night. The kids had a cowboy theme fun night, with assorted fun and games (3-legged sack race, panning for gold, pitching horseshoes, etc) to do with the dads in the evening. Alex made one of those Dad faces in school and they were given out after the games. Alex also went back to the dentist for his fillings this morning, and showed no ill effects. His teeth didn't seem to be bothering him at all.

Beth went out with the girls to Fort Wayne for sushi tonight.

Alex went to the pediatric dentist in Fort Wayne today. The lesions that the dentist in Warsaw saw in his molars are actual cavities, but he also said the biggest reason for it is that Alex has very deep crowns in his teeth. He also told us that juice doesn't hurt kids' teeth, which is a radical departure from Dr. Conley's opinion, and Alex has very good brushing technique for a 3-year-old. So, Alex goes back in a couple weeks for 5 fillings. Just like daddy. I can actually remember losing baby teeth that had fillings in them.

I took one last day off work today, instead of going back like everyone else. Since it was a mostly nice day Beth and I went geocaching. There were a couple we did not find, but we did pick up 5 of them in going to Rochester and back through Mentone. We also found the most disgusting KFC we had ever eaten at right there in Rochester near US-30. Overall it was a good day, though, and the kids just started to get restless and tired of being in the car as we were deciding to call it a day, so the timing was good.

I've just set up my blog, while my daughter is running back and forth between me and the play kitchen, bringing me "a nice cuppa tea" over and over, with the lights off because she apparently can't stand them being on. Judging from the screaming when I turned them on, anyway.
Now she just ran over to me, repeating "Dad, come quick upstairs!" So this is going to be cut short.